Anti-Love Myth # 2: You Will Have Eyes Only for Me

Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson starts with some shock and dismay examples; goes on to examples of the ‘totally opposite’; then asks some intimate questions; gives intimate and surprising answers; discusses unnecessary breakups; and ends with ideas of what to do if this love myth is giving you trouble.

Examples of Shock and Dismay

Angela crashed into despair!  She just had discovered porn on her fiancé’s computer. Along with her shock and dismay her self-esteem was blown away by this revelation.  She was sure that if her man wanted to look at other women it must mean he did not really love her.  It also must mean her looks were insufficient and inadequate to hold her lover’s interest and keep him attracted.  She wondered how she could have been so gullible and naïve as to believe her fiancé when he told her he “ had eyes only for her”.

Bradford first became furious, then hurt and then confused after he found his new wife reading a trashy, super-sexual romance novel and sexually pleasuring herself.  He lamented that he had thought only he could get her ‘turned on’.  He wondered, was she secretly a ‘bad woman’ and not ‘good’ like he had thought?  Had she purposely deceived him?  Did she really not love him?  Had he married the wrong woman?  Previously Bradford was sure women were different from men, and a woman who loved him would “have eyes only for him”.

Caroline intimately revealed to Derek, her lover, that she wanted him to take her to a nudist beach because she wanted to see naked men and their “special parts” which “secretly fascinated” her.  Derek couldn’t handle it and broke up with her knowing that he had to have a woman that would “have eyes only for him” and his special parts.

Eleanor and Flynn got into big fights every time they went out in public because she repeatedly caught him secretly ogling other females.  Flynn explained he couldn’t help it and Eleanor accused him of being a sex addict, and not really loving her because if he did he would “have eyes only for her”.

Those Totally Opposite

Contrast the above situations with these.  Helen described feeling really intimately close and wonderfully naughty when her husband was able to tell her about his sex fantasies concerning other females.  She began pointing out sexy looking women in crowds and asking him what he imagined when he saw them.  Then he started doing the same with her which led to them rushing home to have all sorts of sexy times together.

Isaac bragged that he knew he really had a special wife when early in their marriage she got him  subscriptions to Playboy and Penthouse magazines, and they began looking at the sexy pictures together.  Later they got into Internet couples porn.  Isaac was sure that helped he and his wife be more emotionally close and intimate than many couples achieve.

Wanda advised her friends that in her opinion “a man who doesn’t look and lust at lots of different women isn’t a real man and, therefore, wasn’t worth having”.

Kevin explained that he discovered his wife was very sexual when she shared her orgy dreams with him.  Sometimes they role-played the orgy dreams, each acting like they were various other people, some of whom they actually knew.

Intimate Questions

How is it that one woman loses her self-confidence when her guy looks at other women, while another feels more intimately special and connected to her guy when he shares doing the same thing?  Why is it one guy gets angry when his wife enjoys looking at other men, while another guy gets turned on by that?  Why does one couple grow closer when they openly lust for others while another couple breaks up over this sort of thing?

Please note:  In this mini-love-lesson about a love myth we are discussing ‘looking’ and ‘sharing’, ‘not acting upon’ the lusty thoughts with someone outside the couple relationship.

Intimate And Surprising Answers

One answer to the above questions comes from the world of ‘positive psychology and psychotherapy’.  As people develop healthy self-love, self appreciation, self-esteem and self-confidence they come to trust their own attraction power more, and more.  Consequently, they are not much threatened with the fear of a lover being attracted away to someone else.  If it were to happen, their solid sense of being attractive and worthy helps them know they would tend to attract new, quality lovers, if they want to.

Some, more psycho-pathologically oriented, posit the ‘issue of projection’ to answer these questions.  Sometimes what we see in others is actually what is more true of ourselves. Fearing someone will be attracted away or cheat because of looks or other attraction issues may mean the one having the fear might do the same thing.  They project onto another what could be secretly true of themselves.

The social sciences offer another approach to answering these questions.  There is evidence suggesting it’s ‘all in the culture and family influences’ that get inside our heads as we grow up.  If you are brought up believing “my lover will have eyes only for me” you may be severely disappointed if it doesn’t work out that way.  If, however, your upbringing teaches you something like “looks do not determine love”, your lover looking with lust at others is likely not to mean so much to you.  Were you to be brought up in a culture that says “looking is part of the fun and to be shared with your love-mate” you probably would look forward to it.

We have the brain sciences to thank for providing the most recent answer to these types of questions.  Brain functioning evidence points to some very intriguing facts.  It seems that most men, and quite a few women, are neurologically ‘hardwired’ to enjoy looking at a variety of sexy appearing and acting people whenever they can.  That has nothing to do with love or commitment.  It’s just a natural, automatic, neurologically-caused phenomenon.  Apparently more women than men are auditorily or tactically, sexually stimulated, so for them the sounds of voices, the spoken word and various kinds of touch will be noticed more than good looks.

Unnecessary Breakups

Sadly a lot of relationships breakup over the “you look at others” issue.  It appears that highly, visually-oriented people will look at others they find attractive, no matter what.  It seems it’s just in their nature to do so.  By itself this behavior is not a threat to a relationship.  What is a threat is the interpretation that ‘looking’ behavior gets.  If the interpreter is insecure about their own attraction power, the interpretation is likely to be negative and fear-based.  That, in turn, probably will cause relationship difficulties.  With more self security and ‘owning’ one’s okayness, things usually get better.  If the person doing the looking tries to hide it, lies about it, promises not to do it again but does, things in the relationship are likely to get worse.

What to Do

If you are upset because your love-mate ‘looks’ at others, maybe it’s you and your relationship that needs some help.  So get some!   If your love-mate has trouble because you are ‘looking’ and that’s leading to relationship difficulties, be kind and loving about your love-mate’s possible insecurity.  Then go get some help.  We can de-program and re-program and get past this sort of love myth problem, and usually it’s faster with good help.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question If you have a ‘looking’ issue, what is your attitude about getting the coaching help that can come with relationship counseling?

Related posts:

1. Anti-Love Myth # 1: True Love Means You’ll Know What to Do
2. Anti-Love Myth # 3: Your First Love Is The One You Are Meant To Be With
3. A Romantic Myth That Kills Love
4. The Anti-Love Forces Are Out to Get You
5. Touch Only with Love: an Anti-Violence Tool 

Love Does Not Rejoice At Wrongfulness Or Wrongdoing

Mini-Love-Lesson  #247

Synopsis: Exploring the opposing dynamics of love and the wrong together affect us and our love relationships; even clusters of  wrongness; the controversy over love as a cause of wrongdoing; the provocative relevance of Paul’s 10th point on love; ever-changing ideas of wrongdoing; the rejoice factor and using this knowledge for better love relating.

Love Versus Wrong

Love is against wrong!  That is the simplest way to put it.  Wrongness in all of its many forms and love (especially “agape” love) are in opposition to one another.  Therefore, they are not rightly seen as causative, supportive of, or cooperative with one another.  At least that is how this discernment of Paul’s10th tenant on love would lead us to understand.

Love As a Source of Wrong and Wrongdoing

There are those that disagree about love being the enemy of wrong and wrongdoing.  They see love as a great source of wrongs such as crimes of passion, acts of vengeance, pathological jealousy, a trigger of obsessive/compulsive dysfunction, destructive dependency, gender oppression, much toxic depression/anxiety and many cases of excessive relationship agony.

A counter argument to those who think this way is that they do not understand healthy, real love at all, and/or they have it confused with various forms of false love (see “Ever Think Seriously About Real and False Love?”).  There also is a scriptural based argument.  The quote “God is love” is cited and then it is reasoned real love (i.e. God’s nature) cannot be the progenitor of wrongness.  Who is right?  To help figure that out let’s take a quick broad look at this thing called “wrong” and it’s relationship to love.

Love Versus Wrongdoing.

As we are informed by Paul, Love is against doing wrong!  That too is a very simple way to say it.  More comprehensively, real love can be said to be against people doing wrong to anyone, including self or to anything, to supporting wrongdoing by anyone and to assisting and/or promoting wrong action by anyone and everyone- always.  The problem is there is great disagreement about what actually is doing wrong.  Added to that is all the disagreement about what is more wrong and less wrong, and when is something wrong and when is it not, plus the question are some things wrong for some and not others.  There also is debate over what are the different kinds of wrongness and wrongdoing encompassed by Paul’s teaching and are there types of wrongness not included in Paul’s statements on wrongness (see “Lies and Love”).

Now Add Translation Ponderments and Wonderments

Interpretations and translations have, do and will continue to come in sundry variations.  This is due to the ever-changing and living nature of language.  This may be especially true for our highly dynamic and now worldwide use of English.

Instead of the English words wrong and wrongfulness, some interpret Paul’s Greek “ou chai epi te adikia” to variously mean, not wrong but unrighteousness, wickedness, inequity, injustice, evil, sin, etc.  One translation even puts it as” love does not revel when others grovel”.  However, many contemporary scholars seem to agree that for attaining a fairly accurate understanding of what Paul meant in current English, the terms wrong and wrongfulness will do rather well, hence their use here.

What Is Wrongfulness Actually?

Have you ever contemplated what is involved and encompassed by the word wrong?  Simply put, it means not right, incorrect and/or mistaken.  It also means evil, sinful, unjust unethical, etc.  Paul’s teaching holds that wrong and wrongfulness are not of or from real love, but then from what?  The old answer was from Satan.  A more psychological-based answer is that wrongness perhaps comes from lovelessness and/or that which is anti – love, (i.e. indifference, hate, etc.).

So as not miss anything important, let us look at wrongfulness broadly.  If getting happy or pleased about any type or kind of wrongness is not a component or result of healthy, real love, it seems wise to develop some understanding of the types and kinds of wrongness we might have to deal with in life.  Wrongness is actually a rather complicated topic.  For a greater comprehension, I suggest you take a few minutes to scan the following seven groups of words.  Each is related to different kinds of wrongfulness for us to be concerned about.

? WRONGFULNESS & WRONGDOING ?

Term Clusters:
I. Being bad, unfair, shameful, sinful, unethical, wicked, reprehensible
II. Being untrue, false, fake, fallacious, dishonest, counterfactual, misleading, deceptive
III. Being incorrect, mistaken, in error, erroneous, inaccurate, invalid, misguided, ungrounded, inexact
IV. Being unjust, unfair, criminal, felonious, illegal, lawless
V. Being bigoted, intolerant, narrowminded, prejudice, extremist, close minded
VI. Being schadenfreude (i.e. pleased about others mishaps, misfortunes, losses, injuries, illnesses, etc.)
VII. Being cruel, malicious, sadistic, vicious, indifferent, uncaring, hateful
What others you can think of ?


It would seem that with a truly and fully loving orientation, real love would have us be not rejoicing but unhappy about each of the above and, when possible, have us acting to reverse them.  It also would seem likely Paul was pretty much indicating that.  Basically and more succinctly, yet still broadly, wrongdoing can be seen as encompassing most things unduly hurtful, most things harmful, and most things mistaken.

The Ever-Changing Understanding of Wrongfulness

It is to be noted that what is called wrong varies greatly all over the world and throughout history.  Not only that but many things are simultaneously considered both very right and very wrong depending on your cultural and/or societal frames of reference and functioning.  For instance in certain places it is wrong not to murder your daughter if she comes to love a person not within your cultural/religious frame of functioning.  Similar to so-called honor killings, revenge murders also sometimes are semi-justified in a large number of even modern Western world social spheres.

The degree of wrongness something gets judged to have is very different in various places.  Publicly chewing and spitting out gum on the ground in Singapore can bring chastisement, a fine and even jail.  Acting homosexually loving or sexual in more than 70 countries is illegal and in some places can even result in execution.  However, in 26 nations homosexual marriage is legal.  In most of the remaining countries, to one degree or another, it is increasingly accepted (see “What About “Bi” Love?”).

Sometimes what is called quite wrong evolves into being called right or even becoming of no significance at all.  Most of the modern world is now largely unconcerned about double religion marriage though that is still punishable by death in a shrinking number of lands.  Bi-racial love and royalty/commoner love relationships, in most places, are no longer illegal, shameful or scandalous like they once were.

Right and Wrong in Love Relating

Slowly in much of the world, that you love is becoming far more important than who you love and the categories that they are placed in.  That you have love is becoming more significant than whether or not you have societal approval for the labeled form in which you do your love.  Good, healthy love relating is being increasingly recognized as the substantive core that matters while gender classification becomes somewhat more peripheral. Link “Gender Diversity Love”  Hence, it is that love and being really and healthfully loving along with being really and healthfully loved that is becoming more right than is official marriage, progenitor genetics, social propriety, legal authorization or formal religious sanctification.  It is not that these things still do not still matter to many but that they matter less than does healthy, real love and love relating (see “Throuple Love, A Growing Worldwide Way of the Future?”).  It seems it is being more and more recognized by some that there is a deep, natural inadequacy or wrongness to loveless living.  It is a sort of wrong, in a healthfulness sense, and in an actualization or fulfilling our potential’s sense.  Consider these two ideas “the more we do healthy, real love the more right we do healthy, real life, and conversely “the more we do not do love the more, in a sense wrong we do life”.

A Core Concept for Rightness in Love-Relating

Remember this core concept for love success “Love feelings come naturally.  Love-relating takes learning”.  From this concept, we conclude things can be wrong in the sense of making a mistake for us to remain love-relating ignorant or without available love and love-relating knowledge.  Therefore, what you are doing right now is doing right by reading, thinking and learning about love.  Congratulations, and hurrah for you.  Do allow yourself some delight about that (see “Love Is Natural --Love Relating You Learn”).

Paul must have recognized the importance of learning about love.  Why else would he have worked at telling us about what love is and is not.  He wanted us to do love well and wrote the often quoted 16 points to help us with that.  So, now learn some more.

It is thought that at least half of all attempts at love-relating fail.  Another fourth never get close to their potential for success.  This may be true for love relationships of all kinds not just for couples love.  Parent/child, family, deep friendships, comrade love, self-love, pet love, etc. – they all count.  By the way, some are beginning to think, percentage-wise, comradeship love may be the most succeeded at form of love, others think it is pet love, while many more suspect romantic love to be the least successful.  What is your guess?

Why?  Possibly because a lot of couples seem to do a lot of love-relating wrong or not nearly as well as they could if they learned and practiced more about the how-to’s of healthy, real love-relating (see “Destroyers of Love: The 7 Big “Ds” Most Likely to Ruin Your Love Relationships”).  That of course (similar to Paul’s points perhaps) is what this site is all about.  So, we would like it if you would tell some people about this site and talk over your ideas concerning what you have just read.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question: It is said “we learn better what we teach” so, what part of what you have just read might you most like teach somebody and how will you do that?

Love Thinks No Evil Nor Keeps A Count Of Wrongs Done

Mini-Love-Lesson #246

Synopsis: What is thinking evil; the strikingly harmful psychology of thinking evil for individuals and love relationships; score keeping’s corrosive problems; and an interpretation enrichment puzzle flows from; in and about Paul’s ninth tenant about the nature of love.

What Is Thinking Evil ?

Do you know how to think no evil?  That is the first part of Paul’s ninth tenet about the nature of love.  Do you have clear ideas about what thinking evil might really mean?  The second part has to do with keeping score as many people call it.  Do you keep a count, or score, on who has wronged you, hold grudges, plan or fantasize revenge, hope or pray for bad things to happen to those you oppose?

Do you obsess or enjoy thinking about things that cause harm and destruction?  Do you think evil of yourself?  Do you think evil thoughts about loved ones you get frustrated with, irritated with, angry at or feel hurt and/or betrayed by?  Do you harbor hateful thoughts toward friends, relatives, close family, children or people of any other love relationship (see “A Dozen Kinds of Love to Have in Your Life”)?  How about groups or classes of people (see “Love Against Bigotry”)?  Are these the kind of things Paul meant when he was inspired to give us this teaching about love?  Do you agree with the idea that real love does not cause, motivate or lead us to evil thinking?  What actually is evil?

To this mental health professional, evil is that which is anti-healthful to individuals and/or to groups of people including everything from two-person relationships to societies at large.  Others have different ideas.  I often have wondered if originally all morals and ethics eventually related back to primitive guesses about individual and societal health issues, one way or another.  Is evil really that which is sick, malignant, life harmful and destructive, psycho-bio-socially dysfunctionally corrupting and, therefore, ultimately in opposition to human survival?  I am sure many ethicists, moralists and others might tell you differently.  So, what do you understand the meaning of good and evil to be?  And what do you think about how thinking evil may be influencing you and the relationships of your own personal world?

The Psychology of Thinking Evil and the Harm It Does

In psychology, evil thinking can be seen as a form, or subcategory, of negative thinking.  Both for individuals and relationships, filling your thoughts and/or focusing too much on the negative, the destructive and the harmful can and does negatively impact our psychological and physical health.  It also can have a strikingly corrosive effect on your way of relating to others and usually in the way others reactively relate with you.  Such negative thinking has been shown actually to be able to shorten your life.  How?  Essentially by causing your biology to frequently make and circulate damaging stress hormones through you, along with triggering the biochemistry of mounting anxiety, fear states and toxic tension.  All of that makes for heart attacks, strokes, the development of poor health habits and increased addictions susceptibility.

Relationally, those who spend too much mental time and energy on the negative often become less positive, less cooperative and less happy with those they have love for.  Furthermore, suspiciousness, fearfulness, over cautiousness and compulsive safety consciousness may occur and tend to limit or dampen co-experiencing fun, adventuresomeness, sexuality and loving interactions (see “Removing Your Hidden Blocks to Receiving Love Fully”  and “Love in the Fridge”).

It is important to note that thinking about evil and thinking evil are two different things.  This is especially true emotionally.  Thinking evil thoughts, and enjoying it, is believed to be addictive as well as being erosively destructive.  Being agonized over thinking evil thought is not only painful but usually unproductive.  Being tortured by, or obsessed with, evil thoughts is pathological and often in need of the help of a good mental health professional.

Relationally, there appears to be a connection between thinking a lot of evil and/or negative thoughts and increases in couples and families having angry fights and episodes of domestic violence.  Also, there seems to be a correlation between negative thinking and the depletion of the brain’s production of the neurochemistry needed for processing happiness and loving feelings.  Furthermore, in close relationships, feelings of frustration, irritability, anxiety and depression seem to have a circular, cause and result, cyclical dynamic with cognitive negativity.

What Does Keeping Score Do to Us ?

Paul made a special point of telling us love is not about thinking a lot about wrongs done.  Psychologically and relationally, this is a good idea because it helps keep us from being repeatedly impacted by the bad of the past, more able to be focused on the good of the now and the possible good of the future where progress is possible.  Perhaps even more important, keeping score gets in the way of the freedom that forgiveness provides us, the creating of reconciliation and the opportunity of fresh starts.  Awareness of what has gone wrong can be useful so as to learn from it and behave more cautiously and successfully in the future.  Otherwise, not so much.

However, millions of people have been so hurt in love gone wrong experiences they never again try love relating.  Hence, they suffer love malnutrition and starvation along with its life destructive effects.  The question then becomes how to keep moving forward toward healthy, real love but with sufficient safety precautions.  That is one of the many places a good, love knowledgeable counselor or therapist can be of considerable help.

Individually, being obsessed with wrongs done, defeats, betrayals, losses, unfairness, mistakes, etc., rather than just learning from those experiences and doing better, can have very detrimental effects.  Interestingly, this turns out to be especially true for our immunity mechanisms.  Seeking vengeance, getting even, planning revenge, holding grudges, etc. is definitely a prescription for self and relationship sabotage.  Thus think no evil and keep no score of wrongs is a pretty good prescription for mental, emotional and relational health.

Interpretation Enrichment Puzzles

I like to suggest the more you can study different scholarly-based translations of a writing in a different language, the more you may deepen and broaden your understanding of that writing.  Different interpretations can help you better see the wider understandings, applications and possibilities of what was perhaps meant in any original.  Studying the original language also can be a great help.  However, that will not necessarily give the right or true meaning because words in every language are always at least slowly altering over time and location.  They differ as to common usage, exact definition and connotation.  These variations then create an ever-changing need for variations of translation.

Especially, does all this apply to this ninth tenant of Paul’s teaching on love.  Paul is understood to have written in ancient biblical Greek “ou logizetal to kakon”.  This usually gets translated into English at least two different ways and sometimes both.  Way one usually reads something like “love thinks no evil”, or “love thinks not evil”; other variations exist such as “love does not impute evil”, “love is not of an evil mind” and “love does not cause evil thoughts”.

Way two usually gets interpreted something like “love does not keep an account of wrongs”, “ love keeps no score of wrongdoing”, “love does not take into account wrongs suffered”, “wrongdoing is not scored by love”, etc.  Other variations include “love does not brood over wrongs”, “does not keep a record of complaints”, “does not keep track of other people’s wrongs”, “does not keep score of sins”, “keeps no resentful score of things wrong”, and “keeps no account for getting even or blaming”, etc.

I was advised that fully 16 of the most popular New Testament translations do not include part one – the “think no evil” interpretation and that at least an equal number of other translation efforts do not include part two – the “keeps no count or score” part.  Furthermore, I have been instructed that there are quite a few other learned and popular approaches that do include both parts one and two.

Why this big difference?  I don’t really know except to say translators vary a lot on this question.  Interpretation scholars also are known to have rather different ways of trying to get ancient words and meanings across into contemporary English understandings while also attempting to be as accurate as possible.

I have including part one and two here not because of biblical scholarship but rather because as a mental health and relational therapist both parts seem quite useful for health and well-being  I hope you may find them so in your life and in your love relationships.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

Quotable Question: Do you think it’s true that how a person thinks about love is how they become about love, and how they don’t think about love is how they don’t become concerning love?

Love is Not Rude

Mini-Love-Lesson  #242

Synopsis: Our Renaissance of rudeness, secretly rude positive?; rudeness by intensity and variety; important or not, research into rudeness; rudeness against health and love; translation issues; a big Buddhist helper; and how it all effects your love life are all delved into here.

Note: This is the sixth in our series on a New Testament reply to the question What Is Love? (see “Love Is Patient”,  “Love Is Kind”,  “Love Is Not Jealous”,  “Love Is Not Boastful/Pretentious”, and  “Love Is Not Arrogant” ) Look for number seven in this series next month.

Our Renaissance of Rudeness And Your Love Life

Social analysts describe us as currently living in a spreading Renaissance of Rudeness slowly invading the personal lives of more and more people, especially those living in the urban centers of the world.  Some theorize it is a counter to previous formality, phony politeness and political correctness trends.  There is also a suspected tendency for more and more people to act emotionally hypersensitive as a way for acquiring a sense of permission to rudely guilt trip blaming others for their own bad feelings.

Other analysts point to data indicating low self-confidence and weak ego strength problems which seem to be growing at epidemic rates.  With that rudeness, also growing is an easy way to pretend to have social strength.  Others believe the Rudeness Renaissance is just a passing fad, destructive though it may be.

Whatever the reason, the research shows rudeness to be destructive to love and love relationships, detrimental to stress resistance and stress illness recovery, harmful to cooperative functioning at home and at work, to creative problem solving, and to the neurochemistry of happiness.  All this proves true for not only the participants but for onlookers and bystanders of rudeness events..  Children especially are suspected of being particularly susceptible.  It would seem the love relationships of everyone who experiences or perpetrates moderate to severe actions of rudeness suffers more than they gain, if they gain anything.

Are You Secretly Rude Positive?

Do you or some people you know secretly enjoy rudeness?  Some people find rudeness sexy, funny, they may see it as being confident, independent, unfettered, rebellious, nonconformist and socially powerful?  Others think rudeness is realness and everything else is phony.  Then there are those who are very attracted to the people who frequently exhibit especially shocking or clever rudeness.

Rude-crude sex especially is in demand in certain circles as is rough-tough love which may subconsciously project strength, intensity and even safeguarding potential to some.  Those raised in overly formal or polite, but restrictive, homes may find a sense of relaxed freedom mixing with the more rude and crude.  There are those who feel a pressure of unfamiliarity around the more polite and civil acting but are at ease with the less couth.

The problem is rudeness tends to eventually wear thin and become destructive to love relationships even where rudeness is seen as desirable.

What Is and Is Not Rude?

Rudeness can mean anything that belittles another person.  Purposeful rudeness is a form of social aggression where another person’s value is attacked and discounted or treated as being of inferior significance.  More potent rudeness can mean showing contempt, scorn, disregard, disdain and indifference.  Strong rudeness also can be demeaning, degrading, humiliating, embarrassing, shaming, discrediting, debasing, devaluing, cheapening, insulting and condescending.

Rudeness also can mean acting or speaking in ways that those who see or hear it judge it to be selfish, disgraceful, indecent, dishonorable, boorish, unkind, undemocratic, interruptive, impolite, discomforting and definitely non-loving.  Milder rudeness may be merely discourteous, ill mannered, uncivil, churlish,, harsh, gruff, blunt, tactless, ungracious, curt or course.  Done repeatedly these milder forms also can be quite destructive, especially to ongoing love relationships.

It is important to note that unintentional rudeness, accidental rudeness, mis-perceived and misinterpreted rudeness, as well as clashing cultural standards of rudeness also exists.

What is not rude, of course, is being polite, courteous, mannerly, respectful, gracious, tactful, cordial, affable, civil and amiable.  At a deeper level, any treatment of a person which conveys that they are of value and that they have importance and significance works in opposition to rudeness and is an asset to love relationships.

Is Rudeness Really All That Important?

There are those that wonder, of all the many more heinous behaviors, why would Paul single out or be inspired to select the relatively mild behavior of rudeness to comment on in his delineation of what love is and what love is not.  One answer is that in Paul’s world, rudeness may have been a really big deal, so much so that rudeness might even get you killed.  In that way and time, it may have been much like ghetto gang cultures where showing disrespect to the wrong people might also get you killed.

Another answer is that Paul’s Greek word “aschemonei” which gets translated as rude, meant a whole lot more than what we usually mean by the word rude today.  More fitting for current interpretations might be things like love is not abusive, vile, nasty, foul, vicious or wicked.  A third answer is that Paul may have understood that rudeness is much more insidiously destructive and antithetical to love than is generally recognized today.  (Note that some biblical translators do not interpret that Paul meant to mean rude, as we understand it today but rather something more like “love does not act disgracefully, indecently dishonorably, abusively”, etc.)

This more significant understanding of rudeness is backed up by modern research.  Did you know that some research shows you have a 94% likelihood of experiencing a counter getting even aggression response after treating someone rudely, if they feel they can retaliate safely?  Did you also know that if you are generally perceived as being a rude person, you have an 88% chance of being treated with exclusionary, distancing and sabotaging behaviors in interaction networks, including families and work settings?  Children and spouses tend to grow more emotionally distant and more likely tend to break off relationships with those more commonly rude than with those viewed as more polite.  However, rudeness is often forgiven when a person is perceived as experiencing a cascade of losses, disappointments, frustrations and/or defeats.

How Love Against Rudeness Can Work

Buddhists and Hindus call it “ Muditi” and learn it as being one of the four major mindsets of real love.  Muditi has to do with giving others love by presenting them with yourself as a happy, positive person to be with.  This can mean being your genuine best self by having authentic joy, a positive countenance, pleasant thoughtfulness and, of course, not being at all rude.  If something more serious is occurring, being kind and compassionate takes over but otherwise presenting your Muditi love is your everyday love-gift to others.  This Muditi way can be obtained by purposeful practice but never by being phony.

Research shows this is a very good, healthy self-love way to go about much of life, as well as being quite healthy for those around you.  Having a general loving, positive, happy, appreciative, enjoyable countenance reduces stress hormone development, improves immunity mechanism functioning, improves relational cooperation and harmony and contributes to a whole lot of other healthy habit-making behaviors.  Muditi is much more than politeness or civility.  It is a way to actually love others as you love yourself in ordinary day-to-day living.  As such, Muditi is a greater opposite to being rude, as well as to being indifferent and just functioning robotically.  By the way, some of my theolog friends comment that the Muditi approach is quite compatible with Christianity.

Functioning from a Muditi mindset when encountering rudeness also can be quite disarming and game changing in otherwise difficult situations.  For more about Muditi, and there is a lot more to it, you might want to look up Buddha’s Four Minds of Love and read Teachings on Love by Thich Nhat Hahn.

One More Little Thing

Who might you enjoy talking with about this mini-love-lessons on rudeness and love? If you do that, it would be a polite kindness to us if you mentioned this site and all that it offers.

As always Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question: How aware do you think you are of times and of actions that others, especially loved ones, might think you are being rude and what might you want to do about that?

Healthy Real Love -or- Toxic False Love

A   20   Factor   Check   List

1.  Well being
Healthy Real Love makes us want for the well being of loved ones.

Toxic False love wants primarily for our own well being, wants and desires to be all important, and can sacrifice the supposed loved one for self.

2.  Self Love Healthy Real Love makes us balance our healthy self love with our love of others.
 
Toxic False love wants others to sacrifice and diminish their self love for our benefit.

3.  Strength Healthy Real Love causes us to want our loved ones to be strong & powerful in their own lives.
 
Toxic False love makes us act to diminish our loved ones’ strength so we can dominate and control them and, thereby, feel more false safety.

4.  Growth Healthy Real Love promotes the growth, development, education, and advancement of those we love.
 
Toxic False love works to block & hamper growth out of fear of being surpassed, outdone, and abandoned.

5.  Aloneness Healthy Real Love allows & promotes alone time, understanding it’s healthful benefits.
Toxic False love fears being alone and allowing a supposed loved one to be alone or off to himself or herself.

6.  Sex Healthy Real Love mixes both self love & other love into shared eroticism making it democratic, varied, open to exploration of new & different intimacy, & always guided by caring.
 
Toxic False love is absent of sufficient love expression &, thus, often is sexually demanding, obsessive, or dominated by sameness &/or fearfulness.

7.  Power Healthy Real Love pushes us to share power equally, work to synthesize & compromise, operate with free speech, independent action, alternating leadership, negotiation, & interpersonal democracy.
 
Toxic False love pushes us toward either dictatorial dominance, or an abdication of selfhood through fearful surrender.

8.  Difference Healthy Real Love promotes & delights in the loved one’s differences, ways of being unique, dissimilar viewpoints, divergent approaches, varying ways by valuing the enrichments they bring to relationships.
 
Toxic False love works to suppress & eliminate differences and bring about the false safety of sameness.

9.  Dependency Healthy Real Love helps work for the loved one’s self dependency, one’s own self dependency while also promoting agreed upon, chosen, mutually supportive interdependency.
 
Toxic False love wants the supposed loved one to be dependent on the false lover, or wants the relationship to be mutually co-dependent.

10.  Jealousy Healthy Real Love is not jealous, not even a little bit, because love does not spawn jealousy, possessiveness, or irrational suspiciousness.
 
Toxic False love is jealous because it is grounded in inadequate self love & the fearful insecurity that we can not hold the love of another by our own personal worthiness.

11.  Friends & Family Healthy Real Love causes us to attempt to love, like, or at least be appropriately & be consistently accepting of those the loved one loves & likes (including pets, ex-spouses,  dysfunctional relatives, etc.) but not to the point of supporting destructiveness.
 
Toxic False love causes us to work toward excluding, limiting contact with, & markedly avoiding the loved one’s interaction with their ‘others’.

12.  Trust Healthy Real Love makes us take the ‘gamble’ of trust in our love and the loved one’s love &, therefore, causes us to willfully become ‘vulnerable’ to them, their words, and actions.  This is done to affirm the loved one and make the relationship function in workable ways.
 
Toxic False love makes us mistrust, spy, be suspicious, hinder the freedom, doubt, & distrust the supposed loved one which eventually destroys the love relationship.

13.  Self Disclosure Healthy Real Love helps us accept & become self disclosing of (past, present, & future) thoughts, feelings, actions, victories & defeats, strengths & flaws, & all else.
 
Toxic False love works to hide our less pleasant aspects, be secretive, present false images, & fears exposure.

14.  Priorities Healthy Real Love puts love first of all values.
Toxic False love puts many things above the importance of love.

15.  Healing Healthy Real Love causes us to work for the health of our loved ones.
Toxic False love often works toward illness, or avoids the promotion of healthful living.

16.  Affirmation Healthy Real Love is affirming in word and action.  Compliments of being & doing, praise, brags, showing affirmative support, cheering for the loved one, and more demonstrations are common.  It also makes us look for, appreciate & affirm the qualities of our loved ones.
 
Toxic False love praises & compliments for personal advantage or gain.  It often also dis-affirms with criticism, put downs, devaluing & debasement.

17.  Tolerance Healthy Real Love causes us to tolerate the less pleasant aspects of those who are loved unless those aspects are clearly destructive.
 
Toxic False love tolerates little demanding its own way, or tolerates destructively to weaken the supposed loved one’s strength.

18.  Reception Healthy Real Love makes us highly receptive to our loved one’s likes, needs, wants, ways, and especially expressions of love.
 
Toxic False love makes us neglectful, avoidant, critical, & undervaluing of our loved one’s efforts to love us.

19.  Gifting Healthy Real Love helps us frequently and openly enjoy gifting our loved ones with what they want both with object and experience gifts.
Toxic False love helps us give gifts we want, gifts designed to manipulate, impress, result in return gifting from the loved one, or to give few or no gifts at all, and to gift with poor and negative attitudes.

 20.  Joy Healthy Real Love helps us take joy in those we love, take joy in their joy, work to enjoy what they enjoy, share what we enjoy, & create mutual joy.
 
Toxic False love works to disregard or discount the joy of the supposed loved ones, and try to manipulate them to only enjoy what we enjoy.

As always – Grow In Love.

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

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Image credits: “Fairy eggs fullsize” image by Flickr user melanie_hughes .
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1. It Might Be Healthy, Real Love …
2. Getting Healthy, Real Love in Your Life
3. Is “I Can’t Live without You” Real Love?
4. False Forms of Love: Limerence and Its Alluring Lies
5. False Forms of Love: Relational Dependencies