by Kim Remesch

Created on: January 14, 2007   Last Updated: April 23, 2007

The "love is blind" cliche encompasses several phases of the love/lust relationship-some have good connotations, others, quite the opposite.

Let's start with physical. I've been told I'm an odd bird on this one. Attractiveness has everything to do with personality to me. I met someone online, and he could have looked been a troll when I met him. He still would have been beautiful to me. When I came home from meeting him, my brother asked me what he looked like, and all I could come up with was that he is taller than me, and has brown hair. It has been 7 years, and I'd give the same answer. He's a beautiful person, and he was then. I have wondered if I would find him attractive if I had just met him on the street. I can't answer that, and I'm not sure I want to know.

Remember the character "Knucklehead Nellie Forbush" in South Pacific. In regard to physical beauty/love, I think that's me. I don't want to change that. By the same token, I've found people who are considered attractive by the public at large to be incredibly ugly as they are mean, nasty people. No amount of cosmetic surgery, make up etc, changes it.

Then we go on to the actual day-to-day relationship. Someone here said that there are times when the eyes should be half open (when it comes to beauty) and half shut (when it comes to flaws). This speaks to a mature kind of love.

In the early days of my marriage, I remember sulking over what I would now consider silly things. I watch my son and his girlfriend having the same debates that, to them, are huge. Cupboard doors not being closed, clothes on the floor, a coffee pot not cleaned out after use. Little things. In the early days of love, these are big things.

As time goes on and you face huge tests on you love, all of those things that were important seem silly now. Deaths, tests of trust, etc. are huge. You find you still love the person then. It makes you look back on the days when you judged love by the little things the person forgot are long over.

Finally, people thing of the "love is blind" as relating to people who really don't deserve you love. In that case, yes, love is blind. It has nothing to do with the object of love and everything to do with the person offering the love. Most often you'll find that the person doesn't feel worthy of better so he or she overlooks very obvious abusive, unloving behavior. Until the person has enough self esteem to know s/he deserves better, love will always be blind. We have to help the lover grow stronger for the person to see the object in realistic terms.

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