Quote of the Day

[edenfalling]

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
---William Somerset Maugham

...

This would be one of the reasons I don't really have OTPs. I'm not saying that lasting love is impossible, by any means, just that I understand how relationships can fade over time.

The other reason I don't have OTPs, of course, is because I think the idea of each person having only one person in the entire rest of the world with whom he or she can find 'true' happiness and love is A) scary B) based on a faulty understanding of human nature, and C) likely to lead to lazy and easily broken relationships. I think that people can be happy on their own, or with any number of potential partners, provided that they're willing to work at their relationships. That, I find, is a much more cheerful view than the idea that if you screw up with your One True Love, you're sunk for all eternity.

Comments

[alchymie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, missed the second half... which does explain much. I understand that the "O" of OTP is troublesome. I'd hate to grow up thinking that I could only have one person to love out of six billion people... and by the way, no knowing where. Good luck.

But I also believe you select your "one". And the fact that you, and your "one", are growing organisms that can adapt and grow together -- that brings us to the "T".

So I have a romantic streak. And an optimistic streak.

Take care, Liz.

[edenfalling]

But I also believe you select your "one". And the fact that you, and your "one", are growing organisms that can adapt and grow together -- that brings us to the "T".

That's the ideal, yes, and I've seen it work. I've also seen it not work -- sometimes with the same person involved. My grandfather, for example, was married twice, both times for over twenty years. His first marriage eventually fell apart, for a number of reason, but I think they can be summarized by saying that he and my grandmother simply came to have differing views of their relationship and of each other, and weren't able to fulfill each other's expectations. A few years later, he married again, and that marriage lasted until he died; he and Ardis were able to change together instead of growing apart.

That's why I believe in Maugham's quote, even though I always hope things go otherwise. *sigh*