Wednesday, March 28, 2007

In support of "love" marraiges ...

By definition, when you are unmarried, you know jack-shit about love. The industry of arranged marraige is based on this thesis. The arguement goes: You can't know who you can love, so let us more experienced folks, with sometimes dysfunctional marraiges, tell you who to love.

I fully understand parents, friends, others, introducing people to potential mates (whether through arranged matches or otherwise). What I am speaking out against is the concept that arranged matches are the ONLY way one can/should meet their partner.

And, the elders are right. You will know jack-shit about love till you have lived with someone you love for 10 years.

Then, if you have found the right person to live and share your life with, you will feel like Sean in Good Will Hunting.

There is no way you can know when you get into a relationship how you will feel in 10 years - but neither can the elders touting all their experience with love and relationship. The only way to do this is to take a chance with someone you think you can love 10, 20, 30 years hence.

Dialogue from Good Will Hunting between Will and his shrink Sean:

Will: [about Skylar] Don't worry about me, I know what I'm doin'. Yeah, but this girl is like, you know, beautiful. She's smart. She's funny. She's different from most of the girls I've been with.

Sean: So, call her up, Romeo.

Will: Why? So I can realize she's not that smart, that she's fuckin' boring? Y'know? I mean...this girl is like fuckin' perfect right now, I don't wanna ruin that.

Sean: Maybe you're perfect right now. Maybe you don't wanna ruin that. I think that's a super philosophy, Will, that way you can go through your entire life without ever having to really know anybody...My wife used to fart when she was nervous. She had all sorts of wonderful idiosyncrasies. You know what? She used to fart in her sleep. [they laugh] Sorry I shared that with you. One night it was so loud it woke the dog up. She woke up and gone like "oh was that you?" I'd say yeah...I didn't have the heart to tell her...Oh God...

Will: She woke herself up?

Sean: Yes!.... Oh Christ....aahhh, but, Will, she's been dead two years and that's the shit I remember. Wonderful stuff, you know, little things like that. Ah, but, those are the things I miss the most. The little idiosyncrasies that only I knew about. That's what made her my wife. Oh and she had the goods on me, too, she knew all my little peccadillos. People call these things imperfections, but they're not, aw that's the good stuff. And then we get to choose who we let into our weird little worlds. You're not perfect, sport. And let me save you the suspense. This girl you met, she isn't perfect either. But the question is: whether or not you're perfect for each other. That's the whole deal. That's what intimacy is all about. Now you can know everything in the world, sport, but the only way you're findin' out that one is by givin' it a shot.

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