Love: Man, are you embarrassing!
True love, we know from countless Hollywood films, can overcome everything: years of separation, several world wars, even death. But the hardest relationship test of all is never mentioned in these films: the shame for your own husband.
Granted, a plot in which a couple loses because a ship capsizes and drowns is much more romantic than a story in which both survive and at some point feel ashamed of still wearing those weird, all-old suspenders , But I think you could turn in Hollywood times the real relationship issues. And it's a damn hard question: Can you love someone you're ashamed of? Or vice versa: Can you be ashamed of someone you love? I asked myself that as a child. My mother was so ashamed of my father that she often came home, burying her head under a blanket and "Dad was so embarrassed again!" cried. Then my father had asked a neighbor who wore mourning, asked if black was the new fashion color, or asked a saleswoman with blue-painted lips if she was suffering from a serious illness. Granted, pretty embarrassing. But how, I wondered, could my mother love my dad if he was so embarrassing to her? When I spoke to her, she acted as if she had never been ashamed and really found it terribly funny. Something like that, I swore, would never happen to me.
So I decided I do not even fall in love with embarrassing men. Easier said than done, because I had made the bill without the serotonin. In the meantime, it has become known that the level of serotonin in lovers falls to a similar low level as in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Serotonin is a messenger substance. I do not know exactly what he's bringing to where, but from my experience, I would say: Serotonin conveys the perception that somebody wears sesame street socks and neckties, too often says "Ich sach ma", spaghetti calls "spaggis" and his too wide pants at least with a belt on top, in our embarrassment center. If there is such a thing. Without serotonin this information gets stuck somewhere in the brain. So we latently swear that a few things on the guy could interfere with us at some point, but this knowledge can be well suppressed. After being so embarrassed by some embarrassing men without realizing it, I drew up a checklist.
For once-again-going-through before total falling in love: Disturbing or missing hair? Funny expressions? A carnivalesque humor? Strikingly high number of emoticons in mails and SMS? More than three pieces of clothing with cartoon characters on it? Of course, I always answered all questions with "no". Because for honestly going through this list you would need, as I said, serotonin. I missed that with Christoph. I had fallen in love, gone through my list and, of course, had found no embarrassment. Nothing, nothing at all Christoph was embarrassed. I was overjoyed. The luck lasted six months. Then my serotonin level slowly rose again, and Christoph and I got together for the opera. I'll never forget the feeling that came over me when I saw Christoph standing in the foyer? with a wide orange-brown patterned tie in front of his stomach. A seventies dream. Similar to his suit pants, which unfortunately was a few inches too short.
Often one is just ashamed of the qualities for which one actually loves him.
I felt a mixture of surprise and disbelief and at first did not know what to think of it. My feelings finally settled down between "pretty cool" and "pretty embarrassing" in the middle of "if he likes it". However, when I recognized my boss during the break in the man in front of us at the bar, it changed abruptly. If somebody had asked me at that moment how embarrassing Christoph is on a scale of one to ten, I would have answered "a million". In a flash, I went through my options: simply completely ignore my boss and claim afterwards, I had forgotten my glasses? Run away quickly, lock myself up in the ladies' room and come out only twenty minutes after the end of the show? To spend Christoph as a distant cousin from the countryside? Before I could decide on one of these alternatives, my boss turned around to us. I then introduced him to the man in the flash tie-floo suit as my friend. Christoph smiled a little awkwardly, and I was truly ashamed.
Do you have such moments do not interpret as a final out of a relationship? Are not love and embarrassment actually completely incompatible feelings? Should one not unreservedly love everything to someone? and even overlook the taste gaffe? That is also the double mean of embarrassing men: one is ashamed of being ashamed of them. The thought "God, he is embarrassing again!" Immediately following is a deep sense of betrayal and heartlessness. And when the embarrassment piles up, at some point the terrible question comes up: "Do not I love him?" I did not leave Christoph on the spot tonight, but instead developed a second checklist. There was only one point to this list: does the feeling of embarrassment go away when I'm alone with him? An important indicator, believe me! That was not the case with my ex-boyfriend Frank. He always embarrassed me, no matter if someone was there or not. Even when we sat completely alone in front of the TV, the blush of blush rose in my face as I listened to his semi-funny wisdom and the sight of the smooth-leather tube pants. It was just enough that I was there. I was almost ashamed of myself because I was with Frank without loving him. The individual things that I found embarrassing were merely symptoms of my lack of love.
The embarrassing feeling disappeared with Christoph, when we were alone again. He is one of the men for whom one is ashamed only in the presence of other people. I did not find Christoph's tie embarrassing until I looked at her from the perspective of my boss. I suddenly saw Christoph no longer through my eyes, but Christoph and me through the eyes of my boss. At that moment, it felt like I was wearing an orange-brown tie myself. Christoph was embarrassing because he became a part of me through my love, but a completely uncontrollable part that does not always behave and dress as I think fit. It's a bit like my feet just decide to wear green cowboy boots today. And I could not do anything about it. Often one is just ashamed of the qualities for which one really loves the man. Probably my mother lied only half when she claimed to find my father's missteps amusing; she probably just loved his world-wide view of the world. And yet she was mortally ashamed of the situations that resulted. That's why I've given up trying to drain my men's embarrassment. Of course I could give Christoph five pale blue ties for his next birthday. I would probably be incredibly disappointed if he would actually turn up at the next opera visit.
