I'm Hiring a New Cupid...My Old One Got Fired
After many years, a lot 0f crying and many many disappointments, I’ve decided to fire my Cupid.
He definitely didn’t make the right choices. Cupid shot his arrows at random and made me go through impossible loves over and over again. So, from this point on, I’m looking for a new, serious and responsible Cupid, one that will choose my partners wisely.
“Making love blind is poetic nonsense. It’s much more wise to take the blindfold off and forever return the love his eye emits.”
-Blaise Pascal-
Throughout our lives we have partners that work out really well, okay or horribly. In these last two cases we tend to think: what was that fat flying blindfolded baby thinking, to make me fall in love with this person?
Dr. Ortigue showed that the feeling of love activates twelve areas in the brain that work together to secrete great doses of dopamine, oxytocin, and adrenaline. And all of these substances create a feeling of euphoria.
Therefore, love at first sight is not just possible, it’s based in body chemistry.
10 principles to follow in order to not die of love
The Argentinian psychologist, Walter Riso, in his book “Manual to Keep from Dying of Love” he gives us 10 principles for the survival of affection itself. They are as follows:
1. If they no longer love you, learn to lose and walk away with dignity
Heartbreak hurts, it hurts deeply, but you have to learn from it and walk away. Just remember that unbridled passion we felt as adolescents and try to feel what feelings we cause each other now: none.
There are no magic pills against heartbreak, you just have to brace the grief with strength.
2. Getting married to your lover is like pouring salt on your dessert
A relationship with a lover and a relationship with a lover that becomes your spouse are two radically different things. And you should think very hard if you’re willing to assume these differences.
One of the most important questions you should ask yourself is: Are you capable of trusting in the fidelity of someone that was once your lover and whom you now share your life with?
3. Neither with you, nor without you? Run as far as you can!
Many people find themselves in relationships where one of the people lives in a constant indecision. In these cases, if we want to avoid suffering, the best thing to do is to get as much distance from them as possible.
4. Power resides within whoever needs the other person less
It’s all about handling your relationships in a healthy way, with detachment. It’s about being free to love ourselves and, at the same time, share with the other person.
5. One nail doesn’t always drive out another: sometimes they both become stuck inside you
Sometimes when you end a romantic relationship, you look for another person to substitute the one you lost. That’s not a good idea, it will just make you unhappy and will make the other person suffer.
We need to go through our phase of grief, learn and enjoy our solitude. And only when we feel alright again should we start to look for new relationships.
6. Avoid irrational sacrifices: don’t sacrifice yourself so your partner will be happy
If you think you need to be miserable for your partner to be happy, you have a problem. Usually this is due to a self-esteem issue that you should work on in order to have healthy and happy relationships.
7. If you can’t feel or see the love, it’s not working or doesn’t exist
You need to ask yourself something: Does your partner love you how you want them to love you?
If you don’t feel good about it or something is worrying you, talk about it, communicate it, make them know or maybe that partner may not suit you.
8. Don’t idealize your loved one: see them as they are, raw and with no anesthesia
In the first phase of infatuation, just as we mentioned previously, we tend to idealize our partner and not see their defects. But healthy love has to be realistic. We should see their flaws and also their virtues.
9. Love has no age, but lovers do
It’s possible to feel love at any age, but when there’s a big difference between ages within the couple, the relationship becomes more complicated, because both people are going through very different moments in their lives. It’s advisable to think about and evaluate all of these aspects and to be very realistic in these cases.
10. Some breakups are enlightening, they let you know what you don’t want in love
We should also learn from breakups, we should learn what we don’t want, what we don’t like, what makes us feel bad. It’s necessary to develop a “no wisdom“. In other words, we might not know what we want in love, but we should know what we don’t want.
Therefore, it’s not about changing Cupid, but rather about changing ourselves to be capable of loving ourselves and others.