BPB on Love & Choice
As the 14th of February — St Valentine’s Day (it’s not too late to pop to Clintons) — approaches, I’ve been reflecting on whether or not ‘falling in love’ could be considered as something we choose. We are met with imagery all the time that suggests that being in love is not a choice. I have already used a phrase that suggests the opposite — ‘falling in love’ — when one ‘falls’ it’s usually an accident, and often painful. ‘Falling’ is not something that you choose; intuitively at least. And consider Cupid with his arrows; it’s not your choice as to whether you’re struck by an arrow. If anything, this seems closer to an affliction — something you actively do not want — rather than something that you choose. So, to what extent is this imagery reflective of reality? Especially today, where more and more people are finding love online — seemingly choosing a match after considering the candidate’s looks, interests, occupation, and so on? Can love be considered as something that we choose?
Of course, as with pretty much anything, decisions are made about love all the time. Whether to take your ‘casual’ relationship to the next level, whether to ask your partner to move in with you, whether to initiate sexual contact and so on. These are decisions about physical events; decisions about what you say and do. But to what extent do we have any control over how we feel? Whilst it may be true that asking my partner to move in with me means that our love develops and deepens — can it be said that I have explicitly chosen to deepen my love for my partner? How much feeling must be already present before I can make decisions about these other things?
Say you meet a beautiful boy or girl and you hit it off. You’re overcome with feelings — perhaps you might call it something other than ‘love’ at this stage, but you’re aware of the potential. It’s the sweaty palms/blushing face/butterflies in your stomach stage. Now, you have several options. Option 1: you’re already in a relationship/you don’t want a relationship and so you choose to thwart the feelings you’re having and deliberately not act upon them. Option 2: you may choose to actively pursue the cute guy/girl. Option 3: you might just choose to do nothing and hope he/she approaches you. All of these three possibilities, arguably, count as choices. They seem to be deliberate actions or non-actions — some possibly conducive to love, some not. But the initial feeling — the jittery excitement — it seems unlikely that this is something you had any control over. It’s undeliberate, unconscious and inarticulable.
To what extent do we have any choice over whom we fall in love with? Is it purely a game of chance or do we succeed in evaluating possible options? Terms like ‘we were made for each other’ and ‘Mr Right’ suggest that it’s pure luck as to whether or not we ever happen to bump into them. But whether or not you are inclined to believe that there is one ‘perfect person’ out there in the world for you, it still seems to be the case that who we fall in love with is beyond our control. Often, the person we love is someone who hurts us. Or we may fall for someone who, reason tells us, we ought not to fall for; like our teacher or our brother’s wife. If we possessed any control over who we fell in love with, it seems to follow that we might choose to love someone who made us happy and didn’t ruin our family relationships, or whatever the case may be. We may be able to pick out potentials on ‘Tinder’ or ‘Coffee meets Bagel’ (my personal favourite) but we cannot choose to fall for them. Unfortunately, it seems to me, we are entirely at love’s mercy.
Stendhal writes in his book entitled ‘Love’: “It is because we can never understand the whys are wherefores of our feelings that even the wisest men are fanatical about such things as music.” I believe that if we cannot fully understand our feelings — and often it is the case that we can’t, especially when it comes to love — then we are unable to argue that they are somehow something that we choose or decide upon; at least in the way that we usually ‘choose’ or ‘decide’ things. It is within the first, passion-filled stages of love where it seems least like a decision. We become swept up in feeling and all logic and rationality that we usually associate with choice-making are absent. We can decide to stay with someone forever — but we can’t decide to love them forever. It seems to me that that makes love all the more precious.
Thoughts, Questions, Comments:
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