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Drawing inspiration from Plato, Jacques Lacan presents us with a seemingly enigmatic understanding of love. He asserts: “Love is giving what one does not have to someone who does not want it.” In another instance, he posits that “to love is, at its core, to desire to be loved.”
In essence, to love is to acknowledge that a fragment of oneself – the innocent and content piece from early childhood – is irrevocably gone. Within a romantic relationship, an individual entrusts this void to the other, in a relentless pursuit, yearning for a glance or a gesture that will, even fleetingly, make them feel cherished. When entwined in true love, both parties are fated to perpetually seek the key that opens the gateway to their private communion. Even if they stumble upon it once, there is no guarantee that it will be found again. Therefore, romantic relationships are drenched in uncertainty and meandering. People who cannot admit their imperfections, or believe themselves to be whole or self-reliant, are yet to comprehend the true essence of love.
Roland Barthes captures it exquisitely in A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments: “You await me in a place I am reluctant to go, you adore me in my absence. Our interests don’t align, and tragically, this disjointed entity is me; my mind holds no appeal to me, just as my heart fails to captivate you.” Oscar Wilde further encapsulates this notion by asserting: “Love is a misunderstanding.” It can be said that love is a delicate dance between these misunderstandings.
In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, Florentino Ariza, the protagonist, is beleaguered by a grief so profound that it renders his heart inconsolable. To alleviate his torment, he seeks solace in the embrace of countless women. His confidant, both in awe and envy, is flabbergasted by the sheer number of Florentino’s conquests over the years. Florentino reveals that he has “25 journals that account for 622 undying loves, in addition to countless ephemeral encounters that barely merit a mention.” His confidant, taken aback, inquires: “But what is your secret to beguiling so many women?” To this, Florentino discloses that women “sense in him a kindred spirit, a solitary soul starved of love, whose woeful humility compels them to yield unconditionally.”
Laura Marling in the song What He Wrote illustrates this with haunting melancholy:
He had to leave, though I begged him to stay.
Begged him to stay, in my cold wooden grip,
Begged him to stay by the light of this ship.
Me fighting him, fighting life, fighting dawn…
The same can be said for J. Brel in his pleading song:
Don’t leave me
Let me become
The shadow of your hand
The shadow of your dog
Don’t leave me…
To love, one must therefore embrace the role of an eternal supplicant. In this pursuit of love, they only bring their emptiness to the table. Paradoxically, they seek the unattainable fulfillment of this void from the other. It is this very sense of absence that breathes life into the yearning for love – an unending cycle of seeking, discovering, and losing, only ever capturing fleeting fragments.
However, this void often holds no allure for the object of affection. Contrarily, the other desires wholeness and abundance, as society demands a display of completeness – a plenitude of wealth, beauty, attributes, achievements, material possessions, and relations. In this realm, love is a transaction: “I offer this, you owe me that.” Society has little room for the beggars of love. There is a thinly veiled disdain in labeling the lovers as “romantics,” an almost archaic breed on the brink of obsolescence.
Frequently, it is women, as long as they remain in touch with their sensitivities, who are more likely to brave this journey, immersing themselves in the truth that comes with embracing absence. Men, on the other hand, are often compelled to deny this void as it renders them vulnerable. They feel the need to mask it with displays of virility, self-assurance, and a facade. Madame de Staël rightly said: “Love is the story of women’s lives; it is an episode in the lives of men. ” Similarly, A. Comte-Sponville humorously notes that “men are willing to do anything to make love, even falling in love; women are willing to do anything for love and to be loved, even making love.”
Frank Perry’s 1968 film, The Swimmer, exemplifies this notion. Initially, the protagonist, played by Burt Lancaster, epitomizes health, strength, and confidence. But as the narrative unfolds, his facade crumbles. He can no longer maintain this pretense, and his profound yearning – a deep, soul-rending void – is exposed through a pitiable plea for love that ultimately falls on deaf ears, leaving him to collapse in despair.
Humans possess an intrinsic psychic bisexuality. Regardless of gender, every individual harbors both feminine and masculine aspects. It is the feminine aspect that loves, while the masculine aspect often recoils, terrified of dependency and vulnerability – the acknowledgement of loss and emptiness.
Let us culminate this reflection with a poignant quote from the philosopher Theodor Adorno: “You will be loved the day you can display your weaknesses without the other using them to assert their strength.”
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