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银虫 (著名写手)

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[交流] 【Share】extracted from GENERIC LOVE ——don't take it personally.

今天，我来泼水

When they say "I love you," don't take it personally.

Some years ago I was having dinner with my girlfriend, Liz; among other items on my plate was a heaping mound of mashed potatoes. When Liz noticed I had finished eating all of my potatoes, she instantly ladled another scoop onto my plate, without asking. She had done this before, and I felt I needed to say something:

"Please don't automatically give me more food without checking first to see if I want more."
"Oh. Sorry."

It was a short-lived but friendly relationship, and about six months later she was living happily with a new man, one of my housemates, Steve. He had apparently been climbing out of his upstairs window, descending from the roof and sneaking up the block to Liz's house for several weeks before it became clear that I didn't mind passing the torch to him, and he started using the front door. Before long, I was invited to join them for dinner, and I observed an astounding phenomenon. As fate would have it, we were again eating mashed potatoes. Steve was a robust guy in his early 20s with a hearty appetite, and no sooner had he devoured his potatoes, I watched with great interest as Liz immediately served him another portion. Without missing a beat, Steve dug in and happily finished those off as well.

Meanwhile, I was formulating a theory about love: it's nothing personal. Love is generic. Unromantic, perhaps, but I am asserting that Liz's style of expressing love manifested, in part, by doling out mashed potatoes freely and with a certain reckless abandon. What she needed in a mate was someone who loved receiving as many potatoes as she could dish out. Steve was the man of her dreams.

I began to reflect on my previous relationship, with Cathy. Her way of expressing love was to make me beautifully crafted cards, containing little feathers pasted onto homemade rice paper, with three-dimensional, pop-up flaps and folds hiding fragments of poetry and mystical messages. Each card was both a masterpiece of art as well as a maze filled with surprises. Several years after we had separated, we got together and were running errands. We stopped into a crafts store where she loaded her basket with an assortment of baubles, fixatives and unusual miniature artifacts she needed for something she was creating for Jim, her new boyfriend.
Again, I got it: love is generic. Cathy just needed somebody out there to serve as an excuse for her to enjoy her creativity. It could be virtually anyone. Now Jim was the lucky recipient of all the little cards with the feathers and poetry. It made little difference to Cathy; she was happy as long as there was someone to make cards for, just as Liz needed a potatophile. So the next time your mate says, "I love you," don't take it personally. They would love anybody in your position.

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