Youth & Teens
- Crushes and friends aren't always clear categories. There are romantic elements to platonic friendships. Chaste attractions. And sometimes emotional intimacy sparks cravings for more intimacy.
- Like/love/lust is often assymetrical. Nobody needs your permission to fall for you. And your feelings are no or less valid than theirs.
- Being liked/loved is not the same as liking/loving but sometimes the former passes for the latter.
- Romantic and/or sexual fantasy often aren't literal or explicit.
- The body can react to physical stimuli without the mind following suit. Love, lust, and attraction all have psychological components. The physiological components are influenced by these, but a certain mechanical sense responds to triggers dutifully without comment. But the mechanical without the psychological doesn't reach pleasure. Finding pleasure involves permission, agency, and some form of intimacy however fleeting.
- "Trying to spare feelings" is often cruel and more about one's own self image. You aren't wrong to not want to be with somebody. But if you care about them, you won't try to convince them that you are right or that you're a good person. And you don't get to set the terms of post-breakup friendship.
- It's ok to feel angry at somebody for not loving you/wanting to be with you. It's not logical. It's not justified. And it's not healthy to simply mire in it until it becomes resentment or use it as an excuse to lash out. But it is an emotion and processing hurt requires acceptance.
- You actually can be friends with your exes. But it depends on the circumstances of the relationship and the breakup. A lot. The more mutual the breakup, the less heated the relationship, the easier the transition A few will be your closest friends for life, but more than not just won't fit once you've had time to breathe.
- Learn yourself. Don't expect somebody else to have the manual, even if you'll learn things from them constantly.
- Learn your partner. Every time. The preferences of your first partner/lover won't necessarily be universal. And the things you'll enjoy with them will vary too. This is true in a million ways and rituals. The parts of yourself experienced and craved and flourishing will vary.
Twenties
- Sometimes love and sex are such priorities that if somebody was even remotely a likely fit and available, they'd be slotted into "love potential" category and tried out for that role. That slotting can trigger all manner of conventions and assumptions and behavioral rules. Whole other avenues of intimacy and closeness may be closed off in that narrowing. Sometimes unavailability in one regard creates openness and availability for different forms of connection.
- Without distinguishing between the act of loving and the experience of falling in love, some of the strongest experiences of falling love don't feel at all like that drug-like whirl of desire, elation and anxiety. Falling in love can mean feeling more yourself around somebody; feeling safe. It can mean an easy and relaxed curiosity that continues to build. It can mean feeling seen and accepted in spaces far deeper than you've experienced before. Less like being told you're smart or cool or unique and more like learning to see that in yourself. It can mean feeling a vicarious happiness for another person in a way that makes their happiness sometimes feel more gratifying than your own. It doesn't mean self-negation, but sometimes means preferring choices that come across as less self-interested. It feels, in short, way closer to friendship, closer to family, and it's sometimes hard to even recognize until you're very deeply in it.
- You can't choose whom you fall in love with. But you can often chose how to construct the circumstances and actions that will feed or muffle the intensity of that love. You can feed into or distance yourself from the feelings they inspire. Likewise, you aren't responsible for how somebody feels about you - and you can't make them change their feelings - but you can moderate your behavior or proximity to stoke their feelings or to diminish their feelings. Some people you care about may be better off if you remove yourself from their equation.
- Good love's effects remain even after the love object is gone. And any hurt that might be felt comes with its own hope. The more you open yourself to it, the more it leaves you inspired. The more it never leaves you.
- Intimacy cannot and should not be forced. Opening up to somebody too quickly or them opening up to you can actually derail a potential connection.
- Sometimes the best more romantic experiences sound boring. The quiet moments together. The inside jokes. Rambling meaningless conversations. A shared food ritual. Taking a set walk around the block together. Having a constructive fight and not feeling all better, but learning and never doubting you'll keep working together.
- Sometimes instead of falling in love, you deliberately and gradually wade into it. And it doesn't mean you won't hit the same places of insecurity or anxiety. It doesn't mean you won't clash. But it does mean that you've come into it with a degree of intentionality that will continue to push through these moments where they come and the person you chose is more likely to be the kind to do the same.
Thirties
- Everyone has different needs for intimacy, connection, space, openness, adventure, sharing, etc etc etc. No one person is right. It's just a matter of whether there's a workable way to meet needs and support both partners.
- No one person can satisfy all of your needs. And no one person can be the receptacle for all the energy and affection you have. To love anyone sustainably, you have to find a way to manage those needs and find a wider net of support. And to forgive yourself for not being able to be everything.
- Jealousy isn't always limited to a romantic/sexual partner, and there is more to faithfulness than romantic/sexual exclusivity.
- Jealousy has value and its defensive mechanisms can sometimes be fortifying or affirming of the value of what you have. But compersion - a kind of vicarious joy for the other pursuits and victories and pleasures of a loved one - is a very rewarding goal.
- When you intertwine lives, the stakes change significantly. The chances where your interests and your partner's interests won't directly align can actually make it harder to be supportive and supported than a friend could be. It's helpful to remember how you'd support a friend and also not to compare friends to partners.
- Sometimes it's helpful to have an outside person to bounce feelings off of if they're chosen well and the discussion is presented lovingly, but venting can create a self-reinforcing negative feedback loop. Be mindful of how you present your partner and partnership to others, because that will impact how others treat your relationship and eventually impacts the quality for better and worse.
- Intimacy in love requires mystery, privacy and discretion. Drowning somebody in unsorted disclosure and sharing or demanding the same of them dulls the poignancy leaves no room for the separation of self that allows two people to love.
- Giving somebody space isn't just about giving them space. It's about letting them go knowing full well that you'll be there when they come back.
- Marriage meetings are awesome
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