Recently I was making my morning entry orders on the forex trading platform I use (pretty much the drab routine on weekdays) and in the background on one of the TV channels the morning staple of the usual sissified talk shows was running. Now technical analysis is not rocket science, but I usually do pay it the necessary attention it demands.
{What better else would I rather be doing? Listen in on how to 'correctly' apply lipstick? Am not denigrating the pertinence of such shows but for the love of God they should know some people (i.e. me -- a traditionalist macho-man) are hardly aware they have buttocks, leave alone little tiny lips, thus their content is as useful to me as being incessantly ambushed with advice on how to 'correctly' hug paranoid baboons.}
As part of this show, they had a slot where they brought in a local relationship expert. It is no secret, am acutely cynical and often at times an acerbic critic (according to Chinese astrology, since I was born in the year of a certain animal -- which I will not name -- this attribute is divinely ordained and ranks saliently as part of the delicate balance of energies in my being. Don't blame me, blame Yin and Yang).
So it is as natural to the Greyhorn as salivating at the sight of aromatic Nyama Choma (barbecued beef) to grimly turn his neck (and head) when he hears such experts, glance at the TV with a disgusted scowl, languidly listen to the first sentence and then contentedly rubbish that expert as another idiot. Thereupon I would quickly switch to another channel with the urgency of ridding oneself a leech sucking blood right below an eye. This would preferably be CNN or the parliamentary debates.
On this occasion that pattern pretty much went as expected . . . until I listened to this one particular expert. I was mesmerized and for the duration of his exposition I didn't change the channel. With a simple analogy he had crushed and pulverized the wall-like prejudice I have for his kind and ilk, (not to mention the show). And it is his profound visualization with what is all wrong with our perception of intimacy and relationships that I would like to share in this blog. Just for the record, I still hate and despise relationship gurus . . . with the exception of this one and limited only to the one piece of sensible thing I heard from him (who knows, he could still be an idiot).
Now have you ever heard of sugar-shock? In it's more benign and prosaic form it's frequently observed in children. Do you know that crazy running around, shouting, yelling, jumping and beastly mini-terrorism that kids unleash after eating all that sugary stuff (sweets, sodas, juice, biscuits, chocolate, cakes, wafers, sugar-coated pop-corn etc)? Well that is a classic example of what sugar-shock is. It is the unbridled giddiness, excitement and exhilaration that comes from the sugar high. The more sugar junk they eat the happier and more ballistic they seem to get. It is the crack cocaine and 'fuel' in kid parties.
While on that high they are so energetic and charged up that they often have problems even sleeping, they will keep gawking into the wee hours. Hence the need for adults to lock them up in their bedrooms at night; before the adults themselves drink silly so as to engage in some randy pepping, a little horny coaxing, some earnest fondling, carnally intense gyrations (i.e. dancing), butt whippings and random kissing of strangers at these 'Birthday' parties. Otherwise without the mandatory confinement, the kids would obligingly gawk through such an intriguing show of physical consumption and 'cannibalism'.
But as we all know, parties don't last forever and despite their earnest remonstrations kids can't be fed and kept happy by merely pumping them up with sugar. After a particularly intense session of sugar-highs the kids collapse into a moody state of withdrawal. They cry, smothering themselves with mucus and tears like little ugly aliens, they become irritable, cantankerous and quarrelsome. Spontaneous, incessant fights begin to crop up and the little angels that were amiably running around with balloons in the backyard turn into vicious fiends; as if someone had suddenly re-programmed them to annihilate each other.
This is the point that fathers begin to question why of all the millions of sperm seeds in their chunky gonads this diabolical one had to be conceived. Mothers begin to remember the Nigerian movies they had seen of spirits taking over midgets.
Well if you have sufficiently imbibed and visualized this all too common scene then you already have the analogy in your mind. Now let's dissect the carcass of relationships and see what are the similarities.
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| Love |
There is nothing in the world like the euphoria, excitement and aching heart-throbs that come with romance. Everything seems so much more sensual, softer and livelier when you are in love. There is a vivid earnestness about life and yet in some uncanny way everything feels so pleasantly surreal. (Those who smoke marijuana claim to feel like this all the time! That is why they talk gibberish unremittingly . . . something that lovers are also infamously known for; is it all chemical?).
The slightest whiff or scent of your loved one is enough to drench you in sweat. The mere sight of someone who resembles them around a corner instantly sends your heart into frantic palpitations, a gazillion beats per second. The intense, sudden highs and lows that are triggered by the presence, absence and actions of a lover are so frustratingly wonderful that it is actually true that love is indeed bitter-sweet.
Once the dating process get's underway the intensity subsides somewhat. The gruelling palpitations, nervous tautness and sweating sessions are now only activated when you see a rival flirting, squeezing and fondling your 'property' on a corner. Raw carnal rage, murderous jealously is what you will be feeling. This is the ugly side of love, as strong and equally intense, yet it lacks the feel-good factor of 'love'. Making 'make-up sex' particularly enthralling -- it is twice as good because it washes away the ugly feeling on top of the other perks. Those good at manipulating these feelings and are experts at convincingly staging these scenarios are never in want of jungle sex.
Hey people, I hope you remember this is from the relationship expert -- very little of this hocus pocus stuff is actually mine, and even if it were I wouldn't post it here.
Sex is not love and one cannot substitute one for the other. Thus to constantly feel 'loved' during the dating process people go to extremities to evoke the feelings that they felt for each other at the beginning. Shopping, gifting, partying, vacationing together, picnics, blankets-and-wining, concerts, old school letter writing, dabbling in awful poetry, doing something really crazy together in public, movie watching while cuddling and spooning; anything really just as long it brings that emotional high. That connection and profound intimacy -- even if only for a moment. A kind of 'me-&-you against the world babe' sweet-nothing instantiation.
This is the point that the wheat begins to get separated from the chaff. Sex and infatuation get's separated from the more mature, substantive feelings. Stubbornly we try to cling on, but more often than not the relationships usually die natural deaths at this point. It can take as little as two weeks to go through the entire cycle and as long as years in others.
Now during courtship (the expert who is not me said) what couples are doing is feeding each other the 'sweets' -- all that fake lovey-dovey stuff that makes us all feel so good. Like a child who is being fed sweets and chocolates at some point it will get to a point of saturation, and any more sugar will not increase the sugar-high (the sugar shock). Unfortunately holding back the sweets does not improve the situation either, it apparently makes it worse -- the clueless child is thrown into the crazy, negative withdrawal symptoms.
This saturation point can be viewed as the dissatisfaction couples feel while they have been a while in a relationship -- increasingly the 'sweets' and 'candy' from their lovers is not just fulfilling, so some try to test the 'candy' from a different bowl, of a different kind -- hence the run around, promiscuity, cheating, unfaithfulness etc. They are addicts (emotionally and sexually) and they are not just getting their 'fix' from their seemingly stale relationship. From one relationship to the other, they will keep jumping looking for that 'high' and more and more frequently they will keep getting disappointed.
If one partner stops giving the 'addict' the things they mistook as 'love' the withdrawal symptoms become apparent immediately or soon after. This is the nagging, grumbling, quarreling, picking of fights etc. The urgency and intensity of the demand for the fix increases with the proximity of the parties. The closer they are, the greater the outpour of rage and negative emotions in the withdrawal phase.
Going back to the children everyone knows candy is not real food, no matter how much the kids love them, they must be fed the real food -- the vegetables, the funny tasting fish, the ugali and foo-foo, the meat and mrenda, snails, crocodiles, wasps, miraa anything as long as it well cooked and it is known to be nutritionally healthy. They can cry and moan, but for their own good they simply must eat real food. A diet of sweets will rot out their teeth, turn them into diabetics, suppress their immune system -- they will surely diarrhea and die (or turn into a talentless version of the confused androgyne we knew as Prince and he is now simply a symbol).
Courting nowadays is filled with a lot of candy-feeding and no real food i.e. no substance. So once people settle down together they are totally confounded -- what happened to the charm and love? Who is this farting, sweaty pig next to me? Why does sex with him/her feel like am screwing a mannequin?
Most people feel so disillusioned and so utterly miserable that the relationship simply crumbles, withers and dies. Other times it comes tumbling down like a meteor and everything ends in a big, violent, spectacular crash. Thus the speedy divorces and separations we often see.
After the constant highs of the courtship and honey-mooning, the real marriage becomes one big withdrawal symptom. Like the kids the quarrels begin, the fights, the crying the abuse, the tantrums, the hate -- it is a cruel game of jumping from one extreme, artificial form of reality to another. Few people can survive in any kind of relationship that takes this tumultuous trajectory.
People nowadays are so alarmingly and completely immature in their perceptions and expectations of love that 90% are utterly unfit to be dating another human, leave alone getting married. Compound this with the fact that these very people suffer equal levels of fatuous immaturity and you have the 'unseen' recipe for disaster.
True love therefore is not the delusional romance we see on the media and pop-fiction. That is candy that can only be given once in a while, expecting otherwise is unrealistic and foolhardy. 'True love' and 'real substance' in mature relationships is something less glamorous, the ugali (maize cake) and vegetables.
If you want to 'see' it in movies then simply it is what the movies teach us to perceive and portray as boring companionship, stupid perseverance, idiotic loyalty, village-like faithfulness, and the unexciting life of struggling, working, cooking, eating, birthing and bringing up children together. Substance is drab, that is why it needs occasionally some 'sugar' that is, sex, romance etc but this tantalizing adrenalin-pumping fix cannot become (even in a million years in attempts and trials) the separate and distinct thing called 'true love'.
If you want satisfaction, lower your expectations, tighten your belt and stiffen your heart (don't be all mushy-wooshy imagining you are in love). If you can't think and you are vegetative, that is, utterly brain-dead with emotions, how do you really know you are in love in the first place? If this love subsumes your entire rational being -- dear friend, you should be running not marrying.
Isn't that a refreshing perspective? If not then that expert-man is your uncle and tell him to write a book. As for the rest, you can safely assume that from this point onwards it is me talking (all of the four sentences)
So sexing 24-7 to keep the love, doing kung fu acrobatics everyday and making unrealistic demands is bringing impunity into the bedroom. Selling the moon and the Earth, literally, for love is hitching and clinging onto an illusion. Okay, that is pretty shallow . . . and counter-corny but I had to look for some interesting title for you to read this awkwardly uncharacteristic post. Blame Chinese astrology?
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I'll be immersing myself into the Biafran War and it's unbelievable relation to Kenya's current politics in the next post. I have just completed it, and I need to polish and put together the photo narration /profile and you will have it over the weekend -- cheers!.
M. Wycliff,
Nairobi.
p/s the show I was talking about is KTN's Mid-Morning show hosted by the beautiful Kui and unfortunately I didn't get the name of the relationship expert. The particular episode I'm referring to was aired on the 22nd February, 2012. The expert talked for five minutes. What, you say?
An analogy is an analogy, the disconnect between the length of his talk and the many words in this post can be explained by the fact that analogies are known to expand.
The narration does not refer to any person who is personally known to me and vice-versa (very few indeed) or any other person. These are generalizations -- every normal person would have something that they think applies to them specifically.
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