Given a choice, most of us would like to be perfect at one thing – love. Like everything in life, one may stumble in the dark and bump into someone special; otherwise, life is spent pining for love in the echoes and trodden footprints of a lonely mind. The idea of romantic love developed from the Platonic tradition where love was a desire for beauty and not to be consummated. Modern romantic love is more in line with Aristotle’s description of the special love that two people find in each other’s virtues - one soul and two bodies.
I used to believe in the love songs of romantic ages, a la Don Juan and Madame Venus, an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlit night, followed by a father’s curse, a mother’s moans and the moral commentaries of neighbours, rather than in correctness and propriety measured by cultural yardsticks. If love did not know how to give and take without restrictions, it was not love, but a transaction that never failed to rise above cost-benefit analysis. But life has taught me somewhat different lessons over time. For instance, can we really believe Melania, for instance, is in love with Donald Trump?
As I grow older, there are more moments to remember and sometimes I think we’re not really people but moments themselves. Sometimes I stand on the rooftop of my existence, arms stretched out, begging for more and there are other moments when I only stand and stare, watching the world slip by. In the latter, I watch Melania Trump looking adoringly at her husband taking the oath of his office on camera, and then look absolutely miserable when she thought she was off camera. This took me several years back, when we had the same national drama played off camera in this country. I was not in contention personally, but it hurts me to this day that the rich and powerful man won the woman’s hand (though chicken comes home to roost in the public eye as I write these lines). Why do we always forget what we want to remember and remember what we want to forget?
We all know that emancipation could make it possible for a woman to be human in the truest sense. Everything within her that craves assertion and creativity would reach its fullest expression as artificial barriers break, and the journey towards greater freedom cleared of every trace of centuries of submission and slavery begins. This may be a dream as far as Pakistan is concerned, because women are often denied their basic legal, moral and religious right to choose their life partners. It is also true that our culture, religious beliefs and our primitive emotions often prevent us from highlighting this most profound subject. However, what we all fail to understand is: why does the rich and powerful man still win in the West where women are supposed to be free?
Economists call this “compensating differences” and Jimmy Soul’s song, “If You Wanna Be Happy” explains the concept very well. I suspect the unattractive old man essentially tells the beautiful young woman, “I can’t compete for your hand with a handsome guy, but I’m going to offset my handicap by offering you a higher price.” This is unfair but there are many real-world examples of compensating differences. Even though Nan Cholay are cheap, they outsell pizza on daily basis. Less-preferred Toyotas compete effectively with Mercedes-Benzes and artificial jewelry competes with fine jewelry. In each case, the lower price compensates for the difference. You might say people are not cars, cuisine or jewelry, but they respond to the same economic imperatives.
Nevertheless, even today, people are still enchanted as they stumble into love. In the process, the person who is the object of their love becomes the focus of all their hopes, longings and ideals. They are transformed by the imagination from a perfectly decent human being, which they perhaps are, into something astonishing – the best person who has walked the earth. Stendhal thinks of this as a kind of ‘crystallisation’ where everything gets suspended in the moist and salty atmosphere of our imaginations. Gradually we get to see the other person as they really are, not as our fantasies have made them, and the magic wears off. We toss them aside until along comes another interesting twig. The point isn’t that we should try to avoid falling in love, but to understand that falling in love is imagining (rather than actually knowing) what the other person is like.
Giving up is usually the place where we have got tired of thinking. It is time we bring variables called ‘chance’, ‘exception’ and ‘if all else is equal’ into play.
Some men find themselves wondering: do women fall for a person who is funny or one who is ‘intellectual’? What is the truth of the matter, especially given that some women claim humour to be the most valued trait in a partner because it brings fun to the relationship? For starters, obviously, if you meet someone who you can laugh with, it naturally means your future relationship is more likely to be fun and filled with good cheer. But there may be more at play here. Research tells us that when men make jokes and women laugh at them, it may be part of a powerful script in the mating game. Humour is also a tool that men use to read if women are interested in them. The idea that humour is a sign of intelligence perhaps doesn’t give humour its due credit. Although humour is often associated with intelligence, there is no scientific link between the two. So perhaps men can forget money, good looks and suave lines: a good sense of humour might help them compete where they lack wealth or power.
Wooing is hard work. Disappointment, from time to time, also crushes us when a chosen paramour rejects us. Men claim that they get hurt more than they deserve and they fall in love more than the women deserve. But, men are often accused of having only one thing on their mind. And so, songwriter Lou Reed famously protested as he spent his perfect day “drinking sangria in the park, feeding animals in the zoo, then later a movie, too, and home”.
Love is often linked to admiration - we love because we find another person exciting and sweet. But there’s another aspect to love in which we are moved by the need of the other. We are often intensely lonely in our suffering. In an upbeat world that worships success, our miseries feel shameful. We are not only sad, we’re sad at being the only ones that seem to be so. We need help in finding a sense of perspective in some of our worst experiences. Men, unfortunately, have a bad reputation for providing emotional support in such times.
We all hate that guy at the party - the obnoxious one fluttering from girl to girl, chatting and being over friendly. Unfortunately, according to a German study, such men, who are so obviously in love with themselves, do apparently ‘fare better’ when it comes to approaching and getting the girl. The research concluded that high levels of social confidence in such people appeared to attract partners.
However, it isn’t all hearts and flowers for these men. Experts also say that while narcissistic men may be more successful in their initial interactions with women, they do much worse when it comes to long-lasting relationships…
Dr. M. Aamer Sarfraz is a Consultant Psychiatrist and Visiting Professor in London. He is the author of “People, Places & Pickles” and “Talking Points”
I used to believe in the love songs of romantic ages, a la Don Juan and Madame Venus, an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlit night, followed by a father’s curse, a mother’s moans and the moral commentaries of neighbours, rather than in correctness and propriety measured by cultural yardsticks. If love did not know how to give and take without restrictions, it was not love, but a transaction that never failed to rise above cost-benefit analysis. But life has taught me somewhat different lessons over time. For instance, can we really believe Melania, for instance, is in love with Donald Trump?
As I grow older, there are more moments to remember and sometimes I think we’re not really people but moments themselves. Sometimes I stand on the rooftop of my existence, arms stretched out, begging for more and there are other moments when I only stand and stare, watching the world slip by. In the latter, I watch Melania Trump looking adoringly at her husband taking the oath of his office on camera, and then look absolutely miserable when she thought she was off camera. This took me several years back, when we had the same national drama played off camera in this country. I was not in contention personally, but it hurts me to this day that the rich and powerful man won the woman’s hand (though chicken comes home to roost in the public eye as I write these lines). Why do we always forget what we want to remember and remember what we want to forget?
We all know that emancipation could make it possible for a woman to be human in the truest sense. Everything within her that craves assertion and creativity would reach its fullest expression as artificial barriers break, and the journey towards greater freedom cleared of every trace of centuries of submission and slavery begins. This may be a dream as far as Pakistan is concerned, because women are often denied their basic legal, moral and religious right to choose their life partners. It is also true that our culture, religious beliefs and our primitive emotions often prevent us from highlighting this most profound subject. However, what we all fail to understand is: why does the rich and powerful man still win in the West where women are supposed to be free?
Economists call this “compensating differences” and Jimmy Soul’s song, “If You Wanna Be Happy” explains the concept very well. I suspect the unattractive old man essentially tells the beautiful young woman, “I can’t compete for your hand with a handsome guy, but I’m going to offset my handicap by offering you a higher price.” This is unfair but there are many real-world examples of compensating differences. Even though Nan Cholay are cheap, they outsell pizza on daily basis. Less-preferred Toyotas compete effectively with Mercedes-Benzes and artificial jewelry competes with fine jewelry. In each case, the lower price compensates for the difference. You might say people are not cars, cuisine or jewelry, but they respond to the same economic imperatives.
Nevertheless, even today, people are still enchanted as they stumble into love. In the process, the person who is the object of their love becomes the focus of all their hopes, longings and ideals. They are transformed by the imagination from a perfectly decent human being, which they perhaps are, into something astonishing – the best person who has walked the earth. Stendhal thinks of this as a kind of ‘crystallisation’ where everything gets suspended in the moist and salty atmosphere of our imaginations. Gradually we get to see the other person as they really are, not as our fantasies have made them, and the magic wears off. We toss them aside until along comes another interesting twig. The point isn’t that we should try to avoid falling in love, but to understand that falling in love is imagining (rather than actually knowing) what the other person is like.
In an upbeat world that worships success, our miseries feel shameful. We are not only sad, we're sad at being the only ones that seem to be so
Giving up is usually the place where we have got tired of thinking. It is time we bring variables called ‘chance’, ‘exception’ and ‘if all else is equal’ into play.
Some men find themselves wondering: do women fall for a person who is funny or one who is ‘intellectual’? What is the truth of the matter, especially given that some women claim humour to be the most valued trait in a partner because it brings fun to the relationship? For starters, obviously, if you meet someone who you can laugh with, it naturally means your future relationship is more likely to be fun and filled with good cheer. But there may be more at play here. Research tells us that when men make jokes and women laugh at them, it may be part of a powerful script in the mating game. Humour is also a tool that men use to read if women are interested in them. The idea that humour is a sign of intelligence perhaps doesn’t give humour its due credit. Although humour is often associated with intelligence, there is no scientific link between the two. So perhaps men can forget money, good looks and suave lines: a good sense of humour might help them compete where they lack wealth or power.
Wooing is hard work. Disappointment, from time to time, also crushes us when a chosen paramour rejects us. Men claim that they get hurt more than they deserve and they fall in love more than the women deserve. But, men are often accused of having only one thing on their mind. And so, songwriter Lou Reed famously protested as he spent his perfect day “drinking sangria in the park, feeding animals in the zoo, then later a movie, too, and home”.
Love is often linked to admiration - we love because we find another person exciting and sweet. But there’s another aspect to love in which we are moved by the need of the other. We are often intensely lonely in our suffering. In an upbeat world that worships success, our miseries feel shameful. We are not only sad, we’re sad at being the only ones that seem to be so. We need help in finding a sense of perspective in some of our worst experiences. Men, unfortunately, have a bad reputation for providing emotional support in such times.
We all hate that guy at the party - the obnoxious one fluttering from girl to girl, chatting and being over friendly. Unfortunately, according to a German study, such men, who are so obviously in love with themselves, do apparently ‘fare better’ when it comes to approaching and getting the girl. The research concluded that high levels of social confidence in such people appeared to attract partners.
However, it isn’t all hearts and flowers for these men. Experts also say that while narcissistic men may be more successful in their initial interactions with women, they do much worse when it comes to long-lasting relationships…
Dr. M. Aamer Sarfraz is a Consultant Psychiatrist and Visiting Professor in London. He is the author of “People, Places & Pickles” and “Talking Points”