LOVE (SEX) & LITERATURE #6
Can you love more than one person at a time?
We are in the sticky depths of the summer now, and half the year has passed us by. What have you done with it? Have you found what you’ve been looking for? Have you been smiling, laughing, orgasming? Are you living fully? What color are your sheets right now? Have you gotten those red curtains yet, the ones you’ve been dreaming about? Are you taking pictures of everyone you love? Have you begun to remember your ancestral instincts? Have you been to the beach yet? Are you in love?
I know I’ve been away, I know at least one of you out there has missed me. Or rather you miss the wisdom of the universe which I channel for you here in this intimate, compassionate space, typing away while the rest of the world sleeps with their lover(s) and/or their loneliness. I’ve missed you too, faceless and formless void. I feel your presence over my shoulder in late hours like these, and your beautiful heavy eyes looking up to the heavens for answers. It pains me to tell you there are no answers, only actions and meanings we make out of their consequences. If you’ve any sensitivity in you like me, this is a bitter pill to swallow; out of my empathy for you and this sting, I’ll be answering two of your questions tonight.
Can you really love more than one person at a time?
Can’t you? Don’t you love your mother and your father? Your brother and your sister? Your uncle and your aunt? Your best friend and their awkward partner? Your bed and your bathtub? Your job and your time off? Wine and cheese?
I joke, somewhat. And maybe I – am different from you. Because I, personally, and I know I will annoy someone somewhere with this, but so be it, I write to the general vague you and if you are implicated in it, then, so too am I, in a way – anyways – I think it is absurd to imagine loving only one person at a time. The heart in your chest is only the size of a fist but it hurls your blood and seizes it all back millions and millions and billions of times in all the years of your life. And the heart in your heart is much vaster, it could be endless, it’s uninhibited by the limits of having a spatial form. Your capacity of love is only hindered by your understanding of love (not your experience of it).
I have a strong feeling this question is directed solely at your current understanding of romantic love. I want to remind you that love is not a strict or easily categorized thing. The definition of it must be discovered by each individual during their life, and it is tenuous as water, it is an understanding that will shift and warble during the discovery of it. Love is quantum energy which you cannot hope to contain or understand. And it is sentient. Love will act upon you without your consent, without your knowledge, without your control. It is slow and fast and soft and strong and mesmerizing and horrific and equalizing. It has the same merciless reign over us as gravity. Your best option is almost always to surrender to it.
I am talking about the feeling of love, but love is also a practice. To this, I say, again, yes. (The answer to love should almost always be yes, over and over again.) If you’re wondering about the possibility of loving multiple people at once, then you already know the answer, you just don’t want to believe it. Because if it is true, what does that mean about your established order? What of the meaning you’ve made of the nonsense you’ve seen, or the pain people have endured on each other in the name of love, or the righteousness you felt proclaiming to someone who’d hurt you that they never really loved you? If one can really love more than one other, then, what happened to all the security and safety you felt in knowing that your partner does love you? What happens to the control you had, the certainty you felt?
None of it is gone because none of it was ever really yours in the first place. We fool ourselves into thinking we had any of it. We have only each other and our words as vapid as wind.
How could someone dare to say I Love You to me and then just say it to someone else, with that same soft voice, that same tender touch, those same huge eyes? Don’t they know how much they mean to me? Don’t they know my father used to say the same to my mother, and then we caught him cheating with a whole other family? Don’t his other children know when he says I Love You he’s lying – to one of us? Or to all of us?
Dear reader, it brings me no joy to break this to you, but you cannot control or contain another person. You can’t stop them from loving anyone else. And you cannot ever know the true contents of their heart. It is impossible. Even if you say you tell each other everything, you’re both lying. And that’s OK. We’re all lying, to ourselves or each other or to our God(s). Forgiving each other these private trespasses is not only a merciful act upon which society depends, it is an act of love.
I’m going about this in a somewhat roundabout way, I know, so I want to be clear about something in particular: love is no excuse for bad or dishonest behavior. If someone acts against your interest or your established boundaries in the name of love, they’re still due a conversation or clarification of your needs. Love should not shield any of us from consequence.
Start here: Recognize and accept the love you feel for others. Accept also the love which you want, which maybe you never received, or which you think you’ll never chance upon again. Accept it all. That too is love.
gossip guy,
I have been single for quite some time now (meaning two years). As much as I attempt to embrace the "strong, single woman" archetype, I have been feeling completely overtaken by loneliness and a dull, dry love life. I'm touch deprived and craving intimacy, but hate feeling desperate for love like I have been. Any tips? Any thoughts?
xx
Why are you embracing the “strong, single woman” archetype if it isn’t who you are? Why are you embracing it at all? What is the merit of it? For whom are you performing?
And why do you hate feeling desperate for love? It sounds the same to me as resenting yourself for feeling desperate for food, or air, or shelter. Love is an essential human need. There is nothing wrong with you for needing to be loved, in fact we tend to consider those who don’t to be unusual. So I think you should re-evaluate your relationship with yourself and your needs firstly. There must have been some terrible pain(s) or some hardened person(s) to make you view your natural instincts to be seen as a vulnerability. I’m sorry about that, and secondly, I think you should look deep within and prioritize inner healing before entering into anything serious.
It sounds like you haven’t gathered anything casual in your life, either. Two years is a long time. And for that, too, I am sorry. There is an abundance of love out there that rivals the modern abundance of loneliness. In other words, the love that you reluctantly crave is out there, waiting for you.
But how could you seize it, even if it was presented to you on a silver platter, if you resent your hand that reaches for it?
For the sake of your search for love(r[s]), I want to recommend going forth earnestly, transparently, joyfully, and be grateful for every opportunity you get to be with someone else, even and especially if you know it’s going to be temporary. Every chance for closeness should be cherished. And every person you meet that shames or fears your open desire for love is still growing, right alongside you.
♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡
beautiful!
Powerful is an understatement I feel so ready to love! I’ll be taking this as a sign