“Love that is dying concerns scarcity, whereas genuine love involves abundance.”
What does it mean to say that you can’t get enough of another person? Psychology Today decided to break it down, and rather than make love sound lame and intellectual, I thought it was kinda beautiful.
It sets up enjoying one’s lover as an experience that is intrinsically (rather than extrinsically) valuable. Painting, listening to music, playing video games- these are all things we do for the experience of doing them rather than for the end result. Such is spending time with someone you love. It doesn’t mean you can do nothing else while experiencing it, it doesn’t mean you only want to do that, it just means that you spend time with the person because it is its own reward. And I love it. Listen:
Just as we can never finish listening to music or engaging in intellectual thought, and hence we can never get enough of such activities, so we cannot exhaust all the various possibilities of being with our beloved, and hence we can never have enough of her.
Go read it!
Ask Gynomite
In her former life, Emily “Gynomite” Gordon was a couples and family therapist licensed in 2 1/2 states. In this life, she’s a freelance fighter of your emotional woes with Ask Gynomite. Write her at askgynomite@gmail.com- all emails stay confidential. Today, Gynomite takes on the icky stickiness of falling for a friend.
OK, so. I have (or had) a male best friend who was closer to me than any guy has ever been. We had everything in common and there was nothing we didn’t share with each other. I’ve always been pretty sure he cares for me as more than a friend; he was always telling me how attractive i was, got jealous if i talked to or about other guys, and even a couple of times said that he thought he might be in love with me. I haven’t seen him in that way until about a month or so ago, when i started wanting more than friendship. A couple of weeks ago, i spent the night at his house and we slept together. I felt closer to him than i ever had and it was an amazing night, but over the next few days everything changed. I tried to express my feelings to him, and he basically said that he didn’t want anything more than friendship with me. I slept with him again a week after the first time, and after this we grew even further apart. We only talk if i contact him now, and it’s not the same at all. Was i completely wrong about his feelings for me? How do i know if he actually does have feelings for me?
So painful. Seriously, there is no pain like this, and I’m so sorry you’re experiencing it. You weren’t wrong at all about his feelings for you, but you guys both might have been wrong about how much sexual tension can cloud your vision.
Today’s Ramblings on….. High School Relationships
I have a young teenage cousin who just recently got her first boyfriend, and somehow it took that event to help me realize and articulate something that I’d been noticing in life and on Facebook, as we are all more and more in contact with people we knew from middle and high school.
Girls should not have long term boyfriends when they’re teenagers.
This is just my opinion of course, and when I mentioned this to my parents, who got married when my mom was 17, they were quick to point out how well it worked out for them, and this is true. But I think they’re the exception, and I also think that was a long time ago. These days, long term dating too early can lead to a life of feeling imprisoned by your deep and wonderful love.
Gynomite’s Emotional Assignment of the Day
Today, let’s talk about a thing I like to call Negative Compatibility.
You know how you meet someone and fall in love with them, and you think “Wow, this person has everything I could ever want or need, I’m so happy, we’re such a perfect match, let’s have brunch together forever!”? Well the perfect matching goes all the way down to the core and comes out through the darker, ickier side of a relationship. Often, compatibility means that your negative qualities feed on each other too.
Here how it can look-
Gynomite’s Emotional Assignment of the Day
Ladies, are you prepared for a disaster?
I’m talking to the ladies out there who live with your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/partner, and I want to talk to you about what you’d do in an emergency. Since feeling my first earthquake here in LA a few days ago I’ve been frantically Googling disaster preparedness, but it got me thinking about what happens when you go through a personal emergency. Have you ever thought about what would happen if, for whatever reason, you had to leave the comfy cohabitation you’ve built with another human being. Could you survive? How would you survive?
Lemondrop of the Week
This week, I discuss how I moved from Chicago to New York with Kumail because his career required him to be here, and how that doesn’t make me any less of a feminist. Go read it! Hooray!
Ask Gynomite ponders intimacy
This April, I’m going to be facilitating what I hope to be the first of several lady conversations/workshops at Word Bookstore in Brooklyn! The series is called LoveSmarts, and this first one is all about exploring the horrible ideas that movies have taught us about love.
It’s going to be on Sunday, April 19th from 3-4ish, and if you’re interested in coming, please RSVP by emailing brooklynlovesmarts@gmail.com!! I’ll announce more details as it comes closer, but for now, there will be refreshments and fun times, and there will not be a person lecturing you. Here’s a taste:
Gynomite’s Emotional Assignment of the Day
Put it down.
That baggage? Put it the fuck down. Or at least start looking at it a little more closely.
Ask Gynomite!
Well Gynomite -
I am convinced that I met the man of my dreams. He is beautiful, sexy, smart, funny to be around, makes me laugh, and wants to take care of me.
I have never had a relationship when I wake up in the middle of the night and think “If I died tomorrow, it would honestly be ok, becasue the love I have with this man is so overpowering, intense, generous and loving – I would feel like life had a purpose.
This is the first time I felt this way – like I would give him everything I am, I own, my heart, the organs in my body – if any of it would help him.
I love him so very much -
What scares me….I am always afraid this is “too good to be true” and he will leave me. I had a string of bad men before him, and I fear he will want a younger and cuter model to replace me someday.
How do you trust someone so completely?
I am drunk – but it is still a valid question.
Thanks Gyno
Ask Gynomite!
Ok, so here’s a question for you. My boyfriend of three years and I have lived together for a little over a year, and our home is just miserable. We fight all the time, we don’t treat each other like we’re special, and things seem to just be falling apart. It’s hard to feel attractive to someone who sees you in zit cream every night. I’m contemplating moving out in an effort to save our relationship. Do you think this is a good idea? Does this ever work out?
This is a really tough decision to make in a relationship and I don’t envy you. No matter what decision you make, it’s going to hurt. And before I admire you on being willing to take a societal “step back” in order to help your relationship, let me first ask you if you actually do want to stay in the relationship.
