Western ways

The Bigger Picture: Love is in the air. It's either that or a deep sense of loneliness

The Bigger Picture: Love is in the air. It's either that or a deep sense of loneliness. Believe it or not, your loneliness might be pointing towards a more rounded life.

Our current society teaches us to think of love in very limited ways. Many people feel desperate about finding the "one person" who will save them, fulfilling all their needs. This desperation makes us afraid to discuss views on commitment, babies, jobs and life, let alone expectations for each other and the relationship. We rigidly define our relationships: "just friends", "dating", "going out" and so limit how we can love. Having been raised in an arranged marriage culture, I've come to call this "Western, compulsive, heterosexual coupling-off".

Adults ask children as young as two and three about "boyfriends" or "girlfriends" (whichever they find acceptable to the defined gender of the child). We learn that coupled relationships are a sign of maturity and the only acceptable place to express affection on a moment-by-moment, day-by-day basis. As early as 10 years old, we're forced to limit our ways of loving. What a shame.

What sets our relationships apart from common friendship is an unspoken agreement to engage in sexual affection - kissing, holding, even intercourse. Sex, however, was only meant to be one expression of love, not the definition of it. Establishing a rigidly defined, sexual relationship before we get to really know someone seems to me to be a recipe for heartbreak and a mistake.

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Being in a relationship seems to define our worth and lovability. In reality, however, most of us have been heartbroken, disappointed, betrayed and rejected all before the age of five, by people who loved us but eventually showed themselves as fallible. It is this heartbreak that limits, even ruins, our attempt to be close. We need to uncover it, feel it fully, reclaim our power and emerge from it so we can indeed know our own hearts and minds, and understand how deeply we can touch another.

Until we do this, no relationship will ever fill that hole. Disappointment is inevitable when our one-and-only is revealed as mortal. We blame them, hate them, and even leave them. Because infatuation and feeling "in-love" come before commitment, our whole relationship is shaken if the infatuation and "in-love" feeling disappear for a moment.

Our narrow view of relationships keeps us isolated and holding back from loving everyone in our lives fully and knowing them completely. What a world we would have if love was fostered and encouraged on every corner and in every relationship!

First, there would be no need to "gain experience" from a number of relationships. In my experience, most people who have many different relationships never learn from them. Closeness, trust and intimacy are certainly not practised. They grow in the most difficult of times when all you have to hold on to is a commitment to believing in each other and hanging in. What we really need to learn is not to be found with multiple partners, but inside our own hearts. And it is difficult to know until we feel the full depths of our loneliness.

Human love was meant to be fluid, relaxed, and in every interaction. We can love each other openly and in every encounter - not simply displaying sexuality, but real love. And the closer and deeper our connections become, the more our childhood loneliness will surface for healing, allowing us to become clearer and more able to plan and go after what we really want.

Breaking open our relationships also means relaxing around sexual orientation. The connection might not be apparent, but society's oppression against gay, lesbian and bisexual people is an extension of sexism - keeping us in rigidly defined relationships, limiting human love and affection. Whatever your orientation, when you express yourself outside the prescribed roles - be a warm, affectionate man or a physically powerful woman - you're isolated and ridiculed. It has nothing to do with sex. Gay culture could teach us to be more open and welcoming towards each other.

The more we insist others be less than themselves, the harder it is for us to be all we want to be. It is love we need to learn about, not sex. Sex is best when two people are completely empowered, vulnerable, and can express themselves fully. This can't be achieved when you don't know each other well, have no commitment to love each other completely, or play games to please each other in the hope of feeling close to and loved by someone.

But, deep-reaching, widespread commitments can teach us a lot about the human heart. Only when we decide never to give up on someone can we be free to love them completely. And we have every right to expect this in return from anyone who is good enough to grow with for the rest of our lives.

• Shalini Sinha is an independent producer, counsellor and journalist. She is a consultant on issues of equality. She has lectured on Women's Studies in UCD and co-presents Mono, RTÉ's intercultural programme