I’m Looking For A New Cupid… My Previous One Was Fired
After many long years, a lot of crying and many, many disappointments, I have decided to fire my Cupid.
He never made the right choices for me anyway. He fired his arrows at random and made me fall again and again for impossible loves. So from now on I am looking for a new, serious and responsible Cupid. One that my future partners will choose wisely.
Love may be blind, but I’m not
Throughout our lives we have partners with whom we get along very well, partners with whom our relationship is just good and partners with whom we do not get along at all. In these last two cases, we often tend to think: How did that fat, flying, blindfolded baby manage to make me fall in love with this person?
Cupid is, in Roman mythology, the god of loving desire (his Greek equivalent is Eros). There are several versions of the story about the origin of Cupid, but the most famous version states that Cupid was the son of Venus, the goddess of love, beauty, fertility, and Mars, the god of war. Cupid is depicted as a child with wings, a blindfold over his eyes and a bow and quiver full of arrows over his shoulder.
dr. Psychologist and psychoanalyst Frances Cohen has researched the subject of love in depth and collected evidence that in the early stages of a loving relationship, our brains shut down the mechanisms that help us see another person’s shortcomings.
The chemical elements that develop during this stage of infatuation produce a feeling of euphoria that not only makes us feel better, but also disables the instincts that allow us to judge that other person.
However, we cannot just think that love is just a feeling; reason must also play an important role here. In addition to feeling love, you must also think about love. You need to have a good dose of willpower to maintain a loving relationship and keep it moving forward. Love alone is not enough.
Does love at first sight exist?
When we walk down the street, ride a bus, or meet someone new at a party, we sometimes find ourselves attracted to this person in a very special way. Maybe at that moment we feel ‘love at first sight’.
Love at first sight is an intense attraction, an enchanting passion that changes our emotions and awakens in us an intense sense of well-being.
Syracuse University professor Stefanie Ortigue conducted a study that provided evidence that the symptoms of someone in love originate in the brain. dr. Ortigue showed that the feeling of love activates twelve parts of the brain that work together to secrete large amounts of dopamine, oxytocin and adrenaline. And all these substances create a feeling of euphoria.
Love at first sight is therefore not only very possible, but also finds its basis in our body chemistry.
Ten principles you must follow in order not to succumb to love
Argentine psychologist Walter Riso, in his book Manual to Keep from Dying of Love, shares ten principles to help us survive attraction itself. These principles are as follows:
1. When someone doesn’t love you anymore, learn to admit your loss and walk away with your head held high
A broken heart hurts, intensely hurts, but you have to be able to learn from it and just walk away from it. Try to remember that licentious passion you felt in the beginning and also try to feel what feelings you now arouse in each other: none.
There are no magic pills that can help a broken heart. You simply have to face the pain and sadness with strength.
2. Marrying your loved one is like salting dessert
A relationship with a loved one and a relationship with a loved one who eventually becomes your husband/wife are two completely different things. And you have to think carefully about whether you are really willing to accept these differences.
One of the most important questions to ask yourself is: Am I able to trust the faithfulness of someone who was once my lover and with whom I now share my life?
3. Neither with you nor without you? Run as far as you can!
Many people are in a relationship where one of the two is constantly in a state of indecision. In this case, to avoid a lot of pain, it is best to distance ourselves from this person as much as possible.
4. Power rests with whoever needs the other person least
It’s about being able to manage your relationships in a healthy way, without completely disconnecting yourself. It is important that you are able to love yourself and share yourself with that other person at the same time.
5. One nail doesn’t always push the other out: sometimes they both get stuck inside you
Sometimes when you have just ended a romantic relationship, you look for someone else to replace what you have lost. However, this is not a good idea at all. This will only make you unhappy and cause the other person a lot of pain.
You just have to get through that phase of sadness, learn and enjoy this moment alone. Only when you feel good about yourself should you start looking for a new relationship.
6. Avoid irrational sacrifices: don’t sacrifice yourself to make your partner happy
If you think you need to be miserable in order for your partner to be happy, then you’ve got a big problem. This thought is usually caused by a self-esteem issue, which you should work on in order to build healthy and happy relationships.
7. If you can’t feel or see love, then it doesn’t work or it doesn’t exist
You need to ask yourself something: Does my partner love me the way I want him/her to love me?
If it doesn’t make you feel good or worries you, talk about this, express this feeling, let your partner know or realize that this may not be the right person for you.
8. Don’t idealize your lover: see him as he is, raw and without anesthetic
In the first phase of infatuation, as we mentioned earlier, we often tend to idealize our partner and let his shortcomings elude us. However, healthy love must also be realistic. We should be able to see our partner’s flaws as well as virtues.
9. Love knows no age, but lovers do
Of course, it is possible to experience love at any age. However, when there is a large age difference between two partners, the relationship becomes a lot more complicated. Both are in this case at a very different point in their lives. It is therefore wise to think carefully about all these aspects and to view the relationship very realistically.
10. Some breakups are relieving; they show you what you are not looking for in love
We should learn from broken relationships. We should learn from it what we don’t want, what we don’t like, and what makes us feel bad. It is necessary to develop a ‘non-wisdom’. In other words, we may not know exactly what we are looking for in love, but we should know what we are not looking for.
So it really doesn’t matter that we switch Cupid, but rather that we change ourselves so that we will be able to love ourselves as well as others.
