The Likeness of Love and Ink Blots

When somebody says they love you? Do you believe it? For me, I’ve always listened to it with a pinch of salt. I don’t believe that falling in love is immediate, and that there’s no such thing as love at first sight. Sure, maybe attraction at first sight, but definitely not love. Love is a feeling that grows.

There’s this quote I found by John Money, a psychologist, when I was researching about love that I can really apply to myself:

“There is a rather sophisticated riddle about what a boyfriend (or girlfriend) and a Rorschach inkblot, have in common. The answer is that you project an image of your own onto each. In many instance, a person does not fall in love with a partner, per se, but with a partner as a Rorschach love-blot. That is to say, the person projects onto the partner an idealized and highly idiosyncratic image that diverges from the image of that partner as perceived by other people. Hence the popular idiom that love is blind, for a lover projects onto a partner, or love-blot, his/her unique love image, as unique as his/her own face or finger print.”

I’ve always thought that it was only me who thought like this, and I’m happy to find that there’s actually somebody else who think alike.

I’ve always felt that when guys start liking me, they don’t actually like ME. They project what they want to see of me, and judge me from how I act or what I talk about initially. They have expectations. Then it’s only when they get to know me more that often times I don’t live up to those expectations. Of course, this doesn’t need to happen over just a matter of month or two, it can occur over longer periods of time like up to a year even. And I hate disappointing people. Especially, when I’ve fallen in love with that person too. It hurts, you know, when the person you love expects so much from you, and wants you to be that idealized person they thought you were when they started dating you. It hurts when they can’t grow to love you as the person you truly are.