Platonic Relationships

Even though this is not regarding whats often referred to as ¨Platonic Love¨, I wanted to discuss a theory picked up from the book ¨Great Thinkers¨ from The School of Life, in which some of the most influential thinkers of all time and their legacies are examined in a few pages at the time. When the book talks about Plato, it reads about his theory on love and relationships and Plato’s view of love and partnership caught my attention, here’s an extract from the book:

¨when you fall in love, what’s really going on is that you have seen in another person some good quality that you haven’t got. Perhaps they are calm, when you get agitated; or they are self-disciplined, while you’re all over the place; or they are eloquent when you are tongue-tied.

The underlying fantasy of love is that by getting close to this person you can become more like they are¨.

I , like Plato believe that we are often looking for a person with the traits that we feel are missing from our own lives, not necessarily we want to develop these traits but we want someone that offers a constant escape to their own distant realities where we are visitors and we can experience things that make our life more exiting and complete.