The Fear of Engulfment in Love — Transcript

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1. 0:02It is a permanently extremely curious
2. 0:05idea that love, the thing we think we
3. 0:08crave and miss so much when we're alone,
4. 0:11might frighten us. That we operate, all
5. 0:14of us to some degree, with a fear of
6. 0:16engulfment.
7. 0:18We might have met them a month ago,
8. 0:19perhaps four or five. We went in at high
9. 0:21speed, bored of the usual compromise and
10. 0:23cowardice. We quickly exchanged I love
11. 0:26yous and may even have mentioned
12. 0:27marriage. But now they're fully on
13. 0:30board, the barriers are completely down
14. 0:32and we, much to our embarrassment, are
15. 0:35feeling unusual.
16. 0:37The fear doesn't manifest itself as
17. 0:39fear, exactly. We're a mixture of numb,
18. 0:42nauseous and frightened, all without
19. 0:44apparent cause. Someone is in the
20. 0:47background trying to feed us something
21. 0:48of uncommon sweetness and we are queasy.
22. 0:52They brought flowers last night.
23. 0:54Whenever the phone pings, we hope it
24. 0:56might be someone else. The nickname they
25. 0:58have for us, once so welcome, now feels
26. 1:01like a burden or demand.
27. 1:03We've told all our friends and booked a
28. 1:05holiday next month, but we deep down
29. 1:07want, to our profound embarrassment, to
30. 1:09run away. Not for the first time, we
31. 1:12wish there were a service that could, no
32. 1:14questions asked, teleport us to a new
33. 1:16life on a different planet. The
34. 1:18difficulty lies in how impossible our
35. 1:20message to them is. We would ideally
36. 1:23like them to love us a bit less in order
37. 1:25that we be able to return their
38. 1:27feelings. We wish they could be a little
39. 1:29more distracted, a little busier, a bit
40. 1:32less responsive. Could they be somewhat
41. 1:34meaner?
42. 1:36We need, as a first step, to understand
43. 1:39what is at play. Almost always, it's a
44. 1:41question of our childhoods. This is a
45. 1:44logical panic, given where we've come
46. 1:47from.
47. 1:48In order to survive, we once had to put
48. 1:50up a very high wall between ourselves
49. 1:52and anyone who might come close.
50. 1:55We might be quite funny and charming. We
51. 1:57might sincerely crave company, and yet
52. 1:59we made a refusal to rely on others a
53. 2:01central feature of our characters. We
54. 2:04had no choice. Had we remained at ease
55. 2:06around sincere connection, we would have
56. 2:09been devastated by dad's rages or mom's
57. 2:11sarcasm, the favoritism shown to our
58. 2:13sister, or our brother's illness.
59. 2:16Our nausea is an understandable panic at
60. 2:19having to surrender the suspicion and
61. 2:21independence that got us through life
62. 2:23until now, at having to give up the
63. 2:26paranoia that helped us to survive.
64. 2:29There is the option of fleeing and
65. 2:31starting again. We might pick on
66. 2:33something halfway believable to
67. 2:35legitimate an ending. They were too
68. 2:36serious. They looked a bit wrong. They
69. 2:39didn't share our tastes in music or
70. 2:41their friends sided with the wrong
71. 2:42political factions. We might
72. 2:44spontaneously feel their eyes are too
73. 2:46close together, or their forehead is too
74. 2:48high.
75. 2:50We can take up many decades on this sort
76. 2:52of rigmarole.
77. 2:53But more interesting would be to grip
78. 2:55the fear of engulfment and try to tame
79. 2:58it. We need to start by finding a way,
80. 3:01however halting, to discuss what's going
81. 3:03on. I don't hate you. I'm just a bit
82. 3:06strange. Love, when it's returned, feels
83. 3:08alarming. People can understand a lot
84. 3:11once they're given a chance.
85. 3:13We need some practical steps, too. Every
86. 3:15night together won't be a good idea.
87. 3:17Space becomes important. Not sharing a
88. 3:20bed is fine. We can carefully explain
89. 3:22our choices. This isn't about not
90. 3:24loving, it's about our fear of
91. 3:26dissolving. We're doing this not because
92. 3:28we don't care, but because caring a lot
93. 3:31is bound up with a terror of losing our
94. 3:33capacity to survive alone. It helps if,
95. 3:37as is almost always the case, there are
96. 3:39in fact two people who are frightened of
97. 3:41this. Too often, the blame for the fear
98. 3:44gets attached to the person who is more,
99. 3:46if only marginally, scared than the
100. 3:48other. They then have to carry the
101. 3:50weight for both of them. They get
102. 3:52labeled the evasive one, while the other
103. 3:54gets to bask in a private glory of being
104. 3:56unceasingly up for love.
105. 3:59We need to strive to be fair. This is
106. 4:01both of our problems. Finally, as so
107. 4:03often, we need to laugh at the
108. 4:05absurdity. A rich redemptive laughter
109. 4:07that helps to bind us.
110. 4:09We want them so much we don't want them
111. 4:11anymore. We're trying to love and we're
112. 4:13scared of love. We're in the here and
113. 4:15now and we're small children with pasts
114. 4:17we can barely remember that make us do
115. 4:19things we don't understand. This is a
116. 4:21matter for a hug, a confession, and a
117. 4:24very dark laugh.