LOVE AGAIN IN FEBRUARY

How many ways are there to talk about love — without being repetitious?  That has been my annual challenge for over a decade.  So  my “angle” this year is condemnation of the very loving INTENT of the sacred Golden Rule,  “Treat people the way you’d like them to treat you” which is the modern interpretation as posed by GRO, (www.thegoldenrule.net) Actually, if we follow that directive blindly, we are committing an act of, in some instances, extreme selfishness.

Wait wait wait! Before you throw me into the pyre , hear me out.

Certainly, the desire to be treated with respect and kindness is universally in the DNA of all functioning humans. I have no gripe with that. But the word “treat” in this context covers a plethora of peopled interactions, some of which are multi-layered..

Example: A boyfriend presents his  long time “main squeeze” with a huge bunch of  flowers for a romantic occasion. She had spoken to him of her allergies to flowers. But he wasn’t exactly into “listening.”  In this instance, he was treating her with the love and kindness he would have wanted reciprocally, perhaps in a more gender-appropriate offering. It was received with feigned appreciation and  the recognition that he hadn’t “heard” her. What she had really wanted from him—was to have been “heard.”  Sure sure sure—she could then have told him the truth and THIS time be heard — – and she may well have done so – but there’s that little nuance  of wanting to be “treated “ – (read that : “listened to”) the first time around. 

“Being heard.” Is really a metaphor for “being known.” People in close relationships want to be known by the important people in their lives, as in, “Hey! This is the REAL me – the me I want to be loved for – not the ME you love because you have fantasized some combined ideal of ME and who you want me to be. This, of course, is taking the “flower” tale to an extreme – but there are so many similar situations where people with good intentions treat others  without any emotional input into how that other person really wants to be treated.

Quick story: My sister and I had a bachelorette  apartment in Manhattan eons ago. We shared laundry chores. I’d fold hers and place the items neatly in her drawer. She’d flatten mine on top of the dresser. I fumed every time I had to fold and place my items in my drawer. One day I found her taking her items out of her drawer, and she turned to me: “I HATE the way you fold my stuff and I hate how you put them away for me.”  We laughed. We straightened it out. Neither of us had “done unto” the other the way each of us wanted to be “done unto.” We “loved” each other, but we had gone our own separate ways for so many years that it took time for us to really get to “know’ each other again.

The word “love” is bandied about carelessly and sometimes meaninglessly. To really LOVE someone  is to KNOW the essence, the soul, the inner workings of that person – to know and to accept all that, and to make it a part of who YOU are.

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