JetUNsetter

Oxford Languages gives this definition of a bond: “a connection between two surfaces or objects that have been joined together, especially by means of an adhesive substance, heat, or pressure”. I think that human bonds surely comply with that definition: we bond because of an adhesive substance.

Pressure in fact could be it, same as with any other material. Two humans who have gone through tough times together will be bonded even if under normal circumstances they are not that compatible. Before your mind wonders into natural disasters and tragedy, think about the joy of meeting a fellow country(wo)man abroad…

Heat too. I can think of the obvious here – summer love! 🙂

The one that troubles me is the adhesive substance though. What is that mystery ingredient that allows us to bond. And is it the mere wearing off of it that undoes the bond?

So much has been written about love and friendship at scientific level (with chemists even having figured out the hormonal side of it) and even more has been written in fiction around the world and in centuries. Yet, we still get it wrong, get hurt and continue puzzled as we experience meeting and eventually bonding with other people despite the prolification in litterature.

In my experience there are four distinct steps to bonding. They can be expedited on occasion (with a reverse effect on the longevity of the bond in all likelihood).

Liking: we like the other person. Possibly what they look like, how they behave or how it feels being around them.

Appreciating: we have liked them the person for a while and spent some time with them as the result of that. We have come to appreciate who they are at a level of competence or values and we feel at ease around them or we like how we can benefit from their mastery.

Trusting: time has tested our bond a couple of times and we believe in the stability. The reasons why we have appreciated the person seem true and deep and the consistency in their conduct adds a feeling of safety being around them. We like that feeling and the piece of mind that comes with it.

Loving. This is where my intellectual ability fails me. This is clearly the last step of the bonding yet I fail to understand it in its magnitude. I guess it’s because it has nothing to do with the mind. It’s a feeling. An affair for the heart alone. My definition of love is that it is the step where it is no longer about getting or about how we feel around the person. It’s about what we give. When we love, we want to keep offering our best version to the person we love. Not our happiest necessarily, but our best. Accidentally, loves makes us grow and become better, wiser, calmer, greater. I guess that is why we risk giving our heart away in the end and why we never regret it or we can’t take it back once it’s unleashed. In the end humans, we love love. We love to love. We love to be loved.

Now love can be reciprocal or not (as you have probably figured out yourselves in life). I strongly advise against unilateral love not because I am selfish (or just because) but because it would be missing out. Why we might find ourselves in a situation where we are the only ones loving will it for another blogpost.

The issue that troubles me, is that, given how amazing, difficult and rare love can be it’s such a misery that our bonds are not solid. It took time and effort and the magic adhesive substance to come to it and we deliberately even, remove ourselves from bonds. Obviously, there are bonds we should remove ourselves from. Yet the ones that puzzle me are the ones we just left time wear them off. The old friend from school that we no longer see because you know, life intervened and took us to different places. The close friend who married someone we are not that compatible with and stop seeing as life turned us into couples. The friend who is at a different stage in life than us and just gets complicated or unfulfilling to meet (a married friend and a single friend, a parent and non parent etc etc). Liking, appreciating and even trusting can still be present but the bond is not…

And then there are the bonds that we keep investing on even though the magic ingredient is not there. The family we keep visiting and investing time on. The colleagues we meet after the office. The chaps we share a hobby with. Are these bonds?

Is it the definition of a human bond is different to the one by Oxford Languages? A little more complex? Is it the pragmatic truth that the adhesive ingredient is not magical necessarily and common interest or habit do the trick as well? Is my definition of love simply not the only one? I really wish humans figure this out and that love bonds us all …