The Essential Tragedy of Romantic Love

I have come very late to a tragic and rather horrible realisation: that we do no one a service when we fall in love with some one for his/her potential, recognising something in that person that no one else can see or value.  You cannot force any one to realise potential.  Every one has fatal flaws and if you do not accept THOSE, a relationship is based always on fantasy and misperception rather than truth.

I always wished to believe that every man was capable of becoming a true hero and that, if only I believed in him, he would take the high and difficult path to become the best person he could be.  I fancied somehow that, like the audience in 'Peter Pan', if I shouted 'I believe in fairies!  I do! I do!' hard enough and long enough, the hero would emerge from the chrysalis of the misshapen caterpillar or worm.

This is not a good way to fall in love nor is it a good basis for a relationship.  Some one always feels he/she has been disappointed or actively 'let down'.  Either the man, if you fail to somehow pull him up by his bootstraps to drag him into the higher realm or you, if you do your best and then are failed by the object of your love.

Better to recognise all the flaws initially.  Better to look coldly and clearly at all the pros and cons of the existing person and not ride the thermals of fantasy to see what spirals might take both of you to a different reality together.

People seldom change.  I am not speaking here of material wealth or position.  Yes, you can be a helpmate in life and you can be an inspiration for some one to strive harder or gain a higher position or more wealth if that matters to you.  I am speaking of character.  When one falls in love, it usually has something to do with personality and character, shared dreams or aspirations or an illusion of the same.   Sexual love is something else entirely and although it can wreak lives as often as romantic love, it at least is more clearly understood perhaps.   It often is said that Western civilisation did every one a terrible disservice by attempting to combine romantic and sexual love when the two can be worlds apart.  I always did feel that ideally, an arranged marriage based on commonality of interest and aspirations probably was kinder, more practical and less doomed to disaster than marriages based on partners we ourselves choose according to whim or hormones or some deep-seated illusionary primciples.