cara Esther,
a few years ago, locked in a London room in the early days of Erasmus, I sent you an email full of resentment and tears over my love misfortunes and I still sometimes read your response which sparkles with saving candor. In the years my search for love he didn’t take flowery boulevards but always dirt roads, dusty and uncomfortable.
Today I’m in trouble again and that’s why I decided to write to you again.
Eight months ago I met a boy (incredible how we still call boys close to forty), handsome, likeable, brilliant, with whom I share passions and values.
I fell in love instantly. He lives.
A few days later he looks for me, writes me, compliments me, opens up to confidences that (according to him) he has never given to anyone, a daily relationship is born which in recent times has become increasingly explicit. Every two-three months we carve out an hour to see each otherI refuse sexual involvement because I know that for me it would be a non-return but I feel that, without the union of bodies, this relationship, which is neither a relationship nor a friendship, will never unlock.
Then there’s the elephant in the room that we pretend not to see. That woman with whom she shares her home and her life and whom I don’t know but I feel I’m hurting her, stealing little bits of her daily life whose existence she ignores.
I know that I deserve more than a torrent of whatsapp messages, a handful of face-to-face minutes every two months and a possible clandestine love afternoon. I deserve a true presence, daily commitment, planning the future lying on the sofa, and precisely because I know I’m trying to get away but he won’t let me go and deep down I don’t want to give up this non-relationship in which, however, the first time, i feel i have found the person i can make my life work with.
Dear Ester, five years ago you helped me recover from a two of spades, will you be able to make me pull the plug on this relationship today?
A hug
TO.
Esther Viola’s answer
Dear A., what a return of the identical. I would like a congress just to ask for a show of hands to those who have never fallen in imaginary relationshipsmade of always writing to each other, seeing each other for a quarter of an hour, not advancing an inch for months, in the most desperate cases, years.
I believe that the first – certainly free from this stupidity – would be Valeria, classmate, high school queen and great hater of inconcrete life.
Needless to become masters, at least a couple of years after a bullshit is everyone’s turn. She doesn’t run away. Only the reaction speed changes. The most suitable for happy survival remain afflicted for six months, the delicate spirits can wander in the mists for up to ten years, in the helpless disappointment of their friends.
Imaginary relationships and wasted time
Eight months is a decent average, you’re doing great, if we finish it here, by August. I wouldn’t worry too much, time must be lost in one way or another, otherwise life will go by.
What would you like from this column, A.? The answer to this, perhaps: if he doesn’t give a damn, then why (he writes, calls, pretends he cares, won’t let me go, produces a series of chats the length of Milan-New York, comments, expresses interest, pretends to be attached ).
Sticking to imaginary relationships
I think that’s the question that kept me most hateful company in my youth.
My friends called me stupid while their good boyfriend came to pick them up on a scooter to take them to the cinema on Saturdays. I, on the other hand, held onto my imaginary relationship, it was a distillation of poison and of a higher feeling. I misunderstood the sense of who I was and how I was supposed to be: I was convinced that I was profound, maybe even interesting. That great things were destined for those who wait a long time, but remain consistent with an imperious idea of love.
How stupid I was, how much time wasted, how bad mood wasted.
Do great loves not exist?
Magnani told Oriana Fallaci:
“Love itself, while it lasts, doesn’t bother me at all. It gives courage, it gives security, it makes things of no importance overlook. I believe it. To the great love that I never believed. Give me the example of a great love, a real one, with names, surnames, addresses, not one of legend, and I’ll believe it. See? She is silent. Great loves, my dear, don’t exist: they are liar’s fantasies. There are only small loves that last a more or less short period of time. For this reason, every time I’ve loved a man, I’ve never taken too much. I loved it, I was even jealous of the flies, but knowing it had to stop. And when it’s over… he cries a bit, but then he comes out. Two months go by, three months, you find him on the street, and it seems impossible to you to have wasted your sleep and tears after him”.
Read all the episodes of Ester Viola’s column Defective Relationships here.
Why does he keep looking for me if he’s not interested?
Sometimes one thinks that it is love that ruins love. Brief happiness was born and we made it into uninterrupted poetry.
While you wait for the return journey, from feeling to reason, A., I have a question mark here for you. See if you need it. It is the reverse of the question you are asking yourself, namely: Why does he keep looking for me if he’s not interested? Here she is: why would one give up a pleasantly fixated (you), patient and pious person who smoothes one’s ego?
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