Real Love Complaint - What does Love Like?

The Look of Love

Real Love Complaints says, "When we first begin to date a new interest we view that person in a very unique way, especially if it is someone that we haven't known for some time in a non-romantic way such as a peripheral friend or coworker.  Since we don't know much about that person, other than the fact that we are deeply attracted to him or her, the mind tend to fill in the blanks itself.  Most often, unless you  are particularly scarred by past traumas, the mind fills in those gaps with what we would like the person to be like.  In essence, our mind makes them into the person we want them to be."

This phenomenon just becomes more pronounced throughout the infatuation stage of a relationship.  As the expression goes, we walk around with "stars in our eyes" and have no complaints.  Unfortunately, those stars can prevent us from seeing that we may have real love complaints. 

The mental act of seeing your ideals in another person is called projection.  Much like a movie projector cast the images from a film strip onto a screen so that you can no longer distinguish the screen itself, we project out desires onto the person we are infatuated with, obscuring important facets of who that person really is. 

In a sense, without any real love complaints, this emotional illusion is wonderful.  It allows us to feel the tingling excitement, the burning passion, the delicious ache of new romance.  The tendency to project plays a major role in developing human relationships.  For some, the projections are massive and sweeping, essentially reshaping the other person from the ground up.  For others they are very minor and take the form more of glossing over faults rather than actually giving the other person characteristics that he or she doesn't actually have. 

Whether the projection of infatuation are great or small, one thing is absolutely certain beyond any doubt.  Without fail or complaints, those projected characteristics will fade.  Eventually the raging hormones dwindle and the deluges of dopamine and norepinephrine subside.  It is then that we begin the transition from infatuation to real love, if that actually connection has been made.

Unfortunately, projection works both ways.  There is a negative side, a real love complaint.   Most often, the negative aspect of projection is equal to the degree of positive projection that occurred during the infatuation phase.  It starts with feelings of hurt, disappointment and, ultimately, resentment that the other person failed to live up to the unrealistic expectations that you placed on them.  This, in and of itself, is enough to end many relationships.

If the relationship does endure, it enters into the  stage of negative projection.  You begin to project your own flaws, the faults in yourself that bother you the most, onto the other person.  This phase can last much longer than the positive projection phase of infatuation does.  In fact, some couples never move past this phase and continue it indefinitely not having any real love complaints.  

However, in a truly healthy relationship both sides will eventually realize that those negative projections are not any more realistic than the ideal projections of the infatuation period.  When we accept that we are projecting things we need to change in ourselves we can begin to grow personally and as a couple, as real love.  It is then that we finally are able to see our now long-term partner as they truly are - a necessity for a loving, healthy relationship.  This, then, is the true "look of love".