A man's relationship with a woman whom he loves (and the same may be true of love for a young man) may remain platonic for a reason which is neither the woman's virtue nor a lack of sensuality in the love which she inspires. The reason may be that the lover, too impatient from the very excess of his love, does not know how to wait with a sufficient show of indifference for the moment when he will obtain what he desires. Over and over again he returns to the charge, he writes incessantly to the woman, he tries constantly to see her, she refuses, he is in despair. Henceforth she understands that if she accords him her company, her friendship, this happiness in itself will seem so considerable to the man who thought he had lost it, that she may spare herself the trouble of giving him anything more and may take advantage of a moment when he can no longer endure not to see her, when he is determined at any price to end the war, to impose upon him a peace of which the first condition will be the platonic nature of their relations. In any case, during the period which preceded this treaty, the lover, always anxious, hoping all the time for a letter, a glance, has given up thinking of physical possession, which at first had been the object of the desire which had tormented him; that desire has withered away with waiting and its place has been taken by needs of another order, needs which can, however, if they remain unsatisfied, cause him yet greater pain. So that the pleasure which at the beginning he had hoped to obtain from caresses, he received later not in its natural form, but instead from friendship words, from mere promises of the loved woman's presence, which after the effects of uncertainty - sometimes after a single look, black with a heavy cloud of disdain, which has withdrawn her to such a distance that he thinks he will never see her again - bring with them a delicious relief from tension. A woman divines these things and knows that she can afford the luxury of never giving herself to a man who, because he has been too agitated to conceal it during the first few days, has allowed her to become aware of his incurable desire for her. She is only too pleased to receive, without giving anything in return, much more than she is accustomed to be given when she gives herself. Men with a nervous temperament believe therefore in the virtue of their idol. And the halo which they place around her is a product, but as we have seen an indirect one, of their excessive love. The woman then finds herself very much in the position - though she of course if conscious, while they are not - of those unwittingly crafts drugs like sleeping-draughts and morphine. It is not to the people to whom they bring the pleasure of sleep or a genuine well-being that these drugs are an absolute necessity; it is not by such people as these that they would be bought at any price, bartered against all the sick man's possessions, but by that other class of sick men (who may perhaps be the same individuals but become different with the passage of a few years), those whom the medicine does not send to sleep, to whom it gives no thrill of pleasure, but who, so long as they are without it, are prey to an agitation which at any price, even the price of their own death, they need desperately to end.
In the case of M. de Charlus, which on the whole, with slight discrepancies due to the identity of sex, accords very well with the general laws of love, for all that he belonged to a family more ancient than the Capets, that he was rich and vainly sought after by fashionable society while Morel was nobody, he would have got nowhere by saying to Morel, as he had once said to me: "I am a prince, I want to help you," - it was still Morel who had the upper hand so long as he refused to surrender.
Marcel Proust, Time Regained, pp. 847-848
As my most excellent friend Mike Kelly would opine: Proust is sharing some truth. He tells us: "She is only too pleased to receive, without giving anything in return, much more than she is accustomed to be given when she gives herself." Essentially, his point is that women will give only as much as is required to get what they want, up to that carefully studied and scripted line and not one iota more. And, of course, he is completely correct. Once a woman approaches the age of thirty love and affection and sex are commodified, and they are doled out as needed to achieve a pre-determined goal. This makes a man who is madly in love with them a ridiculously easy mark. Not only is the man's love not appreciated, the woman actually despises him for his weakness in loving her. As Proust reminds us, "Men with a nervous temperament believe therefore in the virtue of their idol. And the halo which they place around her is a product, but as we have seen an indirect one, of their excessive love." And, again, "The woman then finds herself very much in the position - though she of course if conscious, while they are not - of those unwittingly crafts drugs like sleeping-draughts and morphine." Now why is this? Part of it relates, I would argue, from society placing women in a position of weakness way too often, and one survives as best one can, and one way to do that is to weaponize affection or sex. By comparison, men are, sadly and terrifyingly, much more likely to weaponize their bodies or at the very least their anger and the specter of physical violence.
There are many reasons why Remembrance of Things Past was so groundbreaking, but I always come back to his treatment of homosexuality. Yes, there are times, especially when he's talking about "inverts" that it is a bit clunky, but the casual nature of so much of his discussion should not be overlooked. Proust writes:"A man's relationship with a woman whom he loves (and the same may be true of love for a young man) may remain platonic for a reason which is neither the woman's virtue nor a lack of sensuality in the love which she inspires." Just the matter-of-fact fashion with which he adds "and the same may be true of love for a young man" displays his willingness to a reality as a reality.
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