THE PERFECT ILLUSION

Recently I blogged about my friend Constance and her belief that she would find perfect love in only a particular looking man. I don’t think Constance is alone. An old school friend seems stuck in a time warp. He came to stay the other weekend. He and his wife divorced the best part of twenty years ago but he’s so obviously seeking a companion that resembles her, it’s unreal. Worse still, he seems to have forgotten that he’s aged in the meantime and the woman he’s seeking is someone who resembles his wife as she was and not as she presumably now is. Seems he has this vision of perfection and nothing can sway him from it. Unconsciously he’s projecting his idea of perfection onto anyone who looks like her. It’s like worshipping statues on pedestals or Roman idols. Talk of fixed head sets! Worse still when his various liaisons don’t live up to his expectations, he blames them not himself.

For any long-term relationship to work, you can’t have illusions, particularly not those to the effect that your partner is perfection personified. That’s why Outdoor Man and I get along so well; we totally disillusioned each other years ago!