So it goes.
I have had the same conversation several times recently.
"I don't believe in love," I say. "When someone tells you they love you, it's because they want to hear it in return. They're fishing for validation, using the words as emotional extortion." I usually quote Graham Greene in The Heart of the Matter: "I never trust people who say 'love, love, love.' What they mean is 'me, me, me.'"
There are objections.
"No you don't," I say. "In many years, you will agree with me that you never loved her and she never loved you. It's transitory, it's an act of self-delusion, an exercise in concentrated, directed, personal stupidity. And it's that extention of stupidity that makes us human. It's the only purely human quality there is. Self-delusional stupidity is what fuels both love and hatred, trust and the illusion of understanding. Only we are capable of it, and it is what makes us who we are."
I have been called "cynical."
"Love just has so many possibilities," said the woman I was leaving. She has left me at least a half dozen times in the last four months, and I have left her at least three times. It's sort of what you do. "It scares me. It's like playing with fire."
"I don't see that anymore," I said. "When I meet women I like, the last thing I want to do now is get into a relationship with them, because I know eventually we'll wind up hating each other. Of the possibilities, there is only one actuality, and that is that it always ends. Increasingly, all I evaluate in a prospective relationship is how hard the woman will be to get over."
"I don't know what to say," she told me.
"Yeah," I said. "Me neither. I guess I had you mistaken for somebody else."
My classes start up again in two weeks. The first is "Democratization, Nationalism, and Mass Violence: the Case of Yugoslavia," and is my first masters-level course. That will be followed up by an undergrad course on the history of the vikings, and then another masters level class called "Center and Periphery: Decolonization and Neocolonization." Then I'll round out the year (hopefully) with an undergrad course on comparative European politics. I look forward to classes starting up, because I have literally nothing to do and no money to do it with. So, I read.
What I'm Reading
Arthur Schlesinger, The Imperial Presidency (the book that invented the term)
George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy, 1900-1950.
Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, Tournament of Shadows: the Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia.
"I don't believe in love," I say. "When someone tells you they love you, it's because they want to hear it in return. They're fishing for validation, using the words as emotional extortion." I usually quote Graham Greene in The Heart of the Matter: "I never trust people who say 'love, love, love.' What they mean is 'me, me, me.'"
There are objections.
"No you don't," I say. "In many years, you will agree with me that you never loved her and she never loved you. It's transitory, it's an act of self-delusion, an exercise in concentrated, directed, personal stupidity. And it's that extention of stupidity that makes us human. It's the only purely human quality there is. Self-delusional stupidity is what fuels both love and hatred, trust and the illusion of understanding. Only we are capable of it, and it is what makes us who we are."
I have been called "cynical."
"Love just has so many possibilities," said the woman I was leaving. She has left me at least a half dozen times in the last four months, and I have left her at least three times. It's sort of what you do. "It scares me. It's like playing with fire."
"I don't see that anymore," I said. "When I meet women I like, the last thing I want to do now is get into a relationship with them, because I know eventually we'll wind up hating each other. Of the possibilities, there is only one actuality, and that is that it always ends. Increasingly, all I evaluate in a prospective relationship is how hard the woman will be to get over."
"I don't know what to say," she told me.
"Yeah," I said. "Me neither. I guess I had you mistaken for somebody else."
My classes start up again in two weeks. The first is "Democratization, Nationalism, and Mass Violence: the Case of Yugoslavia," and is my first masters-level course. That will be followed up by an undergrad course on the history of the vikings, and then another masters level class called "Center and Periphery: Decolonization and Neocolonization." Then I'll round out the year (hopefully) with an undergrad course on comparative European politics. I look forward to classes starting up, because I have literally nothing to do and no money to do it with. So, I read.
What I'm Reading
Arthur Schlesinger, The Imperial Presidency (the book that invented the term)
George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy, 1900-1950.
Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, Tournament of Shadows: the Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia.
posted by Eccarius | 2:19 PM
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