There are several things wrong with this scenario. For starters, the need to have the ‘best’ was just setting myself up for disappointment. It is an ideal that will never be satisfied. In order to have the best-looking girl, I must compare her with every other girl, and she must come out on top every time and in every category. If you’re always scrutinizing someone in comparison to others, at some point you will find something in someone else that is more desirable, or just different. Then what happens, because you realize you are not with your ‘ideal’ person?
That’s the first problem. The second is that this whole system is based on selfishness. It is all about how the girl’s physical beauty makes me feel, and if I no longer feel a certain way about that person’s beauty, then they are no longer good enough for me because they stopped meeting my ideal. I have realized that they are not without flaw.
Why should I have the right to judge someone based on a groundless ideal rooted in selfishness?
For girls, this is a bit harder to pinpoint. Many girls have spent their whole lives dreaming about how a romance will look and feel. Fairy-tales and pop-culture have painted this picture of the ideal guy that always makes the girl feel a certain way. It also tells girls that they deserve the best. This environment produces women with a sense of entitlement for ideals that are really fabrications of culture and imagination. Furthermore, these ideal actions and behavior of the ideal man are all to make the girl feel a certain way. In the same way that I began to feel a need for a pin-up model based on how she would make me feel, so does a girl for a prince charming.
You wouldn’t want to be constantly compared with the cover girls of magazines would you?
These ideals for the perfect guy are a sure recipe for disappointment. It’s no wonder girls don’t trust guys with matters of the heart. If they have built up ideals that cannot be met, guys will disappoint every time. This continual disappointment leads to the cultural belief that guys are not competent enough to love properly, and so it is the girl’s job to teach the guy how to treat her, so that she can feel the way she was taught that she deserves. Again, this is selfish at the core. It’s all about the guy doing things a certain way to make a girl feel the way she has idealized. It is all about her. Society has deemed girls the experts at love (since love is about how the girl feels, and she’s the expert of her own feelings), and guys the buffoons. How then is she supposed to respect the man she can’t even trust to make her happy?
Just as feelings come and go, so will respect and love when based on something so transient as how you feel. God has called us to something much more permanent, and profound than this. His command for men was for them to love their wives. He didn’t say to love their wives when they made them feel a certain way, nor did God qualify the command to love with a woman’s deserving actions. He told men to love, without condition, selflessly, as God leads with example in loving us.
God told wives to respect their husbands. Again, this extends beyond feelings and merit. It’s a command. If a wife’s respect was to be based on a man’s actions, than no man would deserve it, just as there is no flawless woman always deserving selfless love. But God has made provision for our inadequacy and fickleness by fixing these most important tenants of a successful relationship on a permanent and continued decision rather that how one feels at the moment.
Fixing your respect for someone on their ability to make you feel a certain way is what common culture teaches, and is absolutely wrong.
13 comments:
I agree with you. Love is a choice--a commitment through thick or thin, better or worse, ugly or pretty, rich or poor. You don't "feel" love with someone just because they meet certain ideals, make your heart race or skip a beat, or even make you happy. You choose to love someone regardless. I don't think love for a life mate is much different than love for a brother, sister, or friend. It's all about taking someone as is, flaws and all. Sure, there are some people we get along with better than others, and are more compatible with. That's why you pick and choose your friends wisely--and pick and choose your mate wisely. But because we're all imperfect, all we can do is make the choice to love someone and hope (or not) that they reciprocate.
I've never read your blog before, Matt. I appreciate the thoughts you share in this. We are selfish creatures. Ones that are lost in a sea of idealism and mirages. I think one of the most important things I've ever learned was to love without regard of the other person's actions. To see someone for who they are and extend the love shown to me by God. I am continually relearning that lesson, but always thankful that God does not fail when it comes to unconditional love.
Good words Matt. Wish we could talk about it over pancakes on a Sunday morning.
Matt thanks for sharing. I was recently talking with a guy friend and what he said really surprised me. I asked him why he didn't go for a certain girl and he said "because I don't think I could make her happy." It was such a thoughtful comment. He is looking for someone that he will bring happiness too. AMAZING and very opposite of our culture. With that in mind he made finding the right person a lot simpler and more fulfilling. Attraction is very much part of life but in my mid twenties I'm already seeing age take a toll on some friends. So it won't last forever but some things are more lasting such as friendship, values, respect, love, and even dreams. BTW (I agree)
I want to say something smart about how impressed I was by this, but it's super late, so I'm just going to stick with, "this is good."
Two things for you, Matt: #1=Wow and #2=Thank you.
I read what you wrote
At Wal Mart one day I was talking to the sales lady as she cut the fabric I was buying. She asked what it was for, and I told her it was for my wedding. She proceeded to give me her most important marital advice: "Train him like a puppy." I was shocked. THAT was her most valuable pearl of wisdom? I didn't need it. :)
Three words: Well written amigo.
Interestingly,
husbands are commanded to love their wives (Eph 5:25-33),
wives are commanded to respect their husbands (Eph 5:33),
wives are commanded to love their husbands (Titus 2:4),
husbands are commanded to respect their wives (1 Pet 3:7),
and both partners are commanded to submit to one another (Eph 5:21).
Nowhere are we commanded to treat each other selfishly, to get our own needs met before we meet our partner's needs, to focus on how good the other person makes me feel, or to use create fantasy people to replace the real people in our lives. Instead, we are to base our relationships on 100% the opposite of that: love and respect.
I think realizing how unnatural that love and respect is, makes me rely on God more for the re-forming of my thoughts, feelings, and actions. I don't want to be sexist, either, Matt!
i don't believe that humans are selfish creatures. why do we need to be 'commanded' to love each other or to be more other-oriented? it's a natural evolutionary instinct to be selfish and even though it can be thoughtless and careless and hurt people deeply, it's important to remember that better humans make better lovers and not vice versa. what i mean by this is that trying to be less selfish for your boy/girlfriend or for mr./mrs. right is still just as selfish. become a better human being without trying to receive a reward or escape punishment and you will become a better lover. you'll become a better everything.
It was good talking to you about all this.
Nice to find you in the blogosphere, Matt. Keep thinking and writing. :)
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