The Naked Truth | When you find the right lover it doesn’t mean you should lose yourself – your independence still matters

Love does not have to make sense and nor does it bring joy all the time. On the contrary, it often causes sadness and disappointment. And for sure, it does not complete us. A couple of my friends just broke up with their long-term partners and these were some of the things that popped up in our recent conversation as we shared insights about love and relationships. Our discussions mostly revolved around whether love is irrational, but the notion of whether true love should make two people feel complete triggered the most passionate reactions. We are drawn to people who make us feel a certain way, and it is the same feeling when it comes to romantic connections. We date certain people because we like the way they make us feel about ourselves. Sometimes, we think about finding the perfect partner and try to look for the perfect one who supposedly can make us happy, be our great saviour, or maybe even “complete” us. Counter-intuitively, we sometimes may even fall in love with people who are not our “type” or do not possess the qualities that we are looking for. It just goes to show that we are often misled by our romantic instincts. But in the end, love happens when we least expect it or when it makes no sense. We do not fall in love according to a set of rules or reasons because we do not really experience love consciously. We respond to someone when they trigger emotional reactions in us to certain of their characteristics, and these serve as stimuli to pull us towards them and plants the seeds of love. This mysterious and yet powerful mechanism called love certainly works in mysterious ways. It is, however, unrealistic to expect that one person is going to make us happy by taking us from our drab and mundane existence to live together happily ever after. It is a common misconception that once you have found the perfect partner, your life is automatically complete and perfect. We have all heard the common romantic expression in movies “You complete me”, and undeniably it is hard to resist the allure of this heart-melting phrase. We often hear couples describe how perfect the state of their relationship is by likening their blissfulness to being two halves of a whole or having found their missing piece to be complete. This kind of feeling sounds like a neediness, a dependence or maybe even an unnecessary emotional burden on each other. The idea of being incomplete without the existence of another human being sounds dangerously insecure, or even scary, to me. We should all pride ourselves on being fully functional, independent individuals before meeting our partners. What we bring to the relationship is not something to make up for the inadequacies of the other person but extra qualities to further enrich the partnership to make each other stronger and better. According to American author and poet Shel Silverstein, “the best relationships do not complete us but let us grow and become more fully ourselves.” The Missing Piece Meets the Big O by Silverstein is most poignant for those who have ever sought a partner to either fix or be fixed by, leading to an unfounded belief that a lover is a saviour – with often disastrous results. In the story, a missing piece shaped like a slice of pizza dreams of finding a big circle into which it can fit so that together they can roll together and go to places. The lonely little wedge basically wants a “perfect partner” to make it a complete circle because its odd shape does not allow it to roll easily. Various shapes come by, but none seems the right fit for it. One day, a piece comes along that has a gap to allow the missing piece to fit perfectly. The two join and roll on by blissfully until one day the missing piece starts to grow and becomes too big for the bigger piece. Just like in any relationship, when one partner starts to grow while the other remains unchanged, they eventually become incompatible. The two pieces then go their separate ways. True love is not about completing each other but complementing and nurturing each other independently to become the best couple you can Eventually, a shape that has no piece missing comes by and introduces itself as the Big O. The missing piece believes it is “the one” and wants to roll with it but Big O refuses, saying it has no missing piece for it to fit in, and then it tells the missing piece to roll by itself. The missing piece says its an odd shape and is not designed for rolling, but the Big O encourages it to try, saying those sharp corners will eventually wear off once it starts rolling. The missing piece reluctantly starts flopping forward over and over until its sharp edges begin to wear off and its shape begins to change. Slowly but surely it begins to round off so it can now roll instead of flopping along; now it can roll by itself easily. Soon after the missing piece becomes a well-rounded circle, the Big O reappears, happily joins it, and the pair roll alongside each other. The moral of Silverstein’s story is that true love is not about completing each other but complementing and nurturing each other independently to become the best couple you can. Although a seemingly obvious message presented in an allegorical manner, it certainly offers a valuable life lesson for those of us who suffer from hopeless – or even hapless – romanticism. Strength comes from within, and after all, how can you truly love someone if you do not truly love yourself? Luisa Tam is a correspondent at the Post

The Naked Truth | When you find the right lover it doesn’t mean you should lose yourself – your independence still matters

Being in a relationship is not a signal for you to suddenly stop your individuality, you can still both adapt and grow together as one The best partnerships learn from each other and help us to truly love

Being in a relationship is not a signal for you to suddenly stop your individuality, you can still both adapt and grow together as one

The best partnerships learn from each other and help us to truly love