Transcending Loneliness and Finding True Love

It is likely that you or someone you know has a loneliness, a longing in their heart, that they believe would be filled and the pain lifted if only they found their true love. People with secure attachment styles are likely to have fewer wounds carried forward into adulthood and may not experience a lack or emptiness that needs to be filled. Those with insecure attachment styles, however, may feel stuck seeking something that always seems unattainable. Dismissing avoidants might seek the ideal physical partner who asks little and gives them all the freedom in the world to express themselves without wanting reciprocity. Fearful avoidants might want the same thing along with a desire to be hungrily wanted in return. Those with preoccupied styles might think that if only they could get that beautiful yet unavailable person to love them consistently, all of their worries about love and relationships would go away.

Idealized Fantasies

The belief that there is one person out there whose love can help us transcend our pain is as old as the human race. The Greeks symbolized this love in the form of the Goddess Aphrodite. The Romans knew her as Venus; the Mesopotamians as Ishtar. A male version is found in the Greeks' Adonis.

What I call “goddess worship” is still alive and well today and underlies many men’s longing and perhaps unwitting objectification of women—and probably leads to more pain than good feeling. This is the belief held by the desirous heart that if only he could attain the love and sexual affection of that amazing, vibrant woman, the one with the perfect body, amazing hair, and innocent-yet-sensual smile, he would feel the way he was always meant to feel. He would feel strong, calm, confident, and virile. His self-doubt would dissipate. The simple way she would look at him would enable him to transcend all his grief and wounds of the past.

And, so, men seek her, and some women still seek to become her. Fashion magazines, many lines of women’s clothing, athletic outfits, cosmetics, hair colors, and of course explicit materials and pornography all cater to meeting this need. And, yet, most people will in the end find her (the imagined goddess) to be an illusion. Or, if they do find her, realize that her outward appearance (objectification) is temporary and fleeting.

If you do not consider yourself a fashion model, don’t worry. Most men will be more than eager to project their idealized fantasy woman onto you. And many women are doing the same thing and projecting their Adonis fantasies onto men. Quite a few men will wonder if they are enough: Tall, strong, handsome, confident, successful… enough… and, of course, do they drive the right car? Stereotypes abound, and with the shifting times, there may also be a need to be smart, well-read, gentle, loving, kind, and compassionate at the same time as strutting their highly masculinized self. Many of my female clients are still seeking this Adonis. Some have even asserted that their man should be the spiritual leader of the household and the “anointed one.” Such an ideal, similar to the female Aphrodite, will be very difficult if not impossible for most men to carry or hold in the long run.

It appears that in the dating phase of relationships and often well beyond, many of us are running around projecting onto each other idealized fantasies and seeing if the other person can hold that fantasy (objectification) up for us long enough for us to fall in love with it. But then who do we love—the actual person, or what we projected onto that person? I cannot count how many times I have worked with a married couple when one of them states how disappointed they are with the person their partner became. And I look at this person and reflect back that this was probably who they married and this was always the person; they just could not see it through their idealized projection.

Relationships With Real People

So, here are five things you can do to have relationships with real (not projected) people:

1. Take a look at the idealized standards you hold and realize that this is an idea sold to you by society and prior generations. The ideal is an illusion that leads us to objectify others and that real people typically cannot and should not carry.
2. Grieve your dream of “the one”—of Aphrodite or Adonis. Allow yourself to feel some sadness that this transcendence is not coming, and then let it go.
3. Realize that other people can help you mend your heart, but you really do need to do the heavy lifting and learn to love yourself first.
4. Don’t have different rules for relationships for men and women. If you would not accept a behavior from a friend, don’t accept that behavior in a romantic partner—and, yes, have platonic friendships with people of different sexes and genders (if you worry about your partner being jealous, just share your friends with them).
5. Learn to have a full life without romantic love. You might want it, but it is best not to need it. Fill your heart with the experience of a life well lived and with other authentic people.

Remember that what will really mend and fill your heart is not romance, but connection—to yourself, your lived experience, and the people you surround yourself with.