Something happened to me awhile back that greatly shaped my perception of romance. Early on in my life, I didn’t have a very well established set of romantic ideals. I was like most, wanting to fall in love and get married someday, while keeping my eyes on the lookout for whomever might fit the bill. I didn’t have any probing thoughts about the philosophical purpose of this thing called romance, or what kind of man I ought to be for the kind of girl I’ve always wanted to find. I simply knew that romance was something good, and that I wanted a part of it for myself.
But then something strange happened to me, something which forced certain notions and questions upon me I had never before thought of. One night during the summer, I went to the local gym after dinner, as I often did. I remember walking through the door to a crowded room, thinking to myself, a date with most any of the girls in here wouldn’t be such a bad thing. That single thought was characteristic of what my entire mentality had become. The reason I remember my mentality so clearly was because in only the next instant, that mentality would become shattered and irrevocably changed.
As I continued my way into the building’s interior, looking this way and that at all the people gathered, something caught my eye that I wasn’t prepared for. Looking ahead, I saw a girl in an elevated room behind a pane of glass. In describing her, I cannot say more than the fact that she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. To say that I wasn’t prepared to see her could more adequately be stated that I wasn’t prepared for change that the whole world seemed to take. For almost instantaneously, the world seemed to take on a vibrant and mysterious tone. Idealistic purposes I was beforehand blind to came alive and thrust themselves to the forefront of my heart and mind, and I was convicted and convinced in that moment that truly great and magical things did exist in the world to be found, and that I ought to fight for those things and strive to find them. A sense of timelessness also came over the world. I felt strangely connected to all men throughout time, that I now faced the same choice as all who came before. Will I be the kind of man who truly strives for great things in life? Or will I settle for the selfish ambitions of a vain and calloused heart? That is the question we all must face, the sense of timelessness that springs from being in the presence of something rare.
And something strange happened as well. In those short moments, I felt an odd contempt for my own happiness. Though I did not yet know her, my heart convinced me that she was someone truly special and worth fighting for, and that to get to know her would be a manifold and inexpressible treasure. And because of that feeling, I was convinced that I could have but one response: that I ought to be a better man. In that moment, I felt contempt for my own need for happiness, and instead, was filled with resolve to become the kind of man that a girl like that could truly need, though it cost me my own search for happiness. I felt that to be a better man was more important than to be happy, and that often, the two are mutually exclusive.
And there was something else surprisingly different. Though she was more beautiful than any girl I had ever seen, with her I found a longing for things I had never yearned for before with a girl; to walk hand in hand along a moonlit beach, to sit beside her on a park bench and watch her stare at the stars – even just to be in the same room with her. There was no desire for sex in that moment, though that itself is an understatement. So obvious was the lack of sexual desire that I realized surprisingly in that moment that even if there was no such thing as sex, still I would desperately want to be near her.
And this desperation to be near her led to feelings of reckless abandon that I had never before experienced. These feelings were surprising in that they drove me to want to walk up to her and tell her plainly of what I thought of her, how special and beautiful I thought she was, or writing her the most beautiful poem the world has ever seen and giving it to her. Though the fear of being labeled a lunatic kept these feelings at bay, still I was surprised at the nature of this reckless abandon. It seemed to be more concerned with esteeming her and building her up than concerned with anything else, pushing my own inhibitions and fears aside in order to encourage and uplift her. This desire struck me powerfully when it hit me. It seemed to be at its core a selfless desire, wanting only to esteem and encourage her, even at my own expense. Never before had I felt such a thing.
It may sound as though I’m using overly powerful language to describe a simple chance encounter, but I assure you that the descriptions do not even do justice to the actual event. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before, and nothing like it has happened again. I would like to be able to tell you that I had the courage to go up and speak to her, and ask her on a date. But I did not, I’m afraid. I watched her walk slowly from building only minutes later, and I have not seen her since. But the memory of that moment stayed strong in my mind for quite some time and forced many nights of contemplation about the nature of this strange thing called romance, which I had apparently never understood.
But eventually and slowly, things began to creep back to the way they were. I began to slip back into the original attitude I had always possessed of romance, and at length, felt little desire to fight and struggle for the best of things. But I was now aware that there was a struggle going on within my heart that I had beforehand been oblivious to. And I was also made aware that the frightfully powerful event that elicited such surprising feelings from me was on the losing end of the battle. The mediocre, as in most things, reigned supreme and was challenged little.
Over time, this thing called romance drove me somehow toward the best and also the worst attitudes and actions in life. When under the control of the common mediocre notion of romance, I was driven toward both selfishness and laziness. I felt trapped by my own desire and unable to really care about anything in my life. But when under the influence of that powerful, elusive force, I felt a certain freedom and possibility in the world. I was also convicted powerfully of my selfishness and laziness, convinced that there truly are great things in the world worth fighting for, but that I could only attain them if I became a better man than the man I had always been.
At length, I became completely confused. What was this struggle which compelled me toward both the best and the worst of things in my life? How could this thing called romance compel me so powerfully in two opposite directions? And so I was perplexed. I spent many thoughtful nights trying to reconcile in my mind how such a thing was possible. I must have gotten something wrong along the way, mixed up terms or convinced myself of things that weren’t really true. But then I came across a quote that resonated strongly with the way romance appeared to me in my mind.
I was reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Concerning the state of the world, someone had posed the question: “‘Why did God make a creature of such rotten stuff that it went wrong?’†And his response was this: “The better stuff a creature is made of—the cleverer and stronger and freer it is—the better it will be if it goes right, but also the worse it will be if it goes wrong. A cow cannot be very good or very bad; a dog can be both better and worse; a child better and worse still; an ordinary man, still more so; a man of genius, still more so; a superhuman spirit best—or worst—of all.
When I read that description, the realization hit me that the thing which had both inspired me to be the best, and convinced me to settle for the worst, could in fact be one and the same thing. Romance was a catalyst, if you will, a thing that would affect me powerfully either for good or for evil, but surely wouldn’t have a neutral effect on me. Quickly I grew uneasy, for if romance was not just some stagnant thing, but actually affected my inner being, then I couldn’t simply have a cavalier attitude about it.
Through my experience, I was able to get a glimpse, not only of what I wanted to find, but also of the type of man I was, and the type of man I wanted to be. When I realized that all those things had happened to me, it made me wonder: was romance created to help me become a better man? That was what I suspected. But if that was the case, could it not also have the opposite effect? After all, the better something is, the worse it can be if it goes wrong. And that is exactly what we find.
