Loves me, loves me not.

A friend recommended this book because it is written by a professor who has a vocation to the single life. The book, ironically, is about romantic relationships. I think I am done reading books on this topic for the next few months.

Loves Me, Loves Me Not.
The Ethics of unrequited love.
by Laura A. Smit

This book seeks to answer the questions surrounding the experience of unrequited love in the context of the Christian life. The author looks at the process and trajectory of relationships that end in rejection from the point of view of both the reject-er and the rejected party and asks what purpose this experience has in a Christian's life. Is it just a sad consequence of sin? Does loving someone who doesn't love you back mean that you didn't really love them? That God didn't want you to love them? When you reject someone, are you displeasing God?

Author Larua A. Smit starts by defining love, God's plan for love, and the effects of sin on that plan. She writes about what a virtuous love, mutual or otherwise looks like, vrs. a love that is tainted or crippled with vice. She goes on to examine the influences of American culture on our romantic imaginations; on the script, as it were; the story that the culture tells us that we try to conform our lives to.
Finally, she analysis different responses and ways of dealing with the role of reject-er and rejected, trying to find the most godly one.

I think that her conclusion is that holy love, the kind that mirrors God's love, is always good, even when it is not returned. The experience of being in love, and seeing beauty in the beloved is a glimpse of the glory that will be revealed in all of us in heaven, which comes from the image of God in all of us. Christians should work, and pray to conform their love to God's love, which loves regardless of whether we love him in return or not. Love that is rejected especially can be turned to a longing and desire for the beauty of God that we see in the beloved who does not return our love.

While I was reading, I was constantly thinking of friends that I know who would relate to or appreciate the book in some way. If you are a friend of mine, and we have ever talked about relationships, or friendship and love, I would recommend this book to you. It was a really good read.

Here follows the parts that struck me the most in relation to my own vocation and experience.

Protestant Professor Smit makes some arguments that are probably shocking to her Protestant audience. I expect some cold water in the face whenever I read about romantic relationships. Such reality checks are necessary in this topic. I'm used to reading a very unromantic debunking of the soul mate myth. Smit addresses this, and also tosses a different glass of cold water. She argues that all Christians should assume that they will never marry until proved otherwise. It was kind of interesting to read as a Catholic, because I have grown up with the understanding that celibacy is a healthy and laudable option, and I have seldom heard celibacy defended to a Christian audience that would challenge it as Smit's Protestant audience might. In Catholic circles we hear that celibacy is a special calling (that may be superior in some way to the vocation of marriage, but that is usually down played) for a few, and the rest of us are called to advance the kingdom of God through marriage and family life. Generally the result is that we all assume we have a vocation to marriage, and we are all obligated to honestly check in with God to see if he has something else in mind for us.
So here is a Protestant professor claiming that single life is the default vocation and the burden of proof must now rest with the one who is asking you out.

I am not sure that I agree with her all the way. But I sure liked the idea that I don't have an obligation to try out a relationship with any good upstanding Christian man who asks me out with godly intentions. Instead of the burdensome (in my mind) assumption that every relationships between single adults of opposite sexes has this explosive potential to be a romantic relationship, she offers a community where everyone assumes nothing more than friendship is ever intended. That sounds like a great idea to me. But it is, of course, a rather far off hypothetical ideal. In that ideal world, I bet people who spend less time writing about romance and more time writing about friendship, which is, in my not so humble opinion, the lost art of our culture.

Sometimes I feel a little inhuman because the parts of the book that are about romance, building relationships, relationship advice, interest me in the way that hearing about Buddhism interests me: it's very fascinating in the abstract, but I really have no desire to try it, and can't actually relate much, accept from situations I have been outside of, watching. It's like I'm the wrong kind of being to get into that. Most of the book is about people who want to be in relationships and cause themselves and other a lot of pain. My self centered, smug, and cynical voice says "or you could just be friends and avoid all this nonsense." So I have to admit that I am completely ignorant when it comes to the desire to be married, or even just in a committed relationship that may lead to marriage.

The part of the book that reminded me of myself and my attractions to people in the past was near the end when she was talking about the after effects of a rejection. What do you do with the love that you feel for someone who won't love you back? The answer is complicated, but gratitude is the eventual end point. God leads the rejected love to gratitude for the glimpse of the image of God that has been seen, gratitude for the love that can continue to transform the lover for the better.
That has always been my experience of having a crush. I have never felt more than a faint desire to admit my affection to the object thereof. Mostly I have longed to spend time with the person as a friend. I distinctly remember getting up in the morning and sincerely thanking God that the man I was attracted to existed in the world and that I got to exist in the same place once in a while and bask in the light of God reflected off him. (This is the part where all my friends laugh and shake their heads at the idea of Zita Lousie that far gone. Some of you remember.) I had it pretty bad. But I really didn't want anything but friendship. Can you have a friend crush? By that I don't mean a crush on a friend, but a crush that longs for Philia instead of Eros. Anyway, it was a completely pleasant experience, until it was clear we couldn't even be friends because I was no longer going to be in the same place as him. I seem to have missed out on all the pain and soul searching that was supposed to make me a better person. I don't know whether to feel cheated or blessed.

At the end of the book, Smit called out the Protestant community for disparaging the single life, in their attempt to honor marriage. I appreciated that little afterward. The Catholic community could hear that one also, in so far as we have as much trouble as our Protestant brothers and sisters when it comes to integrating single people into the community outside of religious life. I have been surprised at how uncomfortable people tend to be when I tell them I don't intend to marry, or join an order. They do tend to think I will grow out of it, that I'm just not ready yet. I suppose that may be the case. But I'm not going to wait around for it, and neither should my Christian community.