A Clean Slate - well, kind of
18.12.06 - -
a tag which is worth the keeping

on the 14 Dec 2006, claire said... (in response to an entry which I deleted after 48 hours for the sake of not dwelling on sad things heh)

hey joanna.. i agree with most of what you've said, but one thing you tagged caught my attention "I guess the alternative is to find a girl who doesn't take love so seriously. If that's what you want."

why should that be the alternative? either way it is still disrespecting the girl - just because a girl has lower standards and perhaps a lower perception of herself doesn't mean that you should take advantage of those lower standards... because God has absolute standards for everyone. it's this sort of thinking that seems to encourage guys to subscribe to certain values/practices just to placate girls, rather than to honour God... and just because some girls display less outward signs of emotional hurt, or seem indifferent to things that other girls might feel wounded by - does not mean that they have not been wronged and hurt just as much. in some sense it's a greater tragedy because the girl who permits herself to be hurt without realising that it is wrong for the guy to act that way doesn't even realise that there is something better out there for her.

i think you can draw great strength from the fact that you hold on to these ideals, values and beliefs - and you have a hope, and a faith that there is something much more beautiful to hold out for. can't say the same for some other girls that think guys who act inconsiderately and selfishly are just normal and that's all guys will ever be, and that they should just accept that.

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Well said. Hear that, girls!

I guess one of the most valuable lessons that I've learnt in the last year is: Don't settle for a guy who does not respect you. There's no need to compromise your principles to accomodate him out of fear of losing his love - because if it requires continuous compromise of your beliefs and self-respect on your part not to lose his love, then it's not true love on his part already and you'd be better off without it.

And true love on YOUR part does not mean giving in and making yourself any less out of trying to make something work, because that demeans him as well. But what it means is being able to take misunderstanding and accusation on the chin without losing your temper (which I failed most of the time unfortunately, heh); it means being able to let him leave even if he leaves with unreasonable resentment towards you or a distorted image of you. It means conducting yourself in a loving and gracious manner (again, I admit that I often failed to do this) and forgiving him... and, I guess, avoiding unpleasant situations which will cause you to lose your regard for him. It means giving up all claims to 'getting your own back' and 'letting the truth be known' (the reason I shut down my diary for a while - so that I would not write anything in it at a time I knew I could not have said anything without rancor).

And if forbearance and determined avoidance of self-pity means letting the whole world think that you have gotten over him, even if you are privately scandalised that anyone could possibly underestimate the sincerity and depth of your feelings by imagining that you could POSSIBLY get over him before a few years were up, then let them think so.

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A Note

Actually this last point does still frustrate me a lot. It is one misunderstanding that I have not yet been able to swallow in a gracious way - the thought that I can possibly be imagined to have gotten over Someone, the thought that MY affections can change so easily even if his can. It still makes me mad. Just because I endeavour to keep self-pity to a minimum, just because I avoid the subject for the sake of my dignity and his privacy (every time I have tried to write about What Happened I have ended up deleting it within 48 hours), just because I have been learning to enjoy life again instead of wallowing in poetic misery, does NOT mean... does NOT mean...

I once told a good friend of ours that sure, I knew that Someone had forgotten about me and from a practical point of view it was ridiculous of me to go on hanging to a feeling which only I felt. But as I said, "sometimes I feel that if I am ever able to stop loving [Someone] then love doesn't exist".

And it is not as if I am deliberately trying to hold on to something that was false (it wasn't) in order to prove the truth of a principle. Anyway I think that a principle like Love cannot be proved by examples, but its prior existence just makes examples pan out the way they do. It is not as if I am morbidly or obsessively holding on to something just to 'prove a point' or to make him look bad. I think it is just natural that true love does NOT get over someone so fast... because if you really love someone you don't even THINK about getting together with anyone else for years after the relationship has ended.

Yes, it is a matter of principle with me that I would not consider any romantic relationships for years after the conclusion of one. Common sense tells me to avoid the rebound, Christian decency tells me not to cheat another party by offering him a heart which is as yet so wounded and incomplete. But it is the poet in me, my superego rather than my emotive self, the Romantic, the feeler, the thinker, the poet who is also the policeman, who tells me with every fibre of my heart and mind and entire being (hah - to rip off that line from Mike Stackpole) that you just CANNOT get over anyone so fast.. that it will take years, years, before the emotive self will be ready to love again. True love is not so fickle.

It is a matter of principle. That is to say, it is a matter of my mind, my heart, of everything that makes me me. It is a matter of MYSELF. It is a matter of who I am. It is a matter of the manner in which I love. It is a guarantee that those whom I love, I love truly and extremely. I do not cheat those who love me by falling in and out of love at the drop of a hat (a betrayal and an insult to the one before, an injustice to the one after). And it may not matter to anyone much in this world with its barbaric practice of casual get-togethers and casual break-ups. But it matters to me.

And even if this means losing what people perceive as 'opportunities' to get attached and married, even if it means I'll be single forever, so what? My primary aim in life is not to get married, for goodness' sake. It is to live by my principles (principles which are not formed at my own whim, but based on Absolutes, based on a higher authority), principles which led me to choose a certain path in life and which I do not so easily cast aside!

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The end of the matter is simply that I am just as flawed a person as anybody else and, to look at my love life alone, I have made tons of mistakes. The mistakes I made were mistakes of timing, of trusting people who were not worth the trust, and of giving in to emotional blackmail and letting their love mean more to me than my self-love and my love for God. But through it all I have never made the mistake of not loving the other person enough, nor of not loving extremely.

After some hard lessons (for I was a slow learner), I know now that the three biggest mistakes one can possibly make in a relationship are

1. to not love God extremely,
2. to not love oneself extremely, and
3. to not love the other person extremely.

All three are a violation of God's absolutes for our happiness. Mistake #3 is, I guess, since I raised myself on poetry, the only one I could see to begin with. (Note: In response to Claire's tag, I agree, yes, once you've made Mistake #1 you HAVE made Mistake #3. But in that case it would also be true to say that once you've made any one of the three you've made them all, which is true but isn't the main force of my argument here heh... so for simplicity's sake please suspend non-reductionist ways of thinking for these few paragraphs :P)

I made Mistake #1 early in life (and have repented);
I made Mistake #2 at the age of 20 (and have repented);
but I have never made Mistake #3, and am not planning to. (Mistake #3 is what people make through casual get-togethers and break-ups.)

C'est tout.