A few days ago I was reading the news and came across the following article:
You can read the full article here. If you choose not to read the full article I’ll give you a brief summary of what it contains. If you have read it then feel free to skip the next paragraph.
A study carried out be researchers at Oxford University involving more than 500 participants, aged 18 or over, found that as we enter into a romantic relationship we do so at the cost of losing a few of our intimate friends. These friends are those who we would go to ‘at moments of crisis’. When we are in a fresh new relationship our support network can becomes smaller as we no longer spend as much quality time with those people that are close in our lives.
This topic of ‘love’ has been on my mind all summer. Love is a great thing, something the world really needs nowadays and we all know of it’s good aspects. But I’m going to look at it from the butt end and analyse some of the negative things or problems it can lead to.
Blind love or a blind you?
A few days after the beginning of Ramadhan I popped onto MySpace early in the morning just to check if I had any new messages or other notifications. It was 5.00 am so I wasn’t planning on staying for too long. In my inbox there was a message from a friend I had not spoken to for a good few months: “I could really do with talking to someone like you right now.” That’s all it said. It was sent just 5 minutes before so I signed onto MySpace chat to see if the person was online. She was. Turned out she was on holiday in Mexico visiting family and while there something had happened which upset her boyfriend back home here in England. No matter how many times she apologised and begged him to forgive her, she would still end up crying herself to sleep at night because of the hateful things he said. Another friend was madly in love with a guy who returned her love by calling her hurtful names and giving her nothing but grief. But being so head over heels in love she was just accepting it all; wiping away the tears of today hoping tomorrow would be better. Why the hell are you letting yourself be hurt so much?
People say love is blind but after thinking about it a bit and observing others in love, I’ve come to realise actually it’s not love which is blind. It will make YOU blind. Love is a good thing and being in love is great too. But some people are so obsessed by the whole thing to such an extent that they allow themselves to be used and trodden over repeatedly day after day and still cling onto the old memories of the way things were. Even when the other person obviously doesn’t ‘care’ any more and doesn’t ‘love’ them any more, they are unwilling to let go. Lying, cheating, breaking promises are all signs that maybe things have reached their end.
I guess you have to find out whether the happiness you derive from a relationship outweighs the trouble or tears it brings you. In some relationships you observe that one person spends their days in tears, in hurt and in sorrow and this has been going on for a very long time. It is those people especially who need to ask themselves whether the pains they face every day are worth it. When it comes to that stage, I think there are 2 choices. Firstly you can either keep going, hoping that things will get better. But how long will you wait? From what you can tell, it seems like the hurt isn’t going stop any time soon. The other choice I think, and most favourable one is letting go and saving yourself from a ship that has already started sinking and from which the other person took the lifeboat. Yes it’ll hurt too, but at least this time it wont be constant. At least this way the pain will lessen day by day and you can actually deal with it without having crap thrown at you all the time.
When you ask someone why they’re in a relationship from which the love and happiness has died, they either say, ‘because I love them’ or ‘I dunno.’ That’s when you know love has clouded their vision and is stopping them from seeing the pain they are allowing others to inflict on them. Like my lovely friend said, it can sometimes be insecurity and fear of being lonely. If you asked me, I’d rather be single and happy, than in a ‘relationship’ that would give me grey hair.
Nothing’s free, not even love
Back to the topic of the article that I have included above. Professor Dunbar, one of the members of the team that carried out this study says:
“The intimacy of a relationship – your emotional engagement with it – correlates very tightly with the frequency of your interactions with those individuals. If you don’t see people, the emotional engagement starts to drop off, and quickly.”
I think he’s got a very valid point. In our happiness of a new love, we spend so much time with them that sometimes we forget all those other people who were with us before. Those people, that helped us up every time we fell. Those people who we would run to in our times of need. It’s a big slap in the face to them when you no longer reply to their messages and texts or have time to go out with them or in some cases even have time to listen to them. Though people rarely ever say it out loud, but trust me they sure do feel it. And slowly slowly you begin to drift apart. It sucks.
I was discussing this with one of my friends yesterday and she said:
“Yes. It sure does. But in a way you can’t really blame anyone, it just happens yano.”
I agree with her completely. It isn’t really anyone’s fault as such but isn’t it a bit of a high price to pay for something that may not even last a week? And when it does screw-up, you’ve just lost yourself a friend who you would go to in such a situation. But it’s always avoidable right? You just have to play your cards right.
But then again, you may ask, you’ve never loved, how would you know? Question is, have I?
Posts
19 September 2010 at 00:33
Love hurts... But everthing hurts. "Everyone is going to hurt you, you just have to find the ones worth suffering for" and you do grow and learn through your experiences right? So getting f***ed up by love is not always a bad thing.
I do agree with the whole "love cost you friends"... Been there, done that. Both ends of the friendship actually! But I do believe that real, true friendships.. They aren't ever really 'lost'.. They're still there at the end of it all, understanding and not bitter.
I don't even know what my point is in this comment lol but you're not really surprised at that are you? =P
Annnddd finally.... HAVE YOU?? Lol =D
19 September 2010 at 16:03
it seems like the post is related to a personal experience.
so yes you have
19 September 2010 at 16:29
@ Sunshine Bubble: I agree with you about the experience. It is through experience we learn about people and learn who we can trust and who we can't.
Of course that's what true friendship is about. But like everything living it needs to be fed to be kept alive, and sometimes if you starve it for too long, it may just shrivel up and die.
And I bet you'd really like to know the answer to that aye? =P.
@ Anonymous: The scenarios / happenings described above occurred with friends and people I know. It was more observational than talking from experience. ;)
19 September 2010 at 18:19
most of us are in love for the sake of being in love =]
it is usually just lust or infatuation =/
great post btw!
19 September 2010 at 19:50
okay
when you are in love with someone its between you and that person. Not between you and all your friends so its inevitable that your friends are gonna be a little cut off from you.
19 September 2010 at 22:43
I know I've discussed this with you before (recently), but something else came to mind when I read that...
Maybe someone who shows you such a deep and strong love (as in a relationship), even occasionally, is better than noone showing it at all?
And in terms of losing friends while in a relationship; balance is needed. I'm sure most people don't reject their friends, not intentionally, but perhaps a number of things lead to you not needing a friend's support as often as you used to, while they may no longer come to you as often, as they know there is another person in your life too. Friends have not been replaced, their 'loads' from the friendship are merely lightened. And as the saying goes, many hands make light work.
I don't think you can put it down to, or generalise that, everyone dumps their friends when they begin a relationship. However, you could probably say the reverse of friends feel dumped.
I'm not sure if any of that made sense, but I'm too tired to read back through it, so fingers crossed.... I'm sure you'll argue it with me anyway!
A x x
20 September 2010 at 11:17
@ Anonymous: I agree completely with what you say. But it is sometimes noticed that there is a complete cut off as apposed to a decrease in interaction. Like for example in a whole week, can a person not spare an hour for a phone call or cup of coffe for a good friend?
@ A: Hmm what you say may be true but if it is occasionally then there is the risk of it being more for the sake of feeling sorry for the person at a given time than being true, continuous love.
Think of it in terms of fishing. Sometimes you may pick up a pick up a piece of junk, but you haven't pulled it out the water yet and so don't know what is really is. But it gets your heart racing, you're well excited. But when you actually pull it out and find it's just a boot, it's annoying, and causes disappointment. Until you remove the boot from the line, you wont be able to catch more fish.
No of course, I agree, no-one conciously dumps their friends. But like one of my friends said, 'it just happens you know'.
I understood it. So it's okay =P.
=]
x
20 September 2010 at 22:06
Okay now that ive read your entire break down on this entire topic I am beginning to have mixed thoughts. All your fault btw.
With the first part of your post about love being blind etc, i think the reason why most people hold on to a loveless relationship is because its all one sided. You are totally in love with this person and they dont wanna see a single hair of yours. The thing is its not their fault they dont feel attracted to you any more or they've fallen out of love, that just happened, right? and we shouldn't take it personally, but we do.
And then moving onto losing friends, i think alot needs to be understood here rather than just assumed, yano? maintaining that balance and connection between The One [we are pretending its a Happy Ever After] and The Friend. A bit like how a mother balances her family and a career. Get me? And also i think you gorra be not-feeling-so-well if you think that everythings gonna be hunky dory with the friendship when youre friend is in a relationship [with The One] i mean duuude, you were gonna get kicked out one day or another, nothing lasts forever pal :P
Just kidding, Scrap that!
This was interesting! :D
21 September 2010 at 10:24
But if you spend your whole time fishing, first you get the boot, then a minnow, then a slightly bigger fish, and so on... when do you stop searching for better and better, and decide that you have, as someone said to me, "found your nemo"? Then there's the risk of having a big, good fish, throwing it back in case something better bites, but it doesn't, and all you get is boots and minnows for ever after. And I'm afraid I'm going to have to mention that the fishing metaphor leads me to think that fishing is a fairly solitary 'sport' (though I did see a man who'd taken his family with him; wife and 3 kids under 5 by the look of them, and they were all bored out of their skulls... but back to the point...) which means leaving your friends not to be with the other half, but even just looking for someone.
In terms of relationships; I think a lot of people (me included) stay in the relationship because there's always that hope it might change, occasional is better than never, and you appreciate it all the more, and hope in a relationship is better than no relationship at all (it may not be, but that's what goes on in your head). I'm not sure it's them feeling sorry for you... feeling sorry implies they know there are no feelings of that sort towards you, and that they know the relationship is basically over, in which case, they'd want out.
And in terms of friends; Life is a balancing act. The more you take on, the more you have to balance. Balancing socially, it seems, is something very few people are good at. Why look at the why for too long, when we should look at the how can we improve it? (like the good old fashioned sixth form chem experiments; method, observations, analysis, improvements)
A x x
21 September 2010 at 10:56
@ Smiley: It's always my fault init? But I agree with all that you've said.
@ A: You're right in a way. And I guess it boils down to personal views. I can't disagree with what you have said at all. It makes sense. But if you freeze in one place in life, you'll never see the beauty of the rest of the world and the world may end up leaving you behind.
And that question put it better than I could ever have done. =]
x
21 September 2010 at 21:05
You're such a liar! You're much better with words than I am. Everything you've ever said to me (well, the sentences you manage to put all the words into) has a poetry about it.
I was also watching Dr Who earlier, and a rather suitable quote came up "One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel". Everyone has both of these aspects in them, the statement could easily refer to the two sides of one person, don't you think?
I'm not saying it's right to stay with someone in a "love is blind" scenario'd relationship, but prevention is better than the cure? and to prevent something, you must know it's cause.
A x x
3 October 2010 at 06:20
How interesting that you end that beautiful and yet controversial post with such a cheeky bugger type question. lol!
I'm not going to say much else here. Just curious as to if my love story(s) was one of the ones that you 'observed' before writing this lovely post...?
Yours Truly x
p.s This was by far the best out of all the posts. ;)
6 October 2010 at 10:53
Can't people just wait? You know for the right guy/girl to come along. Why get in a hurried relationship?
Must be really sucky when you finally see sense, turn around and find out you are standing alone. See, that's why they say make use of your brain. =P
Great article. I'm forwarding this to my friend =P
21 May 2011 at 13:03
Wow! This was me.. I mean, I was just like that months ago. I kept on trying to fix something that I know cannot be fixed. Your line.. "If you asked me, I’d rather be single and happy, than in a ‘relationship’ that would give me grey hair.".. it really hit me.
The main reason why I kept on holding on for the relationship (which lasted for 10years.. tsk) was because i really don't want to be alone. From year5, I began to feel that something's amiss.. and there's this gap that I just don't understand. For years, I kept on trying to bridge that gap.. while my partner obviously didn't care. People then asked me, why am I trying too hard.. My usual answer was .. "because I love him".. which was kinda a lie. The honest answer should have been.. "I don't want him to leave me.. I don't want to be alone.".. I guess, love can truly make us blind.
It was a wrong move, I know.. but I just kept on going... until the day came that I've had enough. But of course, I'm not giving up on love.. but I now truly TRULY TRULY understand that there's nothing wrong with being single. I'm not lonely and I'm not alone. I have true friends and I have my family. My prince will come someday.. that one person who'll give me all that I deserve.
Having the guest post on my blog is also an opportunity for me to share my inputs.. based on my own experience. It's okay to fight for love, as long as you deem it worthy.. Thanks for sharing this link, Nas. I appreciate it.. :)