That One Perfect Woman...
Admit it ladies: We all want to be the
quintessentially quirky and modestly/mysteriously beautiful one that every guy
loses his mind for.....you know, the one who's spirit and image are so
vulnerable and yet so strong and unwavering. She's uneducated, and
yet so much more intellectual and wise than any being you'll ever meet.
While shes brazen and relentless, shes also as delicate and soft as a
lily; while she smokes her cigarettes and swears, she does so with a complete
elegance and entrances us with her cunning thoughts on life and love.
She is the complete embodiment of all that
is woman.....that one woman who makes even the most free man break down (without
conscious effort), and the only woman with spunk enough to leave that man....the
one who no man can stop himself from falling in love with. We can
find this intricately dichotomous being in such films as Garden
State, Closer, Three to
Tango, or in songs like Amie by Damien Rice, Lilac Wine by Jeff Buckley, or Kate
by Ben Folds. Shes also well-represented in books like The
Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera, or even in classics, such as
Emma, and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, or The Age of Innocence by Edith
Wharton. (This is just a small sampling of the spectrum of works
that have touched on the subject; surely everyone can relate to several other
works that may illustrate this woman even better.)
This woman's creators, (songwriters,
lyricists, authors, and screenwriters) have always introduced this quirky woman
with lightness and liberality in her step, concentrating on the traits that, in
a traditional universe, would make her imperfect; her cute imperfections and
flaws are what make her so irresistible to the fascinated audience.
For example, think of Natalie Portman's character in Garden State: I'm
doing something that no one else has ever done before. Or, Neve
Campbell's character in Three to Tango: I'm making three completely different
sounds at once. Because no one thought of the idea, it makes this
woman genius and insightful, immediately lovable.
Another distinguishing characteristic that
makes this being so irresistible to men and women is that shes a completely free
spirit, while also completely vulnerable and connected to the man that she
loves; (that one lucky man that gets to have her as his prize) she loves him
more than any woman has ever loved any man throughout history, and her creators
are careful to assert that. However, what completely bewitches us
about her is her innate ability to leave this man and affirm her independence
and perfection as a spirit.
Why am I ranting and raving?
Because society, for centuries, has set this woman as the standard for
which love must be measured. Millions of women want to be this
impossible being, as if to make every man in the world run through swords,
through seas! just to have her love; no man can resist her (even the most
brazen, unattached, free man), and every one of the aforementioned works can
insist just that.
After we watch, read, or hear one of these
works, somewhat of a void is placed in our hearts and our considering minds; for
men, the question is: Why haven't I met this (one) woman?, and for ladies, its:
Why am I not her? The concept that most intrigues me about this
entire situation is that the people whom are audience to the ideas that are
conjured by these movies, books, and songs are most certainly intellectual and
wise people! While, in perfect reasoning, one can derive that
people from fiction are non-existent and impossible as true beings, we still
subconsciously cling to the ideals represented by this one perfectly imperfect
woman to be the judge of every real woman. This is true to men and
to women: men want this woman, and search for her, believing that she is really
somewhere, waiting to be found (after all, centuries of respected literature and
lyric couldn't be wrong, could it?), and women strive (with every fiber of their
beings) to be this woman!
Millions of men want this woman to be a
truth because they want to be hypnotized by this perfectly imperfect
woman. The point is: (fortunately, for all of us), this woman does
not exist. The perhaps closest image we may receive of this woman,
throughout history as a whole, would be Venus. However, the
transparency of time has even erased the image of Venus from our minds.
This woman can not exist for one simple
reason: she makes the ideal of true love impossible. This is
because the idea of true love represents one man for every woman.
If this woman were to exist, she, in the present day, would be the
hypnotic force that sought the love of every man alive. However,
we know that there are plenty of men who have already found their true
love. (All of this, of course, is based on the understanding of
true love.)*
Again, this woman can not exist, because
this entire concept would be ruined. Would we rather believe in
one perfect woman that steals the hearts of all men, or believe in the idea of
true love? Its all a question of philosophy and personal belief,
but, in reviewing the time-tested facts, true love reigns supreme again.
So, men: stop holding women to this
impossible standard which does not exist. The creators of this
woman had great intentions; to use his or her talents to embody all that is the
woman that he or she has personally known and loved, and NOT to represent the
idea of the perfect woman for all men. The woman that each of
these artists have illustrated for us has been his or her best individual
representation of his or her true love, although his or her best representation
will never be even close to the true feeling that they possess (for this
woman).
And women: don't wish to be this
woman! For if you were her, instead of finding true love with one
man, you would only find absolute captivation and hypnotization with every man
you'd meet; while this sounds like every woman's dream, it can not even touch the
joy and perfection of the lifetime that true love could bring.
* True love, in this application, can be
described as the (elongated) epiphany of one human being about another that can
not be seen by any other human being. For instance, a man falling
in love with a woman means that he has found something in that woman that no
other being has ever seen about her, not even the woman herself.
This certain trait is something that no other being has ever
possessed, nor will any other being possess after. We generally
think of an epiphany as an understanding that only really lasts a moment.
This epiphany is just so, however; even though true love lasts a
lifetime, a lifetime is actually only an instant in the entire scheme of
existence as a whole. For those who have not experienced true love
yet, this concept is completely alien, but for those who are under its spell,
this idea is as easy as understanding the fact that 2 2=4. The
amazing part about this is that this reduces our world to the idea of only one
man for one woman.
You may
ask then, why do so many people go an entire lifetime without connecting with
their soul mate and living happily ever after? Several factors may
affect this, such as time, or space, preference, maturity level, or the lack of
ability to forgive.
