Sta Hungry Stay Foolish

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

A blog by Leon Oudejans

Trialism, dualism and monism in Love

A recent Dutch article caught my attention. Its subtitle claims the following: (i) a monogamous relationship hurts having another love, and (ii) the alternatives do, however, not offer the growth that one (1) partner can offer. I was intrigued by the dualism in this article. Nevertheless, I felt something was missing in this article and went looking for it.

Having observed dualism offered an immediate clue: the missing angle might constitute trialism. Nevertheless, it took me a while to find the obvious.

Any viable relationship includes friendship and intimacy between partners. Again, this constitutes dualism. What’s missing?

The ancient Greek words for Love offer some clues: eros (romantic love) and philia (friendship). Which of the remaining four words for Love might bring trialism? Philautia (self-love) looked the most promising. Then, I suddenly noticed the emerging triangle and trialism: You (friendship), Me (self-love), and Us (intimacy).

Apart from trialism or dualism in Love, a focus on its corners brings monism:

  • You: idolization or worship rather than a balanced friendship;
  • Me: narcissism rather than self-love;
  • Us: lust rather than love. 

I think, feel and believe that the above is also a dissection of why relationships may fail:

  • You: too much/little attention/interest between partners;
  • Me: too much/little me-time and/or solitude;
  • Us: too much/little (sexual) intimacy.

Each line above represents one of my failures in love. My biggest failure was about ignoring Me. Some failures were a combination of two or even all three. Other failures were about You, either unilateral or bilateral. After each break-up, I focused on repairing what went wrong. Yet, I’ve always known that I failed to see the bigger picture – until now.

I Idolize You (1960) by Ike & Tina Turner

artist-1, artist-2, lyricsvideo, Wiki-1, Wiki-2, Wiki-3

Note: all markings (bolditalicunderlining) by LO unless stated otherwise.

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