Platitudes and other false "truisms"

In a breakup, or during a rocky patch in a relationship, the platitudes come out full-force.

No, thank you.

Two that have particularly gotten my goat recently are, "Love someone for who they are, not who you want them to be," and another, which was a quote that Chris posted online which spoke of letting someone who leaves you go because your destiny is never tied to them (I looked for the quote online and found it's not only attributed to the wrong person and has been reposted about a billion times incorrectly, it's also completely rewritten from the original version, which was in a blog entry by Tony McCollum, but is actually a quote by a preacher named TD Jakes; the original text is far more palatable; I'm guessing McCollum paraphrased Jakes at some point and that's where the "quote" comes from).

Anyway.

Love someone for who they are, not who you want them to be.

Why does everyone latch onto this load of horse dung? You love someone because you love them. What ever reason or reasons those are. If they're an alcoholic, they're always going to be an alcoholic, but you can want them to be on the wagon, and you can help them get there. You love them in SPITE of this huge obstacle, and you want the best for them, you want them to be better. And you should. And, if every hobby they have isn't something you're into, you decide if that's worth it to you, to hold onto that love. If they're not on the same life path you are, again, decide if the love is worth it. But that has nothing to do with the love itself; you love the person for other things that have nothing to do with those things. I have a friend who travels constantly by himself, goes out to bars and parties by himself, the woman he's with doesn't want kids or marriage. But he loves her. And he's been with her for years, and will probably stay with her 'til they die. When he is home with her, they cook together, they have "craft night," and make Halloween costumes (months in advance). They have their bonds. They decided that, even though their goals don't match, even though their lifestyles are different, that the love is worth it.

And then there's this destiny and leaving malarkey.

I feel like face palm-ing myself every time I think about it.

If everyone who was ever left by someone just gave up, and truly thought, "Hey, my destiny is not tied to that person! Time to move on!" There would never be a single great love story. There would be millions of people who left because of insecurities, fear, defense mechanisms, because they don't know how to make a relationship successful and they give up, whose leaving was validated by the person left behind saying, "Well, okay then."

I've left many people, and been left by many people. Sometimes, we came back together romantically, more often than not, really. And even if we didn't, almost all of those people are people I am very close to now; we learned a great deal by being in love with one another and are now a kind of friend that can't be disrupted.

A platitude that is a bit more reasonable would be, "If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's meant to be."

That's also gross, but it's not really hurting anyone. When someone is trying to leave you, most of the time, it's a really good idea to give that person space. My rule of thumb is usually about six months, post-breakup, once the two or three weeks post-breakup kind of come to some sort of operatic head (cuz seriously, only the most cold people just let someone go without any kind of plea). By six months, it's typically not devastating to have coffee with them or just run into them at the bar.

But just giving up? That's depressing. Destiny has it's own ideas and you have absolutely no idea what they are.

These platitudes and false truths are ways for us to delude ourselves, and validate our behaviors or the behaviors of others. They're not real. If anything, I think they make us doubt good things we have, and put us in positions where we think we "deserve" better. Our whole fucking culture is centered, love-wise, around telling us we "deserve" better. Which means a lot of us never really give what we've got a shot. Which is why we have a bunch of assholes in their mid-thirties running around whining about how they can't ever find love. Myself included.