love & marriage

Knowing that receiving countries considered families a better bet than single men, he planned to marry one of the young Vietnamese women in the camp. Although there was no romantic interest between them, it seemed a fair arrangement to both the propective bride as well as her groom. By marrying Ngoc, the young woman would take him out of the 'single male' category, the one immigration officers like least. In return, while sharing her bunk, Ngoc would protect his bride from abuse and possible rape, constant threats to unattached women.

From: Beiser, Morton. 1999. Strangers at the Gate: The ‘Boat People’s’ First Ten Years in Canada. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press. 29.

I wonder if the reason why I've never been fully committed in a relationship is the result of having parents who got married not out of love but out of necessity. Just like how we often talk about being activists by circumstance, my parents became life partners by circumstance.

I grew up in a home that did no emphasize love or compassion in a selfish "I love you and can't live without you because I would feel empty" kind of way. I grew up in a home that emphasized love and compassion in a "I love you and how you contribute to my life as well as the lives of others around you" kind of way.

I grew up not seeing my parents express any kind of passionate love for one another . . and perhaps that is why I don't necessarily express (or maybe even believe) in any kind of passionate "I can't live without you" love for anyone else.

Just like how my parents did not necessarily marry one another out of own individual passionate love but out of a need to keep the small Lue community together, I wonder if the partner I choose to spend the rest of my life with will also be for something bigger, greater, and more important than my own passionate love for the person as an individual . . but for the passionate love I have for my people and my community and my love for who that person is in the greater scheme of things.

or maybe. Maybe I'm just hella self-centered and not willing to give my self up to anyone in that kind of way. Maybe I'm not optimistic enough and too realistic to believe in love at first sight and believing that loving someone is something you learn to do by enjoying their best qualities and learning to live and love their not so great qualities.