Tag Archives: love

We All Need Someone to Look at Us.

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It’s an astute observation, though some of the context of his examples is lost without the rest of the book.

We all need someone to look at us. We can be divided into four categories to the kind of look we wish to live under.

The first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words for the look of the public. That is the case with the German singer, the American actress, and even the tall, stooped editor with the big chin. He was accustomed to his readers, and when one day the Russians banned his newspaper, he had the feeling that that atmosphere was suddenly a hundred times thinner. Nothing could replace the look of unknown eyes. He thought he would suffocate. Then one day he realized that he was constantly being followed, bugged, and surreptitiously photographed in the street. Suddenly he had anonymous eyes on him and he could breathe again! He began making theatrical speeches to the microphones in his wall. In the police, he had found his lost public.

The second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes. They are the tireless hosts of cocktail parties and dinners. They are happier than the people in the first category, who, when they lose their public, have the feeling that the lights have gone out in the room of their lives. This happens to nearly all of them sooner or later. People in the second category, on the other hand, can always come up with the eyes they need. Marie-Claude and her daughter belong in the second category.

Then there is the third category, the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love. Their situation is as dangerous as the situation of people in the first category. One day the eyes of their beloved will close, and the room will go dark. Tereza and Tomas belong in the third category.

And finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers. Franz, for example. He traveled to the borders of Cambodia only for Sabina. As the bus bumped along the Thai road, he could feel her eyes fixed on him in a long stare. — Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

On Being Lovelorn

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I never thought girls had cooties. I always had crushes, always the starry-eyed hopeless romantic, and unfortunately, almost always lovelorn. This is the way of things when you feel that love should be shared and celebrated, whether it’s platonic or romantic, whether you love someone or are in love with someone: you “love not wisely but too well”, and it goes unrequited. The bright side is that because you allow yourself that freedom of love, you learn to accept it. You’re able to pick up the pieces, and move on — perhaps not forgetting, but accepting, and forging forward.

But sometimes, it doesn’t work like that. There are some that for whatever reason, you don’t forget them, and you can’t accept that they’re gone, and forging forward seems an insurmountable task. The ones that, when you’ve got yourself back together, and you think you’re ready, they pop back up in one fashion or another. A phone call, an email, a picture, running into them on the street, just the glance, the hint, and you’re right back where you were: picking up the pieces, and trying to forget how they felt in your arms, their smell, their voice soft in your ear.

It doesn’t matter how strong or aloof you are, how stable a personality you have or logical you are. You can be a player, or a saint, or be able to cope with disasters both epic and personal without breaking a sweat. You can be inured to love’s foibles (or think you are) all you want, there’s still that person out there that bypasses all your defenses and coping mechanisms and destroys you, without trying or even wanting to. Pointing out their faults doesn’t help, knowing you should move on doesn’t help, knowing there are others out there doesn’t help. It’s too late: you are lost.

I’ve loved a lot of people in my past. And I’ll love many more before I’m through. I’ve been in love, and have been lucky and blessed enough to be loved in return, and will be in love again. I know this. And one day, I may well finally be over her. But not today.
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