Why don’t we ever say what we really mean? I think it would make things so much easier. There would be no confusion, no mixed messages. Unless you live in Greg Behrent’s world of “there are no mixed messages, he’s just not that into you”. I just don’t get why some things are so hard to say. “I like you” being the hardest thing to say. I know there is a delicate game of cat and mouse when it comes to dating, especially when you’re on a mission not to have sex too soon. Because it can’t be all about the sex. It just can’t. Relationships don’t survive it. Also, I want to really know I care about someone before I sleep with them. And that they care about me. I also want to really know them. What a concept.
But, really, why is it so hard to say how we feel or what we think? Especially when we don’t know how others will react. Somehow it’s not as hard when we know what the response will be, even if it’s bad. What is the fear of the unknown that we all have? And, more importantly, how do we ever achieve anything. Do we learn to put the fear aside? Or are some people just born without that particular fear gene? I don’t think it’s the latter.
Fear controls so many things. It controls the country at the moment. We are all locked into a regime based on fear. We are so afraid of terrorism that we have handed over our civil rights. (Why am I surprised that people are not concerned about the civil rights implication held in denying gays the right to marry?) We are so afraid of Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban and Al Qaida that we have participated in racial profiling of the worst kind. Fear can stop us in our tracks when it is time to stand up for what is right. It makes us look the other way when six million Jews are murdered. It makes us turn a blind eye when women are stoned to death for having sex outside of marriage but the men they are sleeping with are not. Fear stops us from living our dreams because they are too wild or unrealistic. Fear also controls our hearts. We are so afraid that the answer might be no that we do not put that first signal out there that this might be more than friends. We are so afraid of being hurt that we don’t allow for the possibility that we won’t be.
How do we get past that fear? Women who fought for our right to vote managed to. Those who march in protest and travel to foreign countries to bring aid to suffering nations do it. Monks have set themselves on fire in protest. Surely that is overcoming fear. What is the secret? Is it knowing that what you’re doing serves a higher purpose than holding onto the fear does?
Love, on paper, seems silly in comparison to civil rights for everyone, ending world hunger, and peace on earth; but without it, not one of those things is possible.
