L O V E
… in Theory
This weekend I'm celebrating love — the marriage of a dear friend. And it feels only natural to reflect on it a little. After all, love is one of my favorite subjects (thank the Libra in me for that).
In a late-night, tipsy call with my sister the other day, I shared with her one of my recent thoughts on love, more specifically, on the third love theory.
You know that theory that goes a bit like this:
The first love is the vanilla one, probably a high school crush, through which you experience your first heartbreak. It's like the rite of passage in love.
The second is the one that burns the hardest, so much so that it forces you to rebuild a new version of yourself (for more information on that, check this article). It’s the one you wish had lasted forever, but deep down you know it couldn’t.
And the third is that slow, healthy love that sneaks up on you, that helps you grow instead of burning you down. Supposedly, it’s the love that stays.
Well, I had a hard time with this theory, and as you can imagine, the hardest part was what I consider to be my "second love." I couldn’t stand this theory, because what do you mean now my third love will be calm, and come with no butterflies or any other animals for that matter? For someone as bold and intense as me, this was not an option.
But having found love after that second love purge, I’ve learned one thing.
The third love might not be the last one, but it does come with big changes.
The charm of the third love isn’t in its calmness, it’s in the way it sees all the good in you, all that you know you are but maybe lost touch with along the way.
You see, the second love often relies on codependency. You fall in love with someone because they see something you hate about yourself, but they accept it. And so, you become addicted to them because you believe they accept you even with those dark sides you try so hard to hide.
But the third love doesn’t focus on your insecurities. It amplifies your charm, your qualities. And even if the third love ends, when or if it does, it doesn’t take what’s good in you with it. On the contrary, it leaves you grounded, with your strengths in plain sight. The pain of that loss doesn’t scream like the one before. It sits quietly, resting in your chest like a soft, melancholic ache, while you move forward with a seat open in your life, ready for someone courageous enough to stay.
That’s what the third love means to me.
And that’s why the second love is crucial in one’s journey. It teaches you how to let go, how to gain autonomy, and how to understand that no matter how painful a heartbreak is, no one can take all the love you have inside of you.
That love belongs to you. Its source is you.
And sometimes, it takes someone draining you of it completely for you to learn how to hold it, channel it, and use it to make your whole life beautiful, instead of pouring it all into someone else.
And as I was reflecting on this big subject, I had to put together a collection of my favorite paintings depicting romantic love, that you can see on my Instagram. What I try to highlight with that post is the beauty of how each of these artists interpreted their own experience with love. You don’t just see two people kissing – through brushstrokes, color, light, and composition, you catch a glimpse of the artist’s relationship with the subject.
For example, in Munch’s Kiss by the Window, the subjects merge into one another, symbolizing a loss of individual identity and a deep, potentially consuming, unity within the relationship. In a similar tone of despair and loss comes Tracey Emin’s I Said I Would Leave, depicting love as a finite force. While Hayez, through The Kiss, states a political movement – the alliance between France and Italy.
And lastly, Hopper’s Nighthawks, which in theory represents loneliness and isolation, but I personally find deeply romantic. Maybe because I once met someone I care deeply for in a bar? There’s a spark that strikes me when I look at this painting. Rather than romance, I see desire – those five seconds before starting a conversation with a stranger at the bar you find attractive, the heightened emotions once you find out you both ordered the same drink.
It’s that moment – when the person in front of you could be anything you want, expected or unexpected, standing in the space of all potential outcomes and then, with each word, drink, and cigarette smoked, that space gets smaller. The road narrows, leading you closer to reality.
But regardless of the meaning the creator gives to a painting, or what the critics think it should or shouldn’t be, the idea of art, in any form, is to strike emotion in you. You see, it’s an intimate experience.
When you look at a painting, before reading about it, take a step back and ask yourself: “How does this make me feel? What does this represent to me?”
This is such a fun, introspective exercise. And you’ll find exactly what I’m trying to highlight with Paradiso – that the story, the beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Whatever you experience is entirely defined by your unique perspective. It’s extraordinary, really, what kind of emotions you can spark when you enter into a relationship with art.