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From: dsn@tove.UUCP (Dana S. Nau)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: The role of love in a happy life
Message-ID: <182@tove.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 8-Apr-85 16:31:58 EST
Article-I.D.: tove.182
Posted: Mon Apr  8 16:31:58 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 10-Apr-85 00:04:15 EST
References: <338@boulder.UUCP>
Reply-To: dsn@tove.UUCP (Dana S. Nau)
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Maryland, Laboratory for Parallel Computation, C.P., MD
Lines: 39

In article <338@boulder.UUCP> jon@boulder.UUCP (Jonathan Corbet) writes:
>... I have encountered two very different attitudes with respect to [the
>proper role for love in one's life].  The first ... holds that love is
>everything. ... The second view is that love is a luxury. ... such
>reasoning holds a certain amount of appeal. ... But ... If I conclude
>that I have to build a life where I don't need to love and be loved, the
>part of me that says otherwise has to be somehow suppressed. ... I think
>that would be a severe loss. ...

I get the impression that what's on your mind is the following quandary:
    ``nobody loves me right now, and that's so painful that the only way
    I can survive is to pretend I don't need love.  But if I do that, then
    I never will have any love, and that will just perpetuate the pain.''
Many of us have been there at one time or another.

I think the need for love is pretty fundamental.  But that need is not
always going to be met.  When that happens, it doesn't work to say ``oh, I
don't need love anyway.''  But neither does it work to say ``woe is me, I'm
nothing without a love relationship.''  Both extremes are false and
destructive.  What works better is simply to be aware of the pain:  ``hey,
there's something I really need that I'm not getting right now, and it hurts.''

For eaxmple:  About two years ago I broke up with a woman I had been dating
for about two years, and I spent 1 to 1-1/2 years without being seriously
involved with anybody.  The first several months of that time were intensely
painful--but also useful.  I had become too dependent on my girlfriend's
presence as a way to help me feel good about myself--and it was VERY useful
to have direct experience of the fact that although I was lonely, I still
had friends whom I could enjoy being with, and I was still an OK person even
without my girlfriend.

I think people need both love and autonomy.  Part of why my time alone was
useful was that I was able to become more aware of both needs, and that I
needed to satisfy both of them at the same time.  As a result, I am handling
my current love relationship rather differently than I did the last one.
-- 
Dana S. Nau,  Computer Science Dept.,  U. of Maryland,  College Park, MD 20742
ARPA:  dsn@maryland				CSNet:  dsn@umcp-cs
UUCP:  {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!dsn	Phone:  (301) 454-7932