FPL2014 said:
I'd like to know what you have to say about this subject, my friend. Specially if you admire C. G. Jung.
Ah, well it'd be my pleasure then, but I hope I'm not going to offend anyone with this... also I'm going to take things that are also from Hillman, Aristotle, Lewis Carroll and possibly even Aleister Crowley (and not just Carl Jung, mostly because he stereotyped girls and guys a bit too much while Hillman embraces diversity).
At the first stage of maturity, one is attracted to another's body. There is very little to say there, we've all been through puberty, tho some may deny having such an immature stage in life - it's simply a normal form of curiosity. It is not very moral to demonize one's natural healthy physical desires.
At the second stage of maturity, one is attracted to "someone who can understand them". Romance comes into play in this part. If you are someone very logical, you are thus going to be attracted to someone's capacities to understand (logically) - competences. For those who are very emotional, they are going to be attracted to romance. Romance is ultimately the same thing for emotions - it is the capacity to understand the emotional need of those people who are very emotional. Now one problem already comes into play there - that is "Romantic people" tend to want someone else who is romantic, but at this point the "need of romance" becomes similar to wanting a mirror. Normally the idea is that romance and competence allows people of different minds (logical/emotional) to communicate together. When both are translating their thoughts into romance, neither are really communicating - it becomes an act, a play. Yet obviously, those who are "romantic" do need to ask for something in return - it's not fair for one person to give and the other to receive entirely, but the idea is to seek an equivalent exchange. Ultimately one should probably see romance as a "translator" in order to reach others who have a hard time voicing their own emotions. It's supposed to be a form of empathy that allows someone to understand and support the emotional need of the other, emotional person who has a hard time to voice their own emotions. The biggest problem of modern romance is that it became an "act" that is based on a lot of preconception (while it is supposed to be a form of adaptation). Such an act isn't even qualified to be considered romance in the strict sense - someone undergoing such an act isn't even understanding the other, but simply believes that by following such a "guidebook" they can "win the other" and generally expect a "guidebook reaction in return". There is certainly no guidebook in love.
Ultimately at this level one is still actually unable to truly see the other as a "person" in the strict sense. Maturity goes when you actually start to understand each other as actual "people" rather then simply "someone of the opposite gender" (tho in your case it probably plays out a bit differently, but something similar should happen there) - this also influence the vision of other non romantic people, especially the difference between a children's view of adults as unchanging personas into viewing them as actual people. You mentioned something about teaching in your OP, this is pretty much related to the "third stage", that comes before the final level of maturity - the difference being that at this stage you know exactly what you're looking for, but you (anyone) need to lower your own expectations/accept the other for who they are and/or use each other in order to better understand the self - some people are more prone to understand others through the self and some to understand the self through others.
Now the modern definition of romance tend to be deeply tied to Agape. Going to try to explain this rapidly - but agape is ultimately "paternal love" (or parental love in the largest sense) - a blind selfless love that sacrifices the self to the other - which makes some level of sense when you talk about a parent to a child (and sadly doesn't always do so). A common misconception is that "eros" (one's specific desires, the difference between "I want someone" and "I want that person") is bad and that "agape" is good, but ultimately both are actually driven entirely by instincts (even animals sacrifices themselves at time for their children and the very act of childbirth is very much tied into this) and from my pov are basically the yin and yang of each other - you want to give selfless love contains the "you want" part, meaning it is ultimately not too different form Eros, and it's hard to have Agape without realizing one's Eros. These being instinctive forces, they aren't actually the result of one's true Thelema (will/mental energy).
Now Im going to move on to something a bit different, but basically the saying goes that "An unhappy marriage is not one that is lacking love, but one that is lacking friendship" and it's pretty much the point there. Philia (perhaps closer to fellowship) is the love that ancients until the renaissance were strongly seeking and saw as the ultimate form of "love" (tho not the most powerful) because it is exactly the result of one's Thelema (meaning it's a fully conscious choice) and also can only exist and grow through years of connection with someone and learning to accept their goods and bads - something that can be viewed as "taming each other". It is the very act of taming that makes such a bond so strong and valuable - and it is something that has been lost since around the renaissance.
Why was Philia lost? Overall it goes around the Aeon of Osiris (the era of paternal gods, which isn't exclusive to monotheistic religions) which roughly began 2500 years B.C. and slowly spread around the world - now it's not the religious movements that created this lost of Philia but rather the lost of religion itself. Once the faith started to vanish, people still desired that Agape that they received from the paternal gods previously as a result of the underlaying culture not changing. Since these gods are often very close to being human in nature, people started to desire this from another human instead of a spiritual being or a parent (current society's lack of familial values certainly doesn't help this but this is another topic entirely). As the need from Agape raised from each other, which is the modern form of Romance, the quality of Philia was gradually lost and especially in very modern times became a kind of "shopping mall" where people reject each other constantly in order to find someone who would fulfill all of one's desires - the lack of "Sophia" I mentioned earlier - this both gradually made love and friendship a hard thing to have in it's old form of "fellowship", and the increasing loneliness it created even for married people have actually increased the eros/agape relation and importance - increasing deception of each other and constantly raising the bar.
We have currently often reached a point where most people desire Agape while being completely desire dominated (modern capitalism really doesn't help this, but this is another topic again), making critic of each other far more constant. People tend to constantly polish the romance they desire from someone else while seldom looking at the self, believing in return that they want "someone who accepts me for who I am" often while never looking at the self (simply believing that they are inherently deserving it) and actually being quite critical of the others - not accepting others for who they are - and being often dominated by self-justification. Philia dies, Agape becomes something we expect, not want to give, even Eros vanishes - leaving people to only "want" in a broad generic way and never finding someone that specifically fits all of their specific polished desires, often born of fictional romance, and being in despair and drama over the world's inability to equal one-sided fiction. In order to escape loneliness, often continues to watch and/or read fiction where perfect romance exists, often missing out the point that what makes fictional relationship so great is their Philia based nature.
So if you (anyone) want to be happy in any form of relationship, the advice I should give would be to learn to tame each other, which I believe some people on this board successfully have done from what I have seen on Skype chat (congradulation people~) at least as far as friendship goes. It's the efforts and time spent together that makes it all more golden. Be less judgemental, try to understand each other, and understand your own true will, that surpass instincts, so you know what you are looking for, and do not expect a single relationship to fulfill all of your emotional needs. More importantly, if you want someone to truly accept you for who you are, you first need to learn to do so yourself, that is actually looking at your own self.
I'll finish by saying that as time progress, people have been gradually growing from "partenership" to instead a sort of "wanting your own reflection in the mirror", making romance even more twisted. Obviously kinship is an important part of one's emotional needs, but it shouldn't be confused with the teamwork that a couple requires in order to properly function. You do not become a doctor in the hope of receiving another doctor as patient and asking them to heal you in return - this is that kind of thing. Going back to Agape, two people cannot give Agape to each other, such a love would be the most blind and foolish kind of love where both would be destroying each other for each other, and certainly wouldn't produce any happiness. Romance evolved, but starting in the renaissance onward one should realize that the essence of fictional romance became Drama, not happiness, and that the word "romance" itself has the same root as the french word for "novel" (roman). It has often turned romance into a "dramatic mind game" where one is expecting a lot of things that someone should do for the other in the name of love (if s/he really loves me, s/he'd do X or Y). Immaturity is normal, and people should forgive themselves and each other for it, no one is born wise, but most definitively what should be encouraged is reaching the higher levels of acceptations of each other and the self, which is something that takes time. Most definitively, if anyone was to be using what I just wrote while assuming they are at the peak of this in order to critic others (rather then helping them reach that level), then one definitively has lost the point entirely. This is a "guide" for improvement of the self and relationships, but ultimately the most important thing I could ever say is that love does not have anything like a guide - the true will lies much above that, and there is no such thing as a guide to "discard the guide" which has been provided by fictional romance.
Again, hoping I didn't offend anyone too much through all of this. My goal is for people to actually reach understanding of each other, but I am aware this is a lot of very touchy topics.
