FALLING IN LOVE VS. STANDING IN LOVE

'Standing in love is different. Unlike falling in love, which is premised on the fact that the lovers are still more or less strangers, to stand in love is to love a person because they are as well known to you as you are to yourself. Falling in love becomes standing in love, if it does, when the thrill of the unknown becomes the delight of knowing another and being known by them. It is the love of friendship and whilst it will no doubt not be perfect, it is focused on the other person. 

Just how unlike standing in love is compared with falling in love can be gleaned by thinking about the difference between being with individuals who are falling in love and with individuals who are standing in love. The first couple - the new lovers - are typically discomforting to be with. They are so in love with each other that they have little concern for anyone else. It's the lovey-dovey syndrome. It is annoying to have to share an evening with them or sit opposite them on the train. They are so absorbed in each other that they do not notice the rest of the world. You are left out. You feel alone when with them. 

Being with people who are standing in love is entirely different. It is a joy. The nicest people to know are those who are in love with each other and who make you feel part of their love. Standing in love bids you welcome too. Such lovers have learnt the art of love with each other and it results in generating a care and concern for others.' 

Mark Vernon, The Meaning of Friendship, p.247.

HUMAN LIFE IS RELATIONAL

'There is no being human on a desert island, anymore than there are such things are solitary ants. The good life is the attempt to live for others in life.' 

Mark Vernon, The Meaning of Friendship, p.243.

MODERN SOCIETY & FRIENDSHIP

'...in practice we appear to be more in love with work, romance, mobility and ourselves than we are with the love called friendship, for all that many would confess otherwise. The structure of modern life, and the choices that people make in it, demonstrate as much.'

Mark Vernon, The Meaning of Friendship, p.219.

FRIENDSHIP

'Perhaps friendship should assert itself more strongly in our romance obsessed world. Perhaps friends should refuse the otherwise overwhelming pressures of the quixotic and declare the joys of their own kind of passion, though that would be a hard thing to do in a culture besotted with the power of erotic possessiveness. The thought provides us with a conclusion. For contra the myth, there is a love that does not desire to possess. It is called friendship. It loves the other, and wants them both to be free. Once friendship has come to be the determining force in a relationship, individuals are able to find themselves and nurture a passion for life, not merely lose themselves lose themselves in starry-eyed love.' 

Mark Vernon, The Meaning of Friendship, p.72. 

MARRIAGE & FRIENDSHIP

'In today's world, there is a myth of romantic love based upon the idea that two lovers become one flesh, a totalisation of life in the other, supremely enacted in sexual ecstasy which is symbolic of that union. The myth or ideal tends to exclude others, not because lovers do not want friends, but because it tells them that their friends are incidental - pleasant but non-essential adornments to the lover's life together. Although few people in real life believe the myth in its entirety, it is difficult to ignore entirely too,' 

Mark Vernon, The Meaning of Friendship, p.71.