Love as the Blind

There I stood in front of my shelved wardrobe where I had my cosmetics with my eyes closed. I had just had a deep clean shower and now was the time to feed my skin some goodness. For some reason, I couldn’t place a finger on why I had my eyes closed and that led me to my next thrill of identifying my products by touch. I had to trust my other senses had been taking notes now that my eyes were unavailable for this mundane task.

It was at this point that the content for this post hit me, like a ton of cash. What senses would be the most accurate to rely on as a blind man in love? Would it be my ears? Would it be my nose? My hands? What would beauty mean to me? Are all the things we adore in a partner a function of all our senses or just our eyes?

While I haven’t had the rare privilege of interacting with a blind couple, I have come to the realization that beauty can be perceived and expressed by all our senses. As such I can also conclude that love can be perceived and expressed by all our other senses.

Our eyes rob us of the opportunity to experience feelings through our other senses. Our unconscious fixation to make sightly inferences dominates and more often than not, quiets our other senses.

David Linden, a neuroscientist had this to say about touch, “The most critical function of interpersonal touch is to build trust and cooperation. It’s the ability to strengthen a bond and communicate, “I’m on your side. I’m an ally. You can trust me.” It derives from maternal touch when we are babies, but it persists throughout our lives as a social glue of sorts”.

The next question that follows would be “is there a right way to touch that doesn’t come off as perverse?” The short answer is yes. There are different types of touches for different situations, but for the context of this post I’ll focus on romantic touch which as David linden puts it “Affectionate touch — stroking the arm or holding a hand — is hard-wired to produce feelings of trust and cooperation”.

What role does our sense of smell have to play in this game of love? I, for one, would say my desired love scent would be a blend of good cooking, vanilla, and the ocean. Unknown or unfounded by many, our sense of smell is quite adept. Our sense of smell has a robust recall pathway in our memory. Research has it that scents can evoke childhood memory with a near-real experience. It is quite interesting that our brain stores memory of scents associated with a wide array of events.

If your sense of smell was all you could rely on to fall in love, what would she or he smell like? Does the scent of her launch you into a euphoric atmosphere? What does your lovers’ scent remind you of, for those that have found ‘the one?

Makers and purveyors of teeming aromatherapy products seem to agree that scents have a great impact on our moods. If your smell is loveable then you most likely are loveable. This isn’t just affiliated with your perfume or body lotion it’s a cosmic bond between the two that exudes from one’s personality into the nostrils of an admirer.

If your ears were to counsel you on who to love, what would they hear? What would she sound like? As a poet put it “her voice, is a sound in comparison with soft droplets of rain, falls gently on my heart, running down to lighten a soul, which was once darkened and filled with darkness” - CW.

Are your partners’ words softer than a pillow? Do they water your soul? Like springs from a rock do they penetrate the hardness of your heart?

To be continued…