Never one for the smaller matters in life, like cleaning, organising, structuring, getting places on time etc. Today I plan to tackle one of big questions - love.
(read more in the full post)
I’m a student of, but no very little about love. So i’ll borrow a smidgen of science first (I can’t remember where I read about this test) to back up what i’m saying….
Human really suck at remembering things. We have a tendancy to be more sure than we should be, exaggerate our own abilities at, well, just about everything and we have very bad memories.
One test involved showing people a yellow coloured swatch for a few seconds. This was followed by a range of 6 other shades of yellow colour swatches, one of which was the original swatch. All the respondent has to do is say which one of the six matches the original swatch he saw just a few seconds before. Simple huh? How many could do it?
70%ish.
The next group of people were also shown the swatch. Then it was taken away. They were asked to describe it. Then shown the six swatches and asked which was the initial one. How many got it right?
35%. So the mere act of describing what we have seen changes our perception of what we saw so much that when show it again only 3.5/10 of us can point it out from a painty, swatchy, little line/up.
Where am I going with this?
Well as none of us are really able to remember what we have experienced, we are essentially continously making it up. The mere act of trying to remember can actually overwrites to a certain extent our original memories.
So when a serious relationship ends (i’ve just been through this fascinating process) you have the opportunity to reflect on that relationship in a slightly different light now that you’re not caught up with being in it.
As I cant accurately remember what my last relationship was like, well I cant try to a certain extent, but the mere act of trying to remember will change some of it either for the positive or negative. So what I’m saying is that really I have to option to convince myself that it was very positive or very negative and so it will be. As time passes, the memory loss makes the re-writing bit even more powerful (well thats my hunch).
“Thats just stupid”
Well its an exaggeration of an idea, but I think there is some truth to it. I think from here I could wander into a long post about half-empty vs half-full people. But thats a different post.
Immediately after a relationship, well if it was a bad one your more likely to remember the bad times. Ultimately its just human nature, that the downs tend to be more memorable than the ups. The piss-takes tend to stay more vivid than the picnics. This will lead to a period of excess alcohol consumption, questioning of self-worth, totally, totally boring all your mates etc etc.
But over time these memories become less vivid, you distort everything that actually happened and re-write some of it how ever you see fit. So the longer your single, the less your able to remember what its like to be in a relationship. Why the last one didnt work? Why you should want to be in the next one? etc etc
“That’s a very cynical view of love you have there future lonely spinster”
Well early on its difficult to find the idea of faking interest in the every idea, whim, and desire of another human at the expense of your own as a tremendous idea. Later once the bad memories fade, you learn to replace them with the good ones. As time passes it becomes even harder to remember what it was like to be in a relationship, but everyone else seems to be having a picnic, so your more likely to over emphasise the potential good qualities. Human nature again. Then you go all gooey inside, you’ve fallen in love with the idea of falling in love. Once your gooey, you’ve effectively bought your ticket for the tunnel of love. Wait until you meet someone else all gooey inside and wham! Its a goo-fest. Goo-stock, Goo-stonbury ‘07.