From you mean everything to me to you mean nothing to me

Started by dsanchez, July 22, 2019, 09:48:15

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dsanchez

I was talking some days ago with a good friend how people, husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, who once shared everything, promised each other everything and meant everything to each other suddenly become strangers after a breakup. Or lovers, who once shared the intensity of a forbidden love. Isn't sad? It's just the way it is and it needs to be accepted as such? It just seems so strange.

Quote from: undefinedMe: Hey
Him: Hey
Me: How you been?
Him: Good..you?
Me: Fine
Me: You sound sick, are you not well?
(silence)
Me: Hello? You there?
Him: You said you love me. How can you forget everything and be so happy?...Click

Related links

https://www.reddit.com/r/offmychest/comments/31n9i2/why_must_two_people_become_strangers_after_a/
https://blog.aisle.co/the-journey-from-being-lovers-to-strangers-d2037f154adf
2023.11.22 Lima
2023.11.27 Montevideo

Ulrich

The dialogue you quote of course does say a lot (especially between the lines) - it leaves the impression these 2 persons never understood each other too well - or the male person ("him") is just so deeply disappointed that he blames the failure of the relationship entirely on the other person ("me") and simply hates the fact that she seems happy without him...

Quote from: dsanchez on July 22, 2019, 09:48:15... meant everything to each other suddenly become strangers after a breakup. Isn't sad? It's just the way it is and it needs to be accepted as such?

Well, a "break-up" most likely includes some kind of "estrangement", does it not? Simply because the break-up means the "end" of a relationship, thus this is not anymore what it used to be. Of course it is up to the individual relation how things could go on... (it depends e.g. on who ended it - was it one person or was the decision "mutual"? etc.)!

It does not have to be like this. For example, I do get on well with my ex-gf.
Well, I never promised her much (not wanting to "make empty promises")! Thus: less disappointment. ;)

It depends on what the 2 persons want: do they both want to get on well, despite the ending of the close relationship? Or will they let the resentment(s) take over? It can go either way and of course emotions can become deeply affected.

But, in general, as you pointed out already: that's life (or, maybe better, "how life can be"). Personalities clash together. Love can become hate.

Lots of songs, poems, books, plays (etc.) have been written about this!
A few song examples:
"Thin line between love and hate" by The Pretenders.
"Estranged" by Guns N'Roses.
"Apart" by The Cure ("how did we get this far apart? we used to be so close together...")

Another Cure song, "How beautiful you are..." describes how you can be totally surprised by your lover's reaction to other people (in the song: how she reacts to the poor man & child, who stare at her in awe) and you may end up disappointed, as you expected the other to think in a similar way to yourself (in the song he seems shocked about her reaction when she tells him what she thinks).  :'(

Quote from: undefinedYou want to know why I hate you?
Well I'll try and explain

You remember that day in Paris
When we wandered through the rain
And promised to each other
That we'd always think the same
And dreamed that dream
To be two souls as one
...
I turned to look at you
To read my thought upon your face
And gazed so deep into your eyes
So beautiful and strange
Until you spoke
And showed me understanding is a dream
...
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

MeltingMan

Quote from: dsanchez on July 22, 2019, 09:48:15I was talking some days ago with a good friend how people, husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, who once shared everything, promised each other everything and meant everything to each other suddenly become strangers after a breakup. Isn't sad? It's just the way it is and it needs to be accepted as such? It just seems so strange.

For me it looks like ghosting. Unfortunately prevalent today. 😕

Quote from: Giphyto abruptly cut off all contact with
(someone, such as a former romantic partner) by no longer accepting or
responding to phone calls, instant messages, etc.
En cette nation [Russie] qui n'a pas eu de théoriciens et de démagogues,
les pires ferments de destruction ont apparu. (J. Péladan)

Ulrich

Quote from: MeltingMan on July 22, 2019, 14:42:53For me it looks like ghosting.

No, dsanchez is talkin' about something different here in my opinion. (Especially with the definition of "ghosting" you gave.)

"Ghosting" is what happened to me last year (2 dates with a woman, who then "disappeared" - I didn't know her address or any of her friends, so couldn't contact her any more).

What dsanchez is on about here is how people who knew each other well (intimately, private) for years, become "estranged". (They would know how to find contact, e.g. through parents or friends, but don't want to, because they hate each other or because they feel hurt or...)

Quotes from the links given by d. above:
Quote from: undefinedSo obviously, when people ask me "Do you think its wise to be friends with your ex?", my answer is a big, big NO. I know many (and believe me when I say many) would argue that they are good friends with their exes and share a very healthy relationship with them. I have absolutely no idea how they are friends with someone who at one point of life was 'The One'.
QuoteFor my previous ex, I loved him so much that it was painful seeing him.

That's what I think this is about.
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

dsanchez

Quote from: Ulrich on July 22, 2019, 15:32:51What dsanchez is on about here is how people who knew each other well (intimately, private) for years, become "estranged". (They would know how to find contact, e.g. through parents or friends, but don't want to, because they hate each other or because they feel hurt or...)

Yes, this, Ulrich. And I am surprised no-one mentioned 'Disintegration':

QuoteI leave you with photographs, pictures of trickery
Stains on the carpet and stains on the memory
Songs about happiness murmured in dreams
When we both of us knew how the end always is
How the end always is
2023.11.22 Lima
2023.11.27 Montevideo

dsanchez

This article summarizes it pretty well, some quotes:

QuoteIt's interesting to think about how we make people who used to be everything into nothing again. How we learn to forget. How we force forgetting.

QuoteI want to believe that you either love someone, in some way, forever, or you never really loved them at all. That once two reactive chemicals cross both are changed. That the wounds we leave in people are sometimes too raw to risk falling back into them. I don't want to believe that we write each other off because we simply don't matter anymore. I know love isn't expendable. I wonder, and maybe hope, if we ever just force it to be out of necessity.

QuoteMaybe it's just that we're all at the centers of our own little universes, and sometimes they overlap with other people's, and that small bit of intersection leaves some part of it changed.

and this other:

QuoteWhat happens when the one person who used to be your whole world doesn't even happen to be in your universe anymore? What happens then? It's always weird. It's always unfortunate. It's always heartbreaking. You never want to have to fall in love with a stranger only for the two of you to end up being strangers again.

2023.11.22 Lima
2023.11.27 Montevideo

Ulrich

Quote from: dsanchez on July 22, 2019, 18:34:56
Quote from: undefinedWhat happens when the one person who used to be your whole world doesn't even happen to be in your universe anymore? What happens then? It's always weird. It's always unfortunate. It's always heartbreaking.

Well, I can't help but agree with this quote. It is like this when something ends, you didn't think would end (or at least not "soon").  :'(

Maybe that's why my ex and me continued seeing each other from time to time, because deep inside, we couldn't "let go" and wanted to go on at least on a "friendship" level.
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

chemicaloverload

I'm reading this while I have Siouxsie 'forever' on repeat. Forever is never forever is it? No matter how hard we try to force it on ourselves. One of us will always f*ck up and the other will always move on. People earn the nothing through actions and behaviour. Holding on to the everything part is unhealthy. Our time on this earth is fleeting enough, why try and make anything last forever when we don't? Like you said Ulrich, people will always disappoint you, why spend life disappointing yourself? Don't. Sad or heartbreaking or strange, whatever it may be, we manage don't we. That's comforting. We can dust ourselves off and move on to the next victim...I mean person :angel

Seems I have a very bleak view of what forever means and yet, its right there on my arm.
Life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves

dsanchez

2023.11.22 Lima
2023.11.27 Montevideo

Ulrich

Yeah, from my experience I can tell this: it is okay in the first steps of a relationship (when you've just fallen in love) that the other person means "the world" to you. But, in the long run, you should keep up your own hobbys, interests, whatever - never rely your whole world on just one person. (Don't get me wrong, it's excellent to share interests and make experiences together, but you'll need to do things on your own too, so you'll have something to talk about.)

It is a dream to "be two souls as one", maybe that works for a little time (I don't know). People change and that can happen in a relationship too and there can come a time when the changes are too big for one of them to take (or even both of them).

As I said, there are tons of songs about it; Sting (no, I'm not a fan) once wrote "if you love somebody, set them free". Give the other person(s) the freedom to do things on their own. Keep talking. Do things which are good for you and tell them about it. Share the good times and the bad. Be aware that one day that person might not be here any more (or you won't be here), so make sure there is more to life than just that one person (work, interests, family, friends...)!

Thus, if the relationship should end one day, you won't fall into a black hole. It will be sad and disappointing and difficult, but you will have other things to rely on.

And remember: you don't have to hate that person, just because it did not work out.  :cool
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

MeltingMan

A bit off topic, but I think it fits perfectly for the season. 😉

Quote from: Peter LausterThe beautiful bourgeois happiness is always in the highest danger. One thinks for sure, has arranged the relationship and the circumstances - everything is familiar, nothing is alien. Then a stranger enters our lives - eroticism awakens anew, energy pulsates through our blood and nervous system; there is a touch of adventure, challenge and something new in our soul. We thought the sexual interest was not so important, but suddenly it's back, wide awake. Freedom, we breathe, life has us again - we jumped the death of death. Everything is seen again.
En cette nation [Russie] qui n'a pas eu de théoriciens et de démagogues,
les pires ferments de destruction ont apparu. (J. Péladan)