Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Passion

Over the last few months, I've read several teen vampire romance novels. I'm rather embarrassed to admit it, but I've enjoyed them. Stephanie Meyers is an excellent writer, she pulls her reader right into the story. I've also read her science fiction novel, The Host. The common thread in all of the books is passion. Or, perhaps, obsession would be more accurate. Her protagonists fall in love, completely, truly, deeply. Both the man and the woman feel that they are incomplete without their partner and will do anything to be with them.
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Am I weird? I don't get it.

I love the Engineer. The usual proof that I offer up is that I've never hit him with a baseball bat, but it's more than that and maybe simpler than that. I'd rather have him in my world than not.

I don't feel that he and I are extensions of each other. We are discrete individuals who happen to get along pretty well -- not perfectly, but pretty well. I don't want to be an extension of him or vice versa. Sometimes he acts like he would like me to be, but I suspect he wouldn't care for it if I tried. I don't miss him when he's gone on his business trips; I know he'll be back. If he was to go away forever, I would miss him and be very sad, but life would go on.

Am I cheating him by not feeling swept into a whirlwind every time I look at him? For not wanting to feel swept up every time I look at him? Am I cheating myself?

I've never felt the world would be well lost for love.

I would hate it if there wasn't love in the world.

1 comment:

bioephemera said...

Great questions. Actually I've been arguing with the staffer about a similar issue - how strongly each of us feels about the relationship and what that means. I think different people just have different levels of emotional output - it's not that one person is less committed, but that perhaps their personality just expresses commitment in a much more subdued way. We're trying to make the mismatch work for us, but it is hard.