not capable of love

Definition of something life-changing? According to me, as of this moment, it’s something really revolutionary that causes you to think about it. Maybe change the way you think about some aspect of life, and it’s such a good topic to think about, or so thought feeling emotion-provoking, that it crosses your mind, and you find yourself thinking about it or having the urge to think about it more and connect with it more, all the time. That could mean, that you deeply somehow relate, even if you don’t think you do. Or it could simply be something that you, for whatever reason, found very interesting. It struck chords in your heart. But you…don’t relate? Unless the definition of “relate” can be reduced to having something to do with you, because it certainly would then. It would still be a thinking/feeling/emotional connection.

Simon in season 1 is an extremely interesting character, so I really love him. Particularly what I am thinking about right now is the conversation when Lady Danbury confronts him about how he thinks he is not capable of love.

Simon seems to think that, because he is less than perfect, he is not deserving of love. And he doesn’t accept it. He thinks this way. He doesn’t know…how? To think otherwise. It all stems back to childhood trauma (when does it not?) to his dad, who expected/demanded perfection, as Lady Danbury had said.

But the double-sided sword I find interesting. Simon thinks that he

1. Is not deserving of love

2. Is not capable of love - meaning I suppose that no one could ever love him. He doesn’t accept it. He turns a blind eye to love when it tries to find him, and he blames everything on it. (“Indeed feelings are the ones responsible for this mess!”). He views love as a problem, ironically, much like his university Oxford friend Anthony the Viscount Bridgerton, who will carry on this same belief in his season 2 (which primarily focuses on him). Even though he loves Daphne, and he knows it (Anthony particularly has the problem of maybe not knowing his own feelings of love in season 2 or being somehow in denial, but Simon doesn’t, I think, Simon knows it) and yet still rejects it. For his vow that he made to his father. I find it interesting, almost selfless, how he refuses to marry Daphne. Refuses to be happy. He wants to be miserable? But he seems okay? He seems content. And it’s almost selfless: “It is because I hold you in such high regard that I cannot marry you.” So it’s ironic that the first statement was revoked. Simon saw- or did he really?- that he was capable of love- of being loved- but rejected it.

3. The double side is that maybe Simon clearly thought he was not capable of giving love, either. Part of the reason he also did not wish to marry Daphne; because in his mind, doing so, would cause her pain. “I cannot marry you.”…”…I cannot make you happy, basically. I cannot give you the life you deserve. You deserve more. You deserve better. The best. Not me. “I don’t know how to be the man you deserve.”

The idea of love finding you and reaching out to you and you still rejecting it- why? Interesting to me. It can stem from self hate, clearly. And people do say this. They say you can never love another until you love yourself. Can’t you? Can’t you love another more than yourself? See past yourself? But are you really giving them 100%? Are you really truly believing, in yourself, that you are capable of love- of deserving love, of being loved, of giving love? It is for these reasons I’ve thought so often that I will wind up alone. And the idea of it wasn’t painful, because like Simon, it was something I had accepted. Everything else rejected.