How can I meet true love?
How to build healthy emotional relationships?
What should be the conditions for a happy marriage?
……
The above questions come from the book "Li Yinhe on Intimate Relationships", the author Li Yinhe is a sociologist, this book is her sociological perspective on love, marriage, sex education and life itself to develop a series of questions to answer, the language is approachable, making people feel like a wise elder in a face-to-face conversation with you as cordial and natural.
I consider myself a very poor interpersonal person, especially in intimate relationships like being in love. Many of the ideas in the book have answered my doubts about past intimate relationships, and some places even have a feeling of empowerment, which I did not expect, it is simply a surprise within a surprise.
01.
Good love doesn't make people lose themselves
Whether it is in film and television works or in the three-dimensional world we are in, we often hear the cries of people who have lost love: "I have done so much for him, why does he still not like me?!!! ”
Because your efforts were headed in the wrong direction at the beginning.
A harmonious relationship, it is impossible for only one party to pay with heart and lungs, and the other party can do everything as long as it is fully accepted without heart and lungs. In feelings, the most taboo thing is to blindly change yourself for love, until you finally lose yourself.
Every time I talk about losing myself for love, I take the example of the strange woman in "Letters from a Strange Woman." For the male writer who has only met a few times, the strange woman has given everything for him, from silently staring and staring, to having a one-night stand with him, giving birth to a son, and finally dying of poverty with her son.
This woman was overly attached to what she thought was love, to the point of stupidity. She did not understand that a hopeless love could not be answered no matter how she changed.
However, in real life, there are more such "strange women", wishful thinking that as long as they change themselves to the way the other party likes, they can have love with each other. But just think about it, this is actually not a good chance of success:
First of all, how do you know what the other person likes? How do you know that the other person will definitely like you because you become that way? Ten thousand steps back, people's preferences will change, even if you become the other party's favorite, in case the other party's preferences come to a 180-degree turn, do you want to change it again?
Secondly, a person pretending to be a state that he does not like is not lasting after all, always playing another person, even if he is lucky enough to have love, he will become a loser in love: does he like me, or does he play this person? Does he have any real love for me? Suspicion is easy to give birth to dark ghosts, the days are long, this love that is barely gathered together is scattered, without the wind blowing, take two steps and scatter.
Therefore, a truly good relationship does not need to be disguised.
"The Courage to Be Hated" says: "The greatest misfortune for people is not to like themselves." "Everyone is a unique individual, you just need to show your original self, love yourself, pay attention to yourself, be yourself calmly, try to live the life you want, and someone will be attracted to you." 」
As Wang Xiaobo wrote in his love letter to Li Yinhe: "I give you my whole soul, along with its quirks, playing with small tempers, flashing light and dark, eighteen hundred kinds of bad diseases." It's so nasty, only a little good, love you. ”
Showing the original self calmly is the best gift to the other party in the relationship.
02.
Good love doesn't need to forcibly change each other
In contrast to trying to change oneself to cater to the object of your choice, you are bent on wanting the other person to change for yourself.
"You don't xx just don't love me!" Such threatening sentences in the name of love are common in intimate relationships, especially people in love, who want to prove that they love them deeply, and also think that as long as they love them, they should unconditionally make any changes for them.
It can only be said that this is the ideal state that only appears in idol dramas. There are very few things that can really be done in real life, and after a long time, it is likely that they will collapse and give up because they cannot maintain the perfect image in the eyes of the object.
In fact, as Li Yinhe said in the book: "The intimate relationship established by a good love should allow both parties to be themselves calmly, and all nature, all desires, and all colors can be freely expressed." ”
A truly good love will not make people lose themselves, and there is no need to forcibly change the other party. At the beginning, people were attracted to the object of their choice, and it was precisely because they were not perfect at that time that they had a shining point, because imperfection was real, and therefore the flashing point became valuable.
We are all ordinary people, and the most likely people are ordinary people. If you really like someone, you should not only show your truest self, but also accept everything from the other person.
We all hope that love will prompt the other person to change into their favorite look, but when the other person really changes to the way you like, it is not the person who initially made your heart move.
Honesty is a particularly important quality in intimate relationships. Be honest about yourself, be honest about what you like, and accept likes honestly.
When you find that you really don't like it, or that the other party has something you really can't accept, say it sincerely and honestly, don't delay or owe, and be innocent.
This is true of love, and it is also true of marriage.
Many people always fantasize: ta is just fun now, and it will be good to settle down after marriage. But the truth is cruel, do not put the hope of marriage on the other party will be happy after marriage, will become better, you know, there is no disappointment without expectations.
03.
Love is not an exam, there is no absolute meritocracy
The last thing that made me particularly touched was Li Yinhe's sentence: "There are irrational factors in love, and it involves not the problem of excellence or not, but the problem of emotion." ”
Since I have seen too many examples of people who have begun to doubt themselves and deny themselves because of the failure of their relationship, I deeply feel the power of this sentence.
Many friends who have not been treated well in their original families or past emotional experiences will habitually deny themselves and habitually please others when things happen, but this is not a reason for emotional failure.
In the distant 16th century, Shakespeare said: "There is no good or bad in the world, you think it is good, you feel that it is good, it is bad." ”
The success or failure of a relationship is not necessarily related to the excellence of both parties to the relationship. Feelings are not tests, there are no standard answers, and naturally there will be no grades to evaluate whether you are a good student or a poor student.
There are no good or bad feelings in the world, only whether the person feels it is appropriate or not. Yes, what really has to do with the success or failure of the relationship is whether the two people are really suitable at that time.
Li Yinhe understands the ideal intimate relationship like this:
"The ideal intimate relationship is this: the two of us are willing to be together, although on the surface, our relationship is a kind of belonging, a kind of constraint, but this constraint and belonging is in line with my free will, I enter voluntarily, and I do not feel the repression and bondage against my inner wishes." 」
Two people who like each other, whether they are in love at first sight or long-term love, will always come together, even if they enter the siege, they are willing to eat;
Two people who don't like it, that is, force themselves to change themselves or change each other, will eventually fall to a chicken feather, and even more angry at each other, parting ways.
I think we should all think through before starting a relationship:
What kind of emotional state do you expect? And what do you expect from yourself in this relationship? And what to expect from the future partner?
I think this expectation is a basic line, that is, just doing this is a qualified self or a qualified partner. Of course, such thinking does not need to be compared with others, because comparison will not bring happiness, only unwillingness or superiority. It will also make this basic line unattainable.
Text/Ten Lights
Photo: The Beautiful Legend of Sicily