Rediscovering Eros
Wednesday, November 28, 2007“Eros does not exist!”
So exclaimed a friend of mine over e-mail. I was shocked. She was a beautiful, intelligent, and passionate fashionista with a cause who had access to many of life’s gifts and who probably held the key to many men’s hearts—how could she say that Eros does not exist??
She was seconded by good friend of ours—an award-winning poet, playwright, filmmaker, and creative genius who, in the pursuit of his One Muse here on Earth, has awoken all the other muses of the heavens and has probably swept them off their wings and into the harem of his mind.
I was shattered. How could my friends—these amazingly talented and passionate individuals—no longer believe in magic, in passion, in destiny, in all these wonderful things that make love maddening yet sobering, that make life chaotic yet serene? How could they turn their backs on the madness and embrace a life that is staid, bland, and… dead?
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When I was much younger, I refused to believe in the concept of One Love, of that One Soul from whom our souls were separated and with whom we must reunite if we were to experience Real Love. I was cynical probably because I was the product of a broken marriage, and because I never saw in my parents an image of love that was acceptable to my sensibilities. For me, then, love was the product of attraction, commitment, devotion, dedication, and a lot of hard work. You didn’t just experience love; you had to earn it. (And maybe my parent’s just didn’t work hard enough.) During my freshman year in college, a friend of mine asked me which I preferred: a man whom I loved, or a man who loved me. I chose the latter, and I reasoned that anyone can learn to love anyone else—what matters is that the man loves the woman more than she loves him. (Where on earth I got that idea, I don’t know…) I couldn’t have been more wrong. My previous relationship was with someone who really, really, honest-to-goodness loved me (or so I thought). He wasn’t the guy on my wish list, but he just cared for me so much that it became easy for me to imagine that, maybe, I could learn to really love him back. He seemed to be the quintessential boy-next-door whom you could bring home to Mom, and so I did, trying to convince myself that he could be the guy for me. After four years of waiting for Certainty to turn up, however, I realized that I couldn’t be with someone whom I didn’t love as much as he loved me. You could stone me now for being such a bitch, but one of the things that told him when I said goodbye was that he was “the perfect little black dress that every girl sees from the store window and wants to bring home”, but that I realized that “that perfect little black dress just doesn’t fit me well”. You really shouldn’t just settle for someone when you know how much more you can give with someone else.
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My relationship with Paul made me believe in Eros again. Our reunion was the product of a long string of coincidences and, in his words, “cosmic accidents” that were too intense and too real to be humanly contrived. We bumped into each other again, after seven years of neither seeing nor hearing from each other, at the right time and under the right circumstances; and we just knew from that first meeting-again that something was going to happen that would change our lives in ways we couldn’t even begin to imagine. We thought that it was already “freaky” that we shared the same birthday, that our fathers have the same first name, that our mothers were colleagues and friends during their PAL days, that we grew up in the same area, and that some of our friends and relatives moved in similar circles and were closely connected. What we didn’t see yet back then was that more things would happen to us in the next two years that will bind us even closer to each other, in ways that only God Himself could have orchestrated. A few nights ago, as we were driving home from a party, we were talking about relationships, and about what brought people together and what drove them apart. We discussed other relationships that we were privy to, and we agreed that you shouldn’t stay in a relationship that doesn’t feel deeply, organically right. You had to feel the certainty in every pore of your body, and this certainty had to come from and go right through your core. Otherwise, you’d be stuck in a shallow and lifeless relationship—and who would want that? As we were approaching home, I just had to ask the question that every girl is probably dying to ask her boyfriend, in the context of our conversation: “So, what about us?” “What do you mean, ‘what about us’?” “Do you think we have what it takes… to, you know… go the full stretch?” (Of course, I had to sugarcoat my question.) I was expecting him to sigh, take a few seconds or so to think, and maybe even say that he wasn’t sure. (He's a guy, after all.) But his response was as matter-of-factly for him as it was surprising for me. “Nines, I think we both know by now that we are intrinsically linked.” I couldn’t help but smile.
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“Intrinsically linked.” There goes the idea of Socrates’ erotic love again—of one soul that was split into half and that goes through life searching for the Other. The idea that each person, each soul has a corresponding Other, and that there is someone made just for somebody else. (At least I think it could be attributed to Socrates, but I’m not really sure.) It’s funny because I feel it with Paul—I know that what we have is too real to dispute—but I still can’t bring myself to understand it. If there is exactly one person for everyone else in this world, then how do you explain all the failed relationships around us? Is it because people have been too impatient, and have settled for other partners, therefore barring themselves from meeting their True Soulmate? And, since there are now more women than men all over the world, does it mean that homosexuality is truly acceptable? (Of course, Socrates and his young pupils would certainly think so.) And what if you don’t ever find The One? What happens then? It’s a scary thought—going through life alone, or going through life without someone whom you truly, deeply, passionately love. Maybe that’s why so many of us are in a mad scramble to commit ourselves to someone even at the risk of being stuck with “the wrong person”. Life is too perplexing and exhilarating at the same time to go through on your own. But, then again, who can blame us? Finding “the right person” is such a tricky deal—and it’s often the product of chance or pure luck—that you’d really rather put yourself in a safe and secure place, than go out there and risk coming back with nothing. However, I am reminded of another good friend of mine—someone who has already recognized her One True Love and who is not willing to settle for anything less—who told me once: “Life is already filled with so much mediocrity, and love shouldn’t be one of them.” She’s right. If Eros means seeking for the truest, deepest, most perfect kind of love of which we are capable; if it means knowing what’s Real and what’s Right and fighting for the right to have it; if True Love means never giving up until we’ve found our home in the Other, then I think we owe it to ourselves to live it. (Written: May 2005)
