So, this idea of liking and loving yourself. I will try to report the fruit of our discussion with doctor Zermati on the question, without being sure I’ll make myself clear.
The problem is actually easier if you state it in the following way: do you like the people you love? Be careful, ‘like’ is to be taken in a broad sense, not necessarily in its ‘physical’ meaning. For you to ‘like’ someone, that person must correspond with norms which we think are personal but are in reality obliged by our communities (basically, is beautiful what everyone finds beautiful, apparently it can be verified if you show pictures of individuals to a panel group, there is unanimity on who’s handsome and who’s ugly). In short, the fact that you like someone is subject to several conditions.
That is not the case for love.
For example, our kids. Do we like them 100%? Is our love subject to their weight, their eyes color, their joyful, sweet and docile character? Do we need to explain why we would go through fire for them when these vermin deprived us from sleep during the first three years of their lives? (Ok, it’s not the subject but we are not out of the wood yet for that matter, I wanted to mention it too)
As far as I’m concerned, the answer is no. My thingies I love them unconditionally and somehow, doctor Z pointed out, luckily, as the entire human species is at stake, we don’t need to find our children beautiful to cherish them. Especially as, of course, ours are magnificent but it’s not the case for all children, right. Hum.
The comparison works for our days and nights lover, who, let’s admit it, have a dog’s breath in the morning, snores like a pig at night and doesn’t necessarily looks like Brad or George. Not to mention his steady habit of leaving the toilet seat up or of throwing away our personal belonging exclusively, on the pretext of ‘it was lying around’ when not at all I left it here intentionally (yes, ok, I’m deviating from the subject)
Nevertheless, even if you turn your head slightly when he starts talking to you in the morning, you love him. Yes yes. You can’t really tell how or why, it’s just there, you have him under your skin, this jerk.
Let me stop here, you get me, it’s the same with Bénédicte, whom you met in high school, who has a whole lot of habits that drive you mad, but whom you couldn’t do without for more than three weeks and it has lasted for 15 years. You find her pretty of course, except, if you really consider it, ok, her pores are dilated, her breasts are not so firm and she has a slight squint. Nevertheless, you love her, that goose.
In short, I think I’ve made my point, we don’t like everything about people we love but something happened, something was built, a bond was created and it’s like that.
So why would we need to like ourselves to love ourselves? Who, frankly, looks at himself or herself in the mirror in the morning and screams damn I’m hot, and brilliant as well? Well very few people. Or not every day. Nevertheless you have to accept yourself because, a priori, except if Rael and his visionary friends are right, you have only one life and one physical body. And loving yourself is a good start for the trip.
Except that our thoughts are upside down or even crooked, doctor Zermati was telling me. And the messages sent from all over won’t help us see more clearly. Then we interiorize that not liking yourself implies not loving yourself. And that, as a consequence, other won’t love us either.
— “Yes but I, I believe I wish I were liked. I’m a bit ashamed to say so, but I wish I were, once in my life, an objectified woman, a pure object of desire, not because I’m been appreciated or found funny or nice, simply because people turn round for me. I know, it’s foolish and stupid, but I never got this.”
Instead of making fun of me, doctor Zermati replied that indeed, during teenage hood, you need that thing, to be desired, displayed like a trophy. And thus sometimes you look all your life for that thing you didn’t get. Except that, let’s be clear, I’d be really embarrassed if, right now, Stan, good looking kid from grade 10, on whom I’ve drooled for hours in vain, were to propose a French kiss behind the toilets.
Or maybe not.
Edit: Picture taken with my phone, not very high quality, but I love her, what can I do…
