true love

So I was listening to Outright Radio, a gay/lesbian/etc. radio show on PRI (it's been cancelled, apparently, but they still run old ones), and they had a couple of interesting segments about non-traditional couples, talking about marriage.

One lesbian, tired of the old-fashioned 2-people-till-death-do-us-part thing, and very happy with her friendship with an ex-lover, had this to say:

"(ME) HERE’S THE deal; I think we shoud get our twenty people and we should get everybody put in a 1000 dollars (or like five hundred dollars poss cut) and we should have a big fricking commitment ceremony. (J laughing) OK.. that’s a great idea… (E) the question is, why would that be frightening to anyone, the idea of committing to twenty loved ones, the idea of saying I’m in this until our teeth fall out, until we’re old and grey and wrinkly… and what’s that going to look like?" She said that she did not believe that humans were meant to mate for life - instead, she believes we are more clannish creatures.

In describing this mass commitment ceremony, she was taking to its extreme her idea that love should be shared with community. She believed the friendship of ex-lovers in the gay community was an ideal that people of all orientations should aspire to. I can dig that, as I can dig the equality ideal that gay relationships seem to project.

I, however, have to admit I would be a little frightened of a mass commitment ceremony. I've always thought of big groups of people, loving each other, as orgies. Or, at least, the seventies.

On the other side of the coin, the show did a segment on a married couple. Not just any couple, though, a woman and a transgendered man (post-op - he was now a female). Though the (original) woman was straight, she believed in "till death do us part." The new-to-female woman described meeting her future wife at a dance. He (male at the time - sorry, this is very confusing to write) had been in a dating rut, and had decided to only date women who met certain criteria. This particular woman met none of those criteria, but he Knew she was the One. This Officer's Ball meeting ( I swear I didn't make that up) is the stuff of fairy tales, or at least a really good chick movie.

As the story went on, it grew stranger, complete with religious epiphanies (the couple are steadfast, somewhat disturbingly zealous Christians) and sex-change operations. I have to believe the (original) woman got the raw end of the deal in this - she admitted to missing family who had disowned them, not to mention missing having a man in her life. She didn't sound miserable though, she laughed good-naturedly about problems that would make others hit the road. For her, marriage vows were paramount. Perhaps things would be different, had the minister said, "Till death or sex-change operation do you part". Clearly this couple felt strongly about staying with one person for life.

So there's two points of view - what's yours? Is forever-love too high an ideal to even aspire to? Is "the One" simply "the one that was there when I wanted to find 'the One'" - something for religious zealots and simpleminded folk?

And when do we become too cynical? Is "love that passes" (J Joyce) really enough?


My only answer so far is this: women (or at least, I) spend way too much time creating and revising our philosophies on love.