“Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise… Love isn’t something natural.” -Erich Fromm
I’m a mental mess, unfit for social life and without any ambition. My only goal in life has always been to find love, that’s why I look so much at myself, because I know that’s the only place I can find it. But I like surfaces; I’m extremely superficial and it has always been my bane. How many times had I the chance of being happy and I’ve given up on it to seek further because the picture wasn’t perfect? Because the world is full of temptations and we wallow in options till we drown. Simple people, who know the value of happiness, don’t exchange it for anything once they have it, but we, spoiled children of affluence, always want more.
I liked her surface and I fell immediately in love with it. Other people need to see more surface before falling in love; they need to know the other person social and financial status and their plans for the future, but I just need beauty. Of course, when you meet someone for the first time, you just see their external beauty, but this is promising enough for the time being. I know that I’m superficial and that’s my Karma; I seek beauty in all its forms. Now, I’m not beautiful myself, that’s why maybe I seek beauty, but I’m full of beauty I’ve accumulated thanks to my natural sensitivity and intelligence. But you need to scratch my surface to see it, and I really make an effort not to take care of my surface. Maybe because, subconsciously, I don’t want a superficial person beside me, so I hide everything that can be valuable in the dating market. When I’m on a date, I never talk about money or anything that may sound expensive, like journeys or investment plans; my romantic nature forbids me to do that. Real poverty is not romantic at all, but the idea of someone being ready to suffer from deprivation with you out of love is one of the basis of romance for me. I also don’t pay attention to my looks, although I try to dress well on a date to show I care. Although I want a nice house of my own, I wouldn’t buy one until I marry and know where I’ll settle down, and meanwhile I don’t care where I live. I believe luxury is one of the greatest banes of spiritual strength, so I’d like to live as humbly as possible while I’m single.
So I’m opening myself to you so you can open yourself to me. I like your surface, but I want to see more. I want to feel you’re not here for my surface but for the beauty inside me. It’s this beauty I’ve been selecting among so many temptations which I want you to love. Because we’re finite beings, we’re so limited that we can’t cultivate all manifestations of beauty, we must choose the most valuable ones. I’m not against other forms of beauty than the ones I cultivate, but I can’t dedicate my time to them, because I would be neglecting what I believe are truer manifestations of beauty. Because life is about scratching the surface to reach the core, so we must give up on the more superficial layers. I like your surface, but I wanted more. You, on the contrary, didn’t like my surface and didn’t want more. Just an opposite set of feelings.
But another disillusionment shows me how to look beyond the surface, how to close my eyes to temptations, how to quieten my heart. Because when I met you, my heart told me: “She’s as romantic and idealistic as you are; she has your same values,” to rationalize its strong physical attraction towards you. But now I tell my heart: “She may still be idealistic and romantic and have strong values, but that doesn’t make her need us. In any case, my heart, how can we blame her? Just look at us. We still fall in love with the surface, although we seek to love the beauty inside.”
