My Year With Proust - Day 171

"Since my first sight of Albertine I had thought about her endlessly, I had carried on with what I called by her name an interminable inner dialogue in which I made her question and answer, thinking and act, and in the infinite series of imaginary Albertines who followed one after the other in my fancy hour by hour, the real Albertine, glimpsed on the beach, figured only at the head, just as the actress who 'creates' a role, the star, appears, out of a long series of performances, in the few first alone.  That Albertine was scarcely more than a silhouette, all that had been superimposed upon her being of my own invention, to such an extend when we love does the contribution that we ourselves make outweigh - even in terms of quantity alone - those that come to us from the beloved object.  And this is true of loves that have been realized in actuality.  There are loves that can no only develop by survive on very little - and this even among those that have achieved their carnal fulfillment."

Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove, pp. 917-918

How many of us have carried on an "interminable inner dialogue" with our lovers, both the real ones and the potential ones?  They can be so real that we all go a little mad sometimes.  One of the themes that has run through Remembrance of Things Past is the deeply personal nature of love, and by this Proust is hinting that all of love is really self-love.  We initially are drawn to others because of a shared interest, not simply because we have something in common with them but because we see in them a reflection of ourselves.  It seems to me that it's very easy to fall into the trap of only grudgingly making space for the ways that they are different than ourselves, as compared to loving them for their entirety.  If we allow our lovers to be mere reflections of what we love about ourselves, then of course we would carry out animated dialogues with them.  In a sense all of our relationships are imagined ones, or at the very least start out as imagined ones.  They can never become real ones, even if they "have achieved their carnal fulfillment," if they are not negotiated, and that negotiation is based on a real dialogue.  What is interesting is that it's easy to see how you would only carry on an inner dialogue with a potential lover, but it is so easy to carry on that same inner dialogue with someone you're living with.  Relationships are hard, and it's just a lot easier to have her admit you're right - and might be a genius - in an imagined discussion, than to actually drag both of you through the pain of reality.  One of my greatest (among many) from my failed marriage was my willingness to carry on that inner dialogue instead of actually talking about our problems.