Who do you think you're in love with?

Post Reply New Topic

it better be the missus...or I'm in trouble...

Reminds me of:


"It is perhaps one of the causes of our perpetual disappointments in love that, in response to our expectation of the ideal person with whom we are in love, each meeting provides us with a person in flesh and blood in whom there is already so little trace of our dream."

Marcel Proust

Not much of an optimist, Marcel. For me actually the feeling is the other way 'round. I like the ones I love more each time I see them, even including all their problems. That is I think mainly because I love imperfection. Or should I say what others asume to be imperfection. I would not like someone perfect. Only someone very very good .

To respond with a quote:
'There is a crack, a crack, in everything... that's how the light gets in' - Leonard Cohen, 1992




(every girl I loved was in some way crazy)

Oh, I agree with you. I'm going to grab up that quote, as well. I collect them.

These are more akin to my way of thinking than ol' Proust:

"We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly"
~Sam Keen


"We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken."
~Dostoevsky


The people I love are all "flawed" and deeply beautiful. The word hamartia comes to mind.

Am I stupid admitting this word is not familiar to me?

Oh, certainly not! I'm not even sure I understand or apply it correctly. Encylopedia Britannica says hamartia is "also called tragic flaw.... inherent defect or shortcoming in the hero of a tragedy, who is in other respects a superior being favoured by fortune."

I suppose what I mean to express is that I find the same sort of beauty in people as I do in fictional characters. Perfection is insufferable in either.

I'm in love with the one who loves me for being me; No one.

I'm still in love with a girl I knew in high school, but now she's in Idaho and I'm at Central Washington University. If only I asked her out. I had a secret crush on her, but I knew better than to hit things off right away. Not only that, but we were always far apart during school. She was always busy, while I wanted to keep away from all the busy work.

I love the idea of being in love.

My social and personality pathways in these areas literally don't work. Never fully understood why aside from being in some fatal breach of conformity that no one can really explain, they just get it and I can't. That said I would love to find someone out there who adds to my life, I add to theirs, we don't mash personalities or break and mold each other into ourselves but act as catalysts for each other's self improvement, learning, growth, etc. through life, have each other's backs on things; I know that's at least a pretty common goal with a lot of people but I also know - just based on how poorly most people seem to empathize or read each other, things quite often fall a good ways short (and not wanting much less I'm not sure what will happen - either the all bad luck that I've had so far will break and I'll be able to lose the relationship-primacy issues I still have, or, I could just stick by my dignity and go all the way out by myself; depending on whether I'm ever able to figure out I think what personality traits I have that are always killing it and if I can compromise those and be happy with the end results at the same time).

Proust is not a good go-to guy on the subject of love. Most of the "love" relationships in Remembrance are fantasies, full of jealousy, or perverse. "Swan in Love" is all about a guy more in love with the idea rather than the real thing. He idealizes his girl to absurd lengths. Later, we find out she was kind of a tramp and a golddigger. In Proust's real life, he was in love with one of his servants who took him to the cleaners (so to speak) financially.

I'm not in love with anyone at the moment. I was in love with a friend and co-worker a while back. It was chockfull of pain, embarrassment, happiness, confusion, sadness, and everything else. She really made me feel alive, even though her ultimate rejection nearly killed me. I have an modest interest in someone on WP, but we will never meet and nothing will really happen.

I know I'm super infantile about this, maybe on the level of a fiten year old teenager, but I think I'm in love with a girl on wp, I haven't even really talked to just read her posts.


She's just so similar to me etc.

I'm like so embarassed to post this.



I don't really even know if it's love there's a possibility I just like the idea of being in love I project it on this girl. Won't tell you who specifically I mean though.

If you don't mind (sorry, I'm insufferable about English), I don't think you quite mean hamartia for this context.

In tragedies, the tragic hero is someone who has everything, not necessarily through work, but just because of their position in society. The tragic flaw the possess causes them to lose everything they have, including love.

Shakespeare's Hamlet is a tragic hero. He's the prince of Denmark (although Cladius occupies the throne, he would have become king if he waited around long enough), he's in love with Ophelia (who loves him back), he's generally well liked by the people of Denmark, he has friends, and he loves his mother (who also loves him back).

His tragic flaw, or hamartia, is his procrastination in killing Cladius, and his acting strange while he procrastinates. His apparently insane actions alienate him from the people, who believe him to be mad, ends up forcing him to order the execution of two of his friends, makes Ophelia kill herself, screws up a bunch of plots, and ultimately his mother dies, he dies, and everyone in the general vicinity dies. To top it off, Denmark is lost to an enemy. His flaw causes him to lose everything.

Another tragic hero would be Antigone's uncle, whose pride ultimately leads to the death of his son, wife, daughter-in-law to be, his throne, and his reputation. He too loses everything.

And tragic heroes never gain it back.

Presumably, if you love someone, they don't have a hamartia, or if they do, it'll come into effect soon enough, and then you won't love them anymore (as tragic heroes loss literally everything; love is too precious to not be lost in a tragedy). Also, the position of superiority that the tragic hero must have in order to be a tragic hero (at least by definition, although I'm sure it could be changed for more modern standards) rules out most people.

Thank you for the explanation!

I didn't mean to imply that it was a particularly accurate term for what I'd wish to convey, but rather that there is a similar "feel" (to me) between the figure of the tragic hero and the beloved. I suppose that's not so remarkable. Art often imitates and magnifies images we encounter in reality.

To get back on the topic... I love two people, maybe I am in love with one of them but that is hard to say. You might call it tragic, but there is a certain beauty in my situation.

I really hate the word "love" right now. It gets so misused by my brain that it's losing all its meaning.

After all, wanting to have sex with someone does not automatically mean I love them... but apparently my brain is not quite as clear on this as I am