{"id":4505,"date":"2023-10-12T03:56:37","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T07:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/roxane-gay-on-loving-vs-being-in-love-and-the-mark-of-a-soul-mate-the-marginalian\/"},"modified":"2023-10-12T03:56:37","modified_gmt":"2023-10-12T07:56:37","slug":"roxane-gay-on-loving-vs-being-in-love-and-the-mark-of-a-soul-mate-the-marginalian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/roxane-gay-on-loving-vs-being-in-love-and-the-mark-of-a-soul-mate-the-marginalian\/","title":{"rendered":"Roxane Gay on Loving vs. Being in Love and the Mark of a Soul Mate \u2013 The Marginalian"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Opinions-Arguments-Criticism-Minding-Business\/dp\/0063341468\/?tag=braipick-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"320\" height=\"494\" class=\"cover with-border alignright size-medium jetpack-lazy-image\" alt=\"Roxane Gay on Loving vs. Being in Love and the Mark of a Soul Mate\" decoding=\"async\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/roxanegay_opinions.jpg?w=972&amp;ssl=1 972w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/roxanegay_opinions.jpg?resize=320%2C494&amp;ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/roxanegay_opinions.jpg?resize=600%2C926&amp;ssl=1 600w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/roxanegay_opinions.jpg?resize=240%2C370&amp;ssl=1 240w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/roxanegay_opinions.jpg?resize=768%2C1185&amp;ssl=1 768w\" data-lazy-sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/roxanegay_opinions.jpg?fit=320%2C494&amp;ssl=1&amp;is-pending-load=1\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks\u2026 the work for which all other work is but preparation,\u201d Rilke <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2015\/01\/29\/rilke-on-love\/\">wrote<\/a> to the young poet seeking his advice a century ago. \u201cLoving anybody and being loved by anybody is a tremendous danger, a tremendous responsibility,\u201d Baldwin cautioned a generation later as he himself <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2017\/05\/09\/james-baldwin-richard-goldstein-village-voice-interview\/\">reckoned with the work of love<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Because the stakes are so high, because we are so overwhelmed by both the power and the fragility of love, we regularly find ourselves catatonic with confusion about what it all means and what it asks of us. We mistake much for love \u2014 admiration, attraction, need. We fumble and fall again and again into the treacherous abyss between the idea of love \u2014 an idea baggaged with millennia of cultural mythologies \u2014 and the reality of love, with all its work and responsibility. <\/p>\n<p>How to bridge the abyss and see clearly through all the confusion is what <strong>Roxane Gay<\/strong> explores in one of the pieces collected in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Opinions-Arguments-Criticism-Minding-Business\/dp\/0063341468\/?tag=braipick-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><em>Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People\u2019s Business<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldcat.org\/title\/1371749106\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>public library<\/em><\/a> \u2014 her astute commentary on popular culture and politics, punctuated by reflections on the deepest and most timeless strata of our experience. <\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_76837\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2022\/05\/12\/sophie-blackall-things-to-look-forward-to\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" width=\"680\" height=\"811\" class=\"size-full wp-image-76837 jetpack-lazy-image\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/sophieblackall_thingstolookforwardto_FallinginLove.jpg?w=1161&amp;ssl=1 1161w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/sophieblackall_thingstolookforwardto_FallinginLove.jpg?resize=320%2C382&amp;ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/sophieblackall_thingstolookforwardto_FallinginLove.jpg?resize=600%2C716&amp;ssl=1 600w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/sophieblackall_thingstolookforwardto_FallinginLove.jpg?resize=240%2C286&amp;ssl=1 240w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/sophieblackall_thingstolookforwardto_FallinginLove.jpg?resize=768%2C916&amp;ssl=1 768w\" data-lazy-sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/sophieblackall_thingstolookforwardto_FallinginLove.jpg?resize=680%2C811&amp;is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" data-lazy-fallback=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/sophieblackall_thingstolookforwardto_FallinginLove.jpg?resize=680%2C811&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"680\" height=\"811\" class=\"size-full wp-image-76837\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/sophieblackall_thingstolookforwardto_FallinginLove.jpg?w=1161&amp;ssl=1 1161w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/sophieblackall_thingstolookforwardto_FallinginLove.jpg?resize=320%2C382&amp;ssl=1 320w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/sophieblackall_thingstolookforwardto_FallinginLove.jpg?resize=600%2C716&amp;ssl=1 600w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/sophieblackall_thingstolookforwardto_FallinginLove.jpg?resize=240%2C286&amp;ssl=1 240w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/sophieblackall_thingstolookforwardto_FallinginLove.jpg?resize=768%2C916&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Art by Sophie Blackall from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2022\/05\/12\/sophie-blackall-things-to-look-forward-to\/\"><em>Things to Look Forward to<\/em><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A century and a half after Jane Welsh Carlyle reckoned so brilliantly with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2018\/10\/02\/jane-welsh-carlyle-love\/\">the difference between loving and being in love<\/a>, an exasperated 43-year-old reader turns to Roxane with the same perplexity, signing herself <em>Where the hell is the love of my life?<\/em> With an eye to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2021\/03\/23\/esther-perel-on-being-love\/\">the tyrannical myth of \u201cthe one,\u201d<\/a> Roxane responds:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>We live in a culture that idealizes the idea of love, and the idea that there is one true person who will complete you, fulfill all your dreams and love you forever. We are told from an early age that our true love is out there, waiting for us and so we yearn to find them, to know what it feels like to experience true love, to know you have made the right choice. The truth about love is that it is often bewildering and unknowable. You may never know if you have made the right choice. But when love is true, you embrace all the unknowns, regardless.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Having \u201clived and loved long enough to recognize that there is a difference between the idea of love and the reality of love,\u201d she adds:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>You never really know if a marriage or relationship will last a lifetime. You can want that. You can work hard to make a relationship work and have the best of intentions and still, things might not work out but that doesn\u2019t mean you have wasted your time or failed.<\/p>\n<p>[\u2026]<\/p>\n<p>When you meet someone and start dating, you have no idea where things will lead\u2026. It is so very important to know what you want from a relationship but you also have to create space for a relationship to develop without worrying about what the relationship will or won\u2019t become.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>To look for the love of one\u2019s life, she observes, requires an understanding of and a commitment to what it takes \u2014 the immensity it takes \u2014 to love someone for a lifetime. This cannot be done without arriving at a personal definition of love that we live up to and into. (My favorite definitions come from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2022\/01\/08\/iris-murdoch-the-sublime-and-the-good\/\">Iris Murdoch<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2015\/07\/24\/robert-graves-love\/\">Robert Graves<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2015\/01\/07\/tom-stoppard-the-real-thing-love\/\">Tom Stoppard<\/a>.) <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2012\/03\/30\/love-is-walking-hand-in-hand-schulz-peanuts\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/loveiswalkinghandinhand_28.jpg?w=680&amp;is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/data:image\/gif;base64,https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" class=\" jetpack-lazy-image\"\/><noscript><img data-lazy-fallback=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/loveiswalkinghandinhand_28.jpg?w=680&amp;ssl=1\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Art by Charles M. Schulz from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2012\/03\/30\/love-is-walking-hand-in-hand-schulz-peanuts\/\"><em>Love Is Walking Hand in Hand<\/em><\/a>, 1965<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Professing herself to be \u201ca passionate, foolish romantic,\u201d Roxane offers her own definition, anchored in the difference between loving and being in love:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Loving someone is recognizing the role they play or have played in your life and honoring that presence. Sometimes, love feels like an obligation but it is one you are willing to fulfill. Sometimes it takes hard work but you are willing to put in that work. Love is the constant you hold on to when you don\u2019t particularly like the one you love. Love is recognizing the ways in which, for better and worse, someone has contributed to your life.<\/p>\n<p>Being in love is wild, breathtaking, infuriating. It is butterflies in your stomach when you think about your person, when you see them, when you hold them. It\u2019s the electricity when your skin meets. It\u2019s smiling at your person with wide eyes and an open heart and seeing them smile back at you in the same way. It\u2019s wanting to hold someone\u2019s hand, even when your hand is hot, a little sweaty. It\u2019s lust and the heat of wanting, wanting, wanting. It\u2019s seeing who someone truly is, the best and most terrible parts of them, and choosing not to look away from everything you see, actively embracing everything you see\u2026 It\u2019s wanting to be the best version of yourself for your person but also for yourself, especially for yourself\u2026 It\u2019s the pride you feel in their accomplishments and being as happy for their successes as you are for your own, if not more. It\u2019s their hurts becoming your hurts\u2026 It\u2019s a gut instinct. You just feel it. You know it in your bones. It isn\u2019t perfect, not at all. It doesn\u2019t need to be. It is, simply, what fills you up.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>To this taxonomy she adds the most culturally mythologized manifestation of love \u2014 the idea of the soul mate, so slippery precisely because it is intimately tied to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2023\/09\/12\/virginia-woolf-soul\/\">the elusive notion of the soul<\/a>. She writes:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>A soul mate is someone so deeply part of you that they feel like a vital organ, living outside of your skin. They are the hottest part of the sun, your true north, your home, the one from whom you will never walk away, no matter what the material conditions of your relationship might be. Your soul mate is the one you wait for knowing no matter what happens, that they are worth the wait. Your soul mate is the person you choose because you look at them always and think, \u201cYou\u2026 there you are.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<figure class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2017\/10\/12\/big-wolf-little-wolf\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/bigwolflittlewolf10.jpg?w=1200&amp;is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/data:image\/gif;base64,https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" class=\" jetpack-lazy-image\"\/><noscript><img data-lazy-fallback=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themarginalian.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/bigwolflittlewolf10.jpg?w=1200&amp;ssl=1\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Art by Olivier Tallec from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2017\/10\/12\/big-wolf-little-wolf\/\"><em>Big Wolf &amp; Little Wolf<\/em><\/a> by Nadine Brun-Cosme<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>She ends her advice with the sage and sensitive disclaimer that, ultimately, we are each responsible for our own definition of love, our own private understanding of what it means and what it feels like to love and be loved \u2014 a difficult triumph of self-knowledge amid the perpetual confusion of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2015\/10\/16\/milan-kundera-unbearable-lightness-of-being\/\">knowing what we really want<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Complement with poet Donald Hall on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2022\/07\/13\/donald-hall-the-third-thing\/\">the secret to lasting love<\/a>, philosopher Martha Nussbaum on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2017\/01\/16\/martha-nussbaum-loves-knowledge\/\">how to know if you really love somebody<\/a>, and David Whyte\u2019s stunning poem <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2021\/07\/26\/david-whyte-the-truelove\/\">\u201cThe Truelove,\u201d<\/a> then revisit Kahlil Gibran on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2018\/07\/13\/kahlil-gibran-prophet-love\/\">the courage to weather the uncertainties of love<\/a> and Hannah Arendt on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themarginalian.org\/2019\/02\/25\/love-and-saint-augustine-hannah-arendt\/\">how to live with the fundamental fear of loss at the heart of love<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cFor one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks\u2026 the work for which all other work is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-purpose"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}