A few days ago Pablo Motos opened a big melon in the “I’m going to cross the line” section of “El hormiguero”. He spoke about the utopia of fidelity as a couple on Valentine’s Day. Olé your flats, Pablo. It is necessary to raise these things although, yes, we should be able to know how to give an opinion on it with our own criteria and know where the other fails in the argument. Pablo plays his part, which is very necessary, but we have to learn to play ours well.
From the outset we should know that although Paul’s question is legitimate, the premise from which he answers is wrong. And it is essential to point it out, since it is an argument that has been thrown around a lot lately in matters that are much more relevant than what each couple does with their sexuality. Pablo tells us of the high number of the population that he admits to having been unfaithful at some time. Since couples demand fidelity, and fidelity leaves much to be desired, perhaps the fault lies in expecting couples to be loyal to each other. It is the easy and goofy way out of the matter, we can see it clearly if we transfer the scheme to other types of situations:
- It is wrong to steal and kill. We have created institutions to prevent people from stealing and killing, such as education, law, and the police. Even so, there are thieves and murderers, perhaps our institutions are the ones that don’t work.
At the bottom of all these positions, including that of Motos, lies a resignation and a great fear. Fear of suffering, of failure. Fear of imperfection, of knowing that evil exists, in others and in ourselves. From there we arrive at the resignation: I renounce to put solutions, I renounce assuming human limitation -my own and that of others-, I renounce finding in the other an imperfect partner like me who can hurt me -and I do it constantly- but with whom I can also grow. I renounce having to ask for forgiveness or, worse, having to forgive. And again. Fear of seeing ourselves, like Sisyphus, dragging every day the stone of defects, our own and others, to return to the trompe l’oeil of starting over and over again without apparent meaning.
Pablo Motos is heir to the prevailing vision of love relationships, the classic Disney version of love: the problem of love is finding someone special that captivates you and solving all the problems that keep you from being with that person. Once this was achieved, they were happy and ate partridges. Erich Fromm denounces in The art of Loving this current mentality, focused on the search for the ideal person who will always make you feel butterflies in your stomach. The hyperconnection that living in large cities brings, added to the Internet phenomenon, makes us even more demanding and finicky when it comes to establishing contact with someone for a possible love relationship: we believe that there will always be someone better. And people we barely know always seem more attractive and suggestive than your current partner. It looks like it, nothing more.
The hyperconnection that living in large cities brings, added to the Internet phenomenon, makes us even more demanding and finicky
You already know from your boyfriend or husband that you will need a gas mask to enter the bathroom after he has used it, he is not as affectionate as you would like and, furthermore, you cannot stand his sister. To others, however, An aura of sensual mystery surrounds them that will break the day you live with one of them and you find a cream for hemorrhoids and a bottle of minoxidil in their cosmetic bag: horror, they are going to go bald!
Fromm also reminds us that all of this has a marked mercantile approach to human relations: I’m worth so much, I demand so much. I’m in my 43’s, but I’m still very fit, I’m attractive and I love football, plus points. Now, I have three teenage children, a terrible ex-husband and a very demanding job, points against me. Based on that calculation, I can aspire to be with a man my age, maybe a little older, it’s okay if he has tickets (I can’t aspire to someone with great hair) and I’m willing to negotiate that he’s just a little taller than me (if you’re the same or shorter, don’t even try). And so, according to Motos’ approach, we would all see ourselves in a cycle of eternal return in which immediate satisfaction, momentary desire, fear of rejection and disappointment will lead us from one relationship to another, all always with an expiration date. . Always, because Pablo objects that our desire is never limited to a single person.
And in this Motos is right, if we talk about the mere sexual desire and the game of seduction typical of the beginnings of a love relationship. And how good it is! Thank God there are many people we can feel attracted to, can you imagine if the better half were true? What a horror not to find her, what a horror that she did not correspond to us, what a horror that she left us, what a horror when she died! Perhaps it would help Pablo to understand the difference between love and falling in love. The second is condemned to die and the first must be worked on. The wedding day is not a happy ending, it is the beginning of an arduous path in which the two learn to be better for the other, to forgive, to be forgiven, to love the other as they are (that is the essence of of love). The love of your life is not that wonderful stranger you met two weeks ago. The love of your life is the one to whom you dedicated your time (your life). After all, time is the only thing we possess in the strict sense. Let’s think carefully how and with whom we want to use it.
