Amare non significa guardarsi l'uno a l'altro ma guardare
insieme nella stessa direzione.
-Graffiti on
the tombstone of Oscar Wilde at Pere Lachaise.
The French poet Lamartine, talking about the beauty of
interpersonal relationships, wrote:
Sweet or
solemn, tender or stern,
Friendship
made my first bonding.
When somebody
is holding my hand,
There is
another heart beating close to mine.
He was
referring to non-romantic, non-sexual relationships. Being friends is easier. Real
friends accept us as we are, with them we can be sincere, in their presence we
can speak up our thoughts. A romantic relationship with those elements of love,
loyalty, solidarity, and complicity, has a solid foundation to build upon.
Honesty, good communication, never assuming anything, and realistic
expectations are a good place to start. But romantic relationships are more
complicated than that. Why? Is it because the expectations are higher? Is it
due to the complexity of the human soul, human nature, male sexuality, female
sexuality, societal and religious conditioning? Does the constant brain-washing
by the media have anything to do with it? Is it the emphasis put on money, physical
appearance, chemistry, and attraction? Attraction to what?
I guess what makes a person attractive to
us, is an indefinable combination of physical, spiritual, intellectual, and
human qualities. Even though physical appearance is not the most important
thing, it seems to be the first thing; it is probably the major stumbling block
on the bumpy road to romance. Very often we reject potential partners, and we
are rejected by them based on looks.
Darwinian instincts force the male and the
female of the various species to be attracted to one another, with the purpose
of mating and procreating, thereby preserving the genus. Natural selection and
nature use physical traits to make the male and the female attractive to each
other. They give off pheromones, extend their wings, unfold their feathers,
sing, perform acrobatics in the air, change colors, etc. Maybe this emphasis on
looks is the leftover of millions of years of evolution, o perhaps we have been
messed up, pre-programmed, conditioned, in a Pavlovian way, by our upbringing,
education, religion, and the media.
I
know the physical person is important. I know sometimes we are attracted to the
opposite sex because they have a beautiful smile, or their eyes reflect a kind
and sincere soul, or their voice and words speak to our hearts showing a gentle
and intelligent spirit with a sense of justice; or the way they move and carry
themselves, gesticulate and move their tongue when they speak, somehow seem
poetic to us, or simply because they are outright sexy and good-looking.
But in the final analysis, though, minds
and hearts are more important than bodies, and we want someone next to us, who
can hold our hands and look at life and the world through the same window, or
at least, another window that is not too distant from ours.
© William Almonte Jiménez, 2009
