INFATUATION JUNKIES

Love is a drug. Or IS it? Depending on our answer, we either belong or do not belong to the above-named category: INFATUATION JUNKIE. We all know people, such as Alanis Morissette, who claim to fit in this category, and admittedly move compulsively from relationship to relationship, never being long without one, but never being fully satisfied IN one either. This group includes those working out a Don Juan or Cassanova complex through a series of sexual conquests, but it also includes those in unsatisfying long-term relationships, many of which are abusive in some way or another. These are people who simply cant leave for one reason or another, any more than a junkie can abandon an addictive drug, but arent happy staying, either. In a sense then, most of us fall into this category, even in some small degree, at some time or another in the course of our lives. Drug or NOT drug? The determining factor is WILL, and the role WILL plays in romantic love. To the degree that love is a FREELY-WILLED, non-compulsive activity, love is NOT a drug; to the degree that love is perceived as a magnetic, compulsive, overwhelming force which sweeps us off our feet , it decidedly IS a drug, and we ARE INFATUATION JUNKIES. But why does this happen? An infatuation junkie is created by one of two basic human needs: The need for SOCIAL VALIDATION, which is a form of the need to belong, or the need for SELF-REALIZATION, and most often, there exists a mixture of the two present behind this compulsion. Let us look first at the need for SOCIAL VALIDATION as a cause. Social validation is simply the process by which an individual does something to be ACCEPTED as a member of the society to which he or she belongs. This cause alone has driven parents of teens to distraction for countless generations, as teens have striven to fit into peer groups with radically different values than those shared by the parents. Recently, on the Dr. Phil show, which exposes the current state of the mainstream North American psyche, there were various parents with their very young children in tow, wishing advice on this very matter. It seems that today, children as young as 11 years old are becoming obsessed with looking sexy and dressing with this object in mind. Now, most of these children are not acting out of an adolescent hormonal onrush, but simply to fit in with a larger social trend, and thereby, to achieve acceptance by their peers. This creates a SEED, which sits in the psyche in the form of what is often termed a

POSTULATE, or fundamental, unquestioned operating principle, like a default option on a computer. This postulate, fully elaborated, would read something like: My acceptance by others is directly connected to my sex appeal. Now, such a postulate, silently at work in the depths of the psyche, has spin-off effects. For instance, what EVIDENCE is required to CONFIRM to myself, and to others, that I AM sexually appealing, and therefore DO belong? You can see immediately that BEING IN a sexual relationship will be perceived as proof of sex appeal, and hence social validity, while NOT being in will be perceived as proof of the very OPPOSITE. Voila!: the basic groundwork for compulsion, and addiction is laid, unknowingly, in the mind of a young person simply wanting to be part of the cool crowd with such a mindset. And, it is enforced by being directly tied to what Maslow describes as one of the fundamental Hierarchy of Human needs : the need to BELONG. Now, not everyone grows up in such a peer group, but for those who escape this lure to addiction, there arises another which is even more difficult to escape, as it is directly tied to the crowning need in Maslows Hierarchy: the need for Selfrealization. Here, we enter the realm of the psychological research done by Carl Jung. Jung found that the unconscious aspect of the male psyche is essentially FEMININE, while the unconscious aspect of the female psyche is FEMININE. This concept is represented graphically by the familiar Yin-Yang symbol, where the key colour of the one part is reflected in the eye or core of the other part. Now, in terms of reincarnation (which Jung did not deal with), this makes perfect sense. If one has lived, say, 600 lives thus far, and divided ones time roughly equally between expression in both sexes, and yet comes back as a male, what will happen? The very biological disposition to masculinity will throw many feminine traits into latency, and these will not strive for expression in the new male body. Along with PHYSICAL latency, will also come psychological latency of those feminine attributes which may seem inappropriate: mothering, nurturing, sensitive, creative components, which may not fit in with the current male role model existing in a society. Thus, a reincarnating individual, coming back as a male, will be, in one biological stroke, CUT OFF from full access to HALF OF HIS BEING: that half developed over centuries of living as a female on this planet. The same will happen to a female. According to Jung, this inner sense of something missing, and the drive which arises in the individual to find an

inner completion, constitutes an ARCHETYPE which he said forms part of the Self-realization process. Basically, taking the female this time, what she does is to first feel this lack inside herself, and somehow give it form. She first needs to get some PICTURE of what it is that is missing in herself, and this she often unconsciously builds up, based, perhaps on her father or other men she finds worthy of her admiration from time to time, quietly saying to herself Now THERES a MAN! Of course she thinks that would be a man, for if she herself were to incarnate AS a man, that is precisely the way SHE would do it! Now, when a man in real life comes along who vaguely bears any of these characteristics to any marked degree, she uses him as a SCREEN, and compulsively PROJECTS her secret image (which Jung calls her ANIMUS,) upon him, and promptly falls in love with him. She feels magnetically drawn to him, as though he were her destiny, and she is swept away with a sense of amazing completion and fulfillment. This ANIMUS PROJECTION type of falling in love, is, of course, so COMPULSIVE because it is tied to the human need for selfrealization, but is ALSO tied to the most BASIC human need: the need for SURVIVAL, here acting as the SEX DRIVE, insuring the perpetuation, and thus survival, of the human species. However, in these relationships, the purely sexual aspect is usually discounted, and it is rather the sense of something more IMPORTANT happening that looms large in the individuals mind. This works identically in the male, and here, Jung calls the process ANIMA projection. Now the point here, both in the SOCIAL VALIDATION type of compulsion and in this type of compulsion, is that the resulting relationship is inevitably motivated by SELFISH DESIRE and has very little to do with real love or care for the other person. With the social validation type, the love relationship is REALLY with the GROUP, and in this type, the love relationship is REALLY with ONESELF. In neither case do these relationships usually last, unless they transform over time into something more healthy (and many actually do, thus often ENDING the infatuation junkie syndrome.) Thus we see that people who would never make themselves slaves of a PHYSICAL substance, submit to the same dominance by an EMOTIONAL force. As we have seen, this involves a search for something OUTWARDLY which can only be found within ONESELF. How then, do we get past this? We get past this using two specific approaches. For the type of compulsion stemming from SOCIAL VALIDATION, the approach involves realizing how one actually

DOES become a valid member of the larger Whole, or society at large, and this is based on the principle of BEING THERE. There is a familiar concept associated with the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull , which states that the fastest way of getting to a place is to already BE there. In other words, it is like the saying, To HAVE a friend, you must BE a friend. To TRULY be accepted by a group, one must first NOT BELIEVE in the group. This sounds paradoxical, but holds deep truth. This means CARING for each INDIVIDUAL in the group, and in fact, REFUSING to see these individuals AS a group. This is the biggest mistake people make: they see a crowd of others as THEM, as a UNIT, while seeing themselves still as an INDIVIDUAL, separate from THEM. Now it is IMPOSSIBLE to ever BE THERE with THEM, simply because THEY do not EXIST, and never HAVE. They is an ILLUSION. There are always and ONLY individuals, just like oneself. And one CAN know and BE THERE with another INDIVIDUAL, simply by knowing and being there for ONESELF, for at the CORE, we are all human and share this basic core of humanity, but we do it AS individuals. However, most people trying to fit in do NOT do this. What they do is either try to IMITATE what the group seems to LOOK LIKE outwardly, or they throw away their OWN values and adopt what they perceive to be GROUP values. In so doing, they sell themselves out and PREVENT that link to their own core or essential self which can alone allow them to TRULY link with anyone else. Moreover, when this infatuation junkie compulsion is acting from an unconscious postulate, they are as helpless as someone motivated by hypnotic suggestion, and are powered into one relationship after another, simply to try to appease the insatiable god, THEM, which, in fact, does not even exist in the first place. Some women are terrified at the thought of NOT being with a man, and that is why they often stay in abusive or unrewarding relationships. They are so afraid that they will not be able to get someone else, and will be left alone, and thus will be seen as a total loser, and ALSO lose the support of the GROUP: a fate too terrible to contemplate! Now, ask YOURSELF, would YOU reject someone who CARED about you dearly, simply because they did not have a sexual partner? The idea is absurd, irrational, but so is the compulsion. It MAKES no sense, because it is an UNCONSCIOUS PROGRAM, a postulate, and exists beyond the realm of conscious logic. DE-PROGRAMMING, through therapy and meditation is required to go back with psychic surgery, and REMOVE this

psychological default mechanism from its seat in the unconscious. If one, caught up by this SOCIAL VALIDATION form of the compulsion wishes to break free, one must REPLACE the COMPULSIVE activity with CONSTRUCTIVE activity: SERVICE. One must find something to GIVE to the individuals of the group, rather than laying oneself down on their altar as a sacrificial victim. If one, through a series of partners, is REALLY seeking the love of the GROUP anyway, one should cut to the chase and love the group, as individuals, directly, and eliminate the middleman (or woman!) Conversely, if it is ONESELF, rather than others, one seeks a deeper relationship with, by employing screens on which to project ones forgotten male or female self, one should come clean and get down to the real work of selfdiscovery BY ONESELF. In either case, RECOGNIZING THE PROBLEM is the first step, and the sense of COMPULSION is the giveaway. Erich Fromm, in The ART of Loving, defined the TRUE romantic relationship as a STANDING in love, rather than a FALLING in love. Fromm maintained that love is a WILLED activity, based on mutual respect, and supported by all our rational judgements. It is not a dependent leaning or a letting go and falling into the clutches of delicious temptation. Wherever this sticky-sweet, forbidden pleasure quality prevails, we have SELFISH DESIRE, not love. But ASK yourself: When YOU look back at the loves you have had, particularly the very passionate ones (the ones you may not even speak to any more) and ask why these loves did not last, can you see any elements of this delicious falling, this hold me back, I cant help myself, aspect of COMPULSION in them? If so, you are looking at the tracks left, like scars, on the long arm of a perhaps, former INFATUATION JUNKIE.