Acceptable Standards Of Love
Closing a massive blind spot
In an earlier post, I had written about my recent learnings about love. But that was just a laundry list of traits I wished to see in a potential partner.
I recently picked the book 'All About Love' by Bell Hooks, and it suddenly changed my perspective about love. It said that care and abuse can coexist together in family and romantic relationships. Nevertheless, we tend to characterise this combination as love. But this is not true. In the author's opinion, acts of care don't necessarily indicate love.
This got me thinking about what love means to me. I discussed this with my therapist and discovered that everyone's needs and definition of love emerge from what they missed in childhood. Suddenly, I had the 'aha' moment where I realised that I had not thought about the standards of love that I should accept in the first place.
So, I picked up my notebook and started listing the ingredients of love that would meet my needs. My needs, in descending order of importance, are as follows.
Respect
Fidelity
Trust
Understanding
Reciprocity
Mutual admiration
Communication
I drew a Venn diagram highlighting the overlap of personal traits over the basic standards of love. The basic standards should always be met, while there can be some compromise over personality traits.
These made a lot of sense. Of course, these would be the basic ingredients of any healthy relationship. But these are exceptionally important in a romantic relationship. And it takes a lot of work to get the basics right in any domain. Once I wrote these words, I had to substantiate them further.
Respect
For starters, the person should respect your efforts and time. If someone is late to a date, they should have the courtesy to at least apologise. They should also not make personal remarks about others in a derogatory manner. It could be about the waiter, a stranger or their exes. The person should generally respect everyone irrespective of their social status.
Fidelity
I should not be made to feel like an option. If they have ex issues or want to check out other dudes, I should never be in the equation. That's about it. I am okay with being rejected for whatever reason. But the lack of basic dignity is a clear dealbreaker.
Trust
There must be a basic level of trust. Mistakes can happen. And the degree of errors can vary. But one must not assume bad intent in any scenario. The lack of confidence in my words or outright rejection of my point of view due to lack of trust should never be a possibility. Of course, facts, discussion and debate must always happen, but my words should be trusted if there are no hard facts to contradict them.
Understanding
My emotions and needs should be understood. I may need to phrase it the right way. But, if there is no acknowledgement of my feelings or a deliberate attempt to disregard my thoughts and words there is no way love can exist.
Reciprocity
If I do something nice or even romantic, these acts must be reciprocated. A compromise on my part regarding something from my side must make space for a reciprocal compromise on some other similar issue. Without this, love tends to become one-sided. And it is no longer a mutual thing.
Mutual Admiration
A certain level of mutual admiration is essential to feeling loved. Constant focus on some deficiency is probably at the root of stale love. If a person can't see the positives of a person and weigh them against certain negatives, they are finding reasons not to love you.
Communication
An effort to communicate about how much a person loves another is quite essential. This comes only later, but it should happen at some point. Of course, one has to communicate well on a variety of topics. But there must be some talk about how much we love each other. If only one person says, "I love you", while the other states, "I am not sure", then there is no love (at least at that very moment).
If you think I’ve missed something very basic or have any opinions about this writeup, do leave a comment. But I feel this is an exhaustive list of basic standards that should be met in a romantic relationship. They might not be universal, but I would like to believe that these are true for a large majority.
