The Dream of a Soulmate Part (3)
Specifically the Dream of a Soulmate Infatuations
The Romatic faith must always have existed, but only in the past few centuries has it been judged anything more than an illness, only recently has the search for a soulmate been allowed to take on the status of something close to the purpose of life. An idealism previously directed at Gods and spirits has been rerouted towards human subjects - an ostin sibly generous gesture nevertheless freighted with forbidding and birttle consequences, sine it is no simple thing for any human being to honour over a lifetime the perfctions he or she might have hinted at to an imagiative observer in the street, the office or the adjoining aeroplanc seat.
It will take Rabih many years and frequent essays in love to reach a few different conclusions, to recognize that the very things he once considered romatic - wordlress intuition, instantaneous longings, a trust in soulmates - - are what stand in the way of learning how to sustain relationship. He will conclude that love can endure only when one is unfaitful to its beguiling opening ambition; and that for his relationship to work he will need to give up one the feeling that got him into them in the first place, He will need to learn that love is a skill rather than an enthusiasm.
In the early days of their marriage, and indeed for many years thereafter, it is always the same question for Rabih and his wife: How did you two meet ? usually acccompanied by an air of playful vicarious excitment. The couple then typically look at one another (sometimes a little shyly, when the whole table has stopped to listen) to determine who should tell it this time. Depending on the audience, they may play it for wit or for tenderness. It can be condensed into a line or fill a chapter.
The start recieves suck disproporationate attention because it isn't deemed to be just one phase among many; for the Romantic, it contains in concentrated from everything significant about love as a whole. Which is why in so many love stories there is simply nothing else for the narrator to do with a couple after they have triumphed over a range of initial obstacles other than to consign them to an ill-defined contented future or kill them off. What we typically call love is only the start of love.