Relationships offer opportunities to calibrate the LoveSpeed of the perching shoulder and the landing of the butterfly. In other words, we can either expand our horizons of joy with love or entrench our boundaries of deprivation with fear. But why would intelligent, good people want to obstruct their path to joy? The reason surfaces when we consider the implicate premises we bring to relationships: How can I grow with the novelty that relationships provide or how can I perpetuate the failure scripts from my past experiences hoping they will work with my new partner? Notice the difference? One wants to explore joy while the other wants to be proven right.
Many who fear being controlled, are passive controllers. They view any request to emotionally reach out, as invasion of their autonomy. Attempts to set mutual priorities are perceived as rushing the relationship. And invitations to explore future plans are considered reluctance to enjoy the present. Conclusions? Any attempts to define the horizons of a relationship become intrusions to be dealt with disdain.
When the perching shoulder requests reasonable conditions for the butterfly to land, two options become available: 1. There are plans to land given time with defined conditions. 2. The butterfly has no plans to land, under any conditions. Thus, in worthy relationships, the perching shoulder can offer patience, and the butterfly can determine how and when the landing will take place.
But some relationships are made of unrealistic demands from the perching shoulder and the butterfly. Bringing reason and fairness to a relationship are indicators of maturing love. Anything else is love-at-a-distance: A profound waste of the most precious gift we have to offer and receive. Love is a verb requiring action, not an adjective defining intention. Sadly, the digital world allows those who embody the iSelf to text their intentions rather than touch feelings with their partner who otherwise be compelled to hopelessly compete with superficial digital enticements void of substantive emotional nourishment. Burn you ships or continue to exist in ether space.