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Originally Posted by Rockchick26  I can't make myself want someone who ALREADY wants me. Most things in life are like this,you dont appreciate things that are forced on you. |
In what sense is someone liking you having something forced on you? I don't see a connection there at all. Yes, it's possible the attention would be unwelcome because the attraction isn't mutual or the other person is not right. But the magic word "no" takes care of that.
Personally I think there is something intensely appealing about someone having clarity about me without needing a sell job. You surely have to acknowledge at least the possibility that someone could genuinely love you, for you, without the need for a lot of convincing.
As for the fun of the chase -- I've never really understood that. Perhaps in part because I'm not a highly competitive person, in part because I have always felt that one of the key challenges in any relationship is making it sustainable beyond the initial attraction. If part of the initial attraction is the pursuit itself, then after the capture, what is there? I'd rather see a strong attraction up front. Some of it might actually survive the mating ritual!
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Originally Posted by Rockchick26 You appreciate the things you have to work for. The things that you WANT to have before you have them. What fun is it to get everything you want before you even know you want it? |
It's also very nice not to have to earn something, especially love. Do gifts offend you? Does love in particular need to be based on how hard you work or how worthy you are?
Let me show you the other side of this coin as it might be experienced by the guy. My wife started out life as a child prodigy, and like many such people she felt she was loved for her titanic intellectual accomplishments, without which she would be nothing (ref:
The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller) When we first met, her most overused phrase was "I'm sorry", to the point that it was an annoying bad habit. It took me a couple of years to break her of it. But in a sense, in her heart she never more than half believed I or anyone else genuinely loved her and respected her. The concept of someone loving her, for herself, because of who she was and not because of what she did or didn't do, was almost totally alien to her at first. Sadly, in ways I don't think it ever got much past the point of "makes sense to my head but is very counter-intuitive to my heart".
At one level it was great to help her with that but at another level it is pretty hard to be mistrusted and have your motives questioned all the time. It's like you're giving them the greatest gift you have to give and they don't think much of it because you must be doing it out of obligation or ulterior motives. My wife was always trying to earn a love she already had because she couldn't accept it as freely offered.
Making sure you've earned love is in my experience an itch you can never entirely scratch because it comes from a place of being convinced somewhere deep down that you're not worthy.
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Originally Posted by Rockchick26 Why is this such a bad thing? lol I mean,i want to be saved,so naturally it would be a good thing if this happened,and if i could save someone else too. I dont see how this is bad at all. |
If a person can't save themselves, they can't save anyone else.
But perhaps you have a point -- we may be talking past each other. I don't really understand your definition of "save" in this context but I would caution you that it is a loaded word and the way many people understand it, someone wanting to "save" them is inherently demeaning and even if they feel they need saving in some sense, it ultimately rubs them the wrong way. Some part of them feels condescended to and that part of them will act out in retaliation. Some part of them feels obligated because you're giving them a free pass they don't feel they deserve.
You might want to find a better word for practical reasons, and because the act of clarifying that may be instructive to you as well.
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Originally Posted by Rockchick26 I want an equal. And by swooping in and making a difference,he would also be doing that to me. Equality! |
That sounds good in principle. I have just grown wary of all the graniose, flowery, epic, heroic, love-for-the-ages rhetoric most of us use in this context. Although it's very compelling imagery that's widely used in pop culture, the truth about intimate relationships is much more prosaic. At the end of the day it's just two schlubs trying to watch each other's backsides without driving each other nuts. If you take it TOO seriously and make it into something more than that, as in, you are each other's salvation, then you are putting an awful lot of responsibility on each other that maybe isn't appropriate.
I say "maybe" because even at my age thinking I know much of anything about love is kind of foolish. I don't pretend to have it totally figured out for myself much less anyone else. I'm just suggesting you experiment with metaphors and frameworks of understanding that are distanced from "conventional wisdom" because it can be very liberating and empowering to do so. Too much of what we do in the name of love is done on autopilot using borrowed ideas.
--Bob