Loving the Idea of Someone

Loving the Idea of Someone

This happens, I can attest to it.

Some may conflate this phenomenon with worshiping and paying feasance to a god or a higher power. Steinbeck wrote a book called To a God Unknown.  Perhaps.  Sure. How can you love an unknown entity?

But unseen or "unknown" higher powers are safer, in many respects, to give honor to as a being of adoration, worship, and love. It is like giving respects to something huge, a bit like gravity, or the sun, or the sky or the ocean.

There is ample evidence of their existence despite their mysterious absence. Gravity is obvious but invisible. The sun, that amazing star of our humble solar system, is visible but hard to really see. With you eyes or your mind. The sky and ocean are endless: you cannot wrap your understanding around them, really. A bit like the divine.

God, or the Gods, or gods (lower case), demi-gods ... heroes or crushes, fantasies or day dreams... They are more ethereal.

Growing up I learned a fashion of worshiping God, and it was good to me. I learned to love it, to crave it, to love Him, and He loved me. I loved God the Father. I loved Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten.

The Bible is full of false gods; the people of God are constantly chastened for seeking after others than the One True God, and He was jealous... He would smite them for their turning away.

And surely he would smite me, because I knew that He was Powerful and Just. If I turned from Him, it would not be good. And we all do turn at our times, of course, but there is that method called repentance. We can be fixed, made right before God.

I knew that the sun rose, I knew that God was real. He counted the score.

I knew that lust was bad, and true love was the ideal. Lust was a temporary feeling of pleasure and wound up leaving you lower, really... Love was genuine and clean and long lasting. It left you higher and uplifted, edified. It was pure. True love is the best. It lasts forever! Or so I had learned.

I came to a point where I was tired of the temporary and wanted something, someone more lasting and pure. To focus, to concentrate, not to be tossed and thrown like the waves of the sea.

One day, (it was a night really), I found the focus of my attentions, perhaps affections, and I determined that that person was the one for me. It made sense. I thought that she made sense.

I thought I felt it, and that I felt a love that I believed was that person. However, I was in love with the idea of the person more than the actual person. But it helped me not feel so tossed and turned. 

I thought that I was loving God better, and things made more sense to me by thinking of that person. Or the idea of the person, as it turned out to be. Some might explain it away as an overblown crush, or an infatuation. Sure, call it those.

And, with the weeks and months and years, that feeling more or less remained, but it was probably not a healthy thing, to love the idea of the person more than the loving, or even knowing and more realistically interacting with, the person themself.

I tried, by letter or in person, but it was never quite right, and there had to be too much pressure (looking back), coming just from me alone. Let alone her or everyone else. It was, at the end of the day, weird, sure. And, somehow I thought that it was right, despite the awkardness, the distances, and the time passed, because other things in my life were more or  less right, and this part seemed to make sense.

Although I relented to the overall strange scenario of it not being right, at least not for that time being; I allowed myself to have other relationships and "loves", and things went that way, away from the idea of the person that I had fancied myself dedicated to all those years.

Later, maybe eight years after the original "crush", or idea of being in love, which, again, was my idea of really loving, or at least not lusting continuously, things actually seemed to maybe be falling into place. Things changed abruptly with a whirlwind romance and a marraige.

And that did not involve me.

Phew! After all that time, the end was known. And, that strange but tantalizing idea dissipated, disappeared. Well, the idea of that particular person. Also, let it be said: I was not pining on the idea of that person all that time, there were others that I actually grew to know somewhat. And love, and have feelings for, whatever...

There is more to the story, more details.

But for now I will say: Loving the idea of someone, a real human on earth, as opposed to an immortal God or some lofty concept like God or a noble ideal like country or truth or humility or charity or humanity can be wrong.

I did it. I tried it.

It had its benefits, but I must say.

Get to know someone before you become enamored of them from afar. Have a basic relationship that develops. Don't get it backward.

Crushes and being gob struck is okay; do not let that be the reality of who you think that person is.

It could be true. But it's not the healthy way to let it happen.

Better, fall in love with the idea of loving someone that you know, and grow to know.

Makes sense to me all these years later.

Best of luck, and God bless you to love and live. Joyfully, with the full backing of God. And yourself, and your partner.