Love Prizes

Since my very recent break up, I have received some unsolicited, well meaning, but misguided relationship advice regarding “winning back” an ex. Again, I understand that this advice is coming from a place or caring and not wanting to see me hurting, and for that I am appreciative. It is an idea oft touted in magazines marketed to women and it is absolutely rubbish.

My first objection is to the notion of “winning back” someone, which suggests that rather than thinking, feeling human being, my previous relationship was with a prize. We met, we became friends, we fell in love, love ended; I did not enter a contest and correctly answer a skill testing question.

If you have read any of these articles or been the recipient of this type of advice, you will notice there are always steps to follow. Essentially, it is a how to guide for becoming a manipulative, disingenuous person, with helpful tips about how not to be yourself. I am all for personal growth and firmly believe constantly striving to become the best version of one’s self is every person’s duty as a member of civilization. Pretending to be some outdated and skewed view of the “ideal” mate is not the same as growing. It presupposes that all men want the same thing in a female which implies both you and your former mate are one dimensional characters. It does not even take into account the actual problems your individual relationship had.

Problems, of course the relationship had problems or it would not have ended. That is not to say that we didn’t try to work through problems, but change is very hard, human emotions are complicated and no matter how much you love someone, you cannot erase their past experiences or the beliefs that developed before you met. You cannot change another person; you can only work on yourself and your ability to accept someone as they are. Believe me; I have learned this through some very bad choices. Experience may be a harsh teacher, but an effective one. If you require someone to change fundamentally who they are in order to be with you, the relationship is doomed.

What about love? No matter how much you still feel for a past lover, once they have stopped loving you, the end has come. You cannot make someone love you, but you can definitely make someone hate you, pity you (not a positive thing at all) or have contempt for you, which is what might happen if you try to employ tactics to “win back” your ex.