Frank Baxter Student Choice 4 (entry 15)

Frank Baxter Student Choice 4 (entry 15)

The Four Loves and myself

At the star of this course (mid February) one of the most emotional events happened to me. Me and girlfriend of 5 years broke up with each other. (Went to the same high school and college.) While this should have been completely devastating I was able to push it out of my mind and focus on my last semester of school. Fortunately enough reading C.S. Lewis surprisingly helped me. While it was not any particular message or story that help, it was the act of reading. I believe it was the act of simply being part of a myth, it allowed me to have prospective on my life.

This perspective on my life lead me to analyze my own relationship I had with my girlfriend in terms of the 4 loves that C.S Lewis described. I realize now that I only had the level of Eros to her, I only had eyes for her, no one else even existed to me in terms of my emotion. Furthermore, it was even about the Venus portion, it was only about having her and her eyes directed towards me. This is where the problem came from I believe, when she started putting her friends before me (and lying to me about some things, though slight) burned a fire in me. Those small acts felt like a betray of me and that I deserved to have her and all of her attention. And I wasn’t hypocritical about it, as I shut off most of my friendships, if I was going to hang out with a group she had to be with me and I with her.

I realize now Eros is not  a healthy love, and it was probably best that it ended the way it did (mutual, cold and bitter). Because in history we have seen Eros cause real physical harm, such as Vango cutting of his own ear. To compare myself to C.S. Lewis story I was Orual and my girlfriend was Psyche, I wanted nothing to become between us, because she was mine and mine alone.