NS: Ladies and Gents, this week I was able to kick off the first of hopefully many guest blogs to come. I sat down with the doctor of love, Dr. Jeffrey Woodcock for a Q & A about love, relationships and other stuff that makes people giggle. As a regular practitioner of love and such, I trust his answers to be scientifically exact and factually correct, having said that, welcome Dr. Woodcock.
JW: First let’s get the
disclaimer out of the way. There’s no academic degree (that I know of) for love
so I’m not a real doctor but I have
dem credentials; I’ve been in love a few times and could write you a sonnet if
you need one. I’ve taken plenty of romantic shots that didn’t work out but I’ve
learned from them. I once had a girl poop her bed when we were getting
into it FWIW.
NS: FWIW is wish you were dressed like Dr. Mario, but then you'd throw large colorful pills everywhere, making people fall in love like that flying baby with a bow and arrow, and lets be honest, bears could prolly smell that and then we'd all be at risk. But lets talk about love...
JW: What’s with all this love business anyway? I thought this guest blog was going to be about dating and Sex? If you want to make this a regular thing (by regular thing, he means dating and sex, along with love questions), hit me with those questions for round 2. Falling in love is
easy, the work is in preparing yourself to give love and deal with the ways
that loving will change you. You might flame out or flail around in it
but you don’t fall out of love. Part of you exists in that which
you love.
NS: Well, obvious starting
point, what is love?
JW: People will
probably disagree with me and that’s fine as long as their view on love is valid/true
and not just something they read and repurposed. Love, IMO, is the
willingness to give a part of yourself to something or someone without the
promise of anything in return. The connection made with the object of
your love is a currency that proves that you exist. Having loved is to be
validated, so love will never going out of style. The way people love will
change and might get weird, but love itself is timeless.
NS: Moving on, can you buy love?
JW: Nope. Sex is
something that is often associated with love because it often is shared between
people who love each other. Don’t discount the huge difference between
sex/sleeping with a person/fucking/making love as they are completely
different. The same association holds for presents and chocolates and words
like “baby”. Some of these things (including sex) can be bought, but don’t
intrinsically carry love.
Money is necessary to
find things that you can love. You might love race-car driving and will never
know unless you spend the money to drive a race car. You can use money to
put yourself in a position where love can come to you.
NS: Does love ever go
on sale?
JW: Love can come in
waves, but since you can’t buy love it doesn’t really go on sale. There are
times that people are more open to the idea of loving (springtime, after
historic events) so I’ll call those sales and for the sake of continuing
the metaphor the currency to buy love is awesomeness and not USD.
NS: What's the
difference between loving a person or an animal and loving something inanimate
but still awesome-sauce, like potato chips (as in "dude, I love these
chips!")?
JW: Communication is a
best-effort practice. When people discuss an emotion or a feeling, there aren’t
words to describe the exact state
they wish to convey. Using the word in two contexts; “I love my
grandmother’s cooking” and “I love my best friend” demonstrates the same word
taking the place of two very different ideas. If I tell you I love you,
it really could be followed by “do you know what I mean?” which is a rhetorical
question because you think you know what I mean, but it’s impossible to be
exactly correct.
The biggest difference
in the different types of love you describe is the social acceptability of the
manifestation of your love. Sex is a common expression of romantic love,
but would be a completely inappropriate expression of love for potato chips.
Don’t try to stick it in a Pringles
can or in your TV when your favorite music video starts playing. There are
different types of loves to be expressed. Companionship love (whether romantic
or as friends) comes from a recognition of the same kind of person as
yourself. They can have the same values or the same sense of crazy. This type
of love will help you explore who you are without feeling estranged (and isn’t
that the whole point?) Object love is more one sided than that. So is the love
of a pursuit. I was talking to a friend recently about how unsuccessful Van
Gogh was during his life. He must have had no friends and no money and everyone
would have been telling him how much his art sucked but he kept doing it. He
loved painting, and without that love his life would have been invalid and he
wouldn’t have created anything.
NS: Where's the best or
worst place to meet potential people to love?
JW: This obviously
depends on not only the type of love, but on the person searching. Either way,
having an open mind/heart is the biggest pre-requiste to finding anything
that’s worth finding. Back up, that didn’t answer your question whatsoever (I
hate when people skirt around hard questions) so let’s approach this by a
process of elimination.
■
First
we take out places that restrict love is from peeping out(nightclubs and
casinos are too seedy, factories are too loud, highway reststops are too
dirty.)
■
Then,
take out places where people don’t fully express themselves (doctors offices
are too serious, work people area always pretending to be different than they
are.)
■
Some
examples of what we have left: 80’s music dance parties- people fully let out
all the good in them at those- resorts/hostels (people are open minded and
stress free while on vacation) and really anywhere that’s personal to the
individual. If you’re favorite author is speaking- check it out and talk to
some people there.
NS: Why does gravity
not apply to "falling in love"?
JW: Who said it
doesn’t? Gravity is a force that keeps physical things heading in the same
direction. Love does the same thing, at least for like minded individuals.
Astronauts probably have a strange take on love. People get depressed when
their giving/receiving proportions get unbalanced. Forces (maybe not gravity)
keep people in control.
NS: Is it a bad idea to
fall in love too fast?
JW: I have a friend who
falls in love once a week. He’s a nomad ( spiritually, physically, emotionally)
and it’s not an issue because he’s willing to live as intensely as he loves.
A lot of times when you
care and then get hurt, you don’t want to put your whole heart on the line the
next time around. It’s tough to love again and that’s ok to fall fast as long
as you’re conscious. The mistake I made the first time around is putting
all of myself into something that I loved instead of leading with the best
parts of myself and letting the rest follow.
NS: How do you know if
you're falling in love or in actual love? Is it when gravity has had
enough and smacks you in the face?
JW: New is always exciting. You can fall in
love with the idea of a person and then dating is the process of reconciling
who a person might be with who they actually are. When a person/thing has
turned out to be something different than you were expecting and you aren’t
disappointed- you’re not falling anymore.
NS: Would you rather
love only people wearing the color blue or not be able to love anything from
the state of Ohio ever again?
JW: Wasn’t there a
Hawthorne Heights song about this? I guess that song was the the
exact opposite of it. I’ll take the latter: I like plenty of things from OH
(I.O!) but don’t know that I love any.
NS: If love was an
Olympic sport, which country would win the gold medal?
JW: France would get
DQ’d for doing some nasty kinky stuff that can’t fly on network TV, or
even the internet (but maybe on the
dark web.)
Greece would be in the
running. Greeks love hard. I had a big crush on a Greek girl once. I had asked
her to go to a concert, and she said no. The next day we were getting food and
this other friend came up and (not realizing it was her) asked me why the girl
I liked wasn’t coming to the concert. It was awkward. Greece doesn’t quite have
the gunpower so I’ll give them the bronze. New Zeland would make a dark horse
run at it with their laid back loyalty, but that’ll only get them silver. I say
Brazil takes it home- smart money is on the beautiful passionate women.
NS: With that, I want to thank Dr. Woodcock for his time, and we encourage everyone to submit their own questions (via comments, email, owl (for Harry Potter fans), and your local rabies-free feline messenger service) for Dr. Woodcock for next time.
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