By Stephanie K. Hopkins
When we meet someone we could love, we sometimes find ourselves in a battle of wills.
What starts as, I want to be with this person, can easily become, If I call them too soon or too often, will they still like me? If I say yes too easily, will they lose interest?
In essence, we enact Sun Tzu’s principles of The Art of War:
All warfare is based on deception.
Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.
We engage in an innocent deception, withholding when we really want to give everything, appearing distant when we are actually so close, thinking only of them.
It is war when he lightly touches the small of your back as he walks by, and you don’t look at him like you want to; no, you continue your conversation with the person you’re with as though you felt nothing.
It is war when you walk into the bar and you want her to be there—you can’t help it, you’re always hoping—but you order a drink and don’t look for her. You sit and take a moment with your whiskey; if she’s there, she can come to you.
It is war when you want to call so badly and the night feels like the longest, emptiest night if you don’t. But you don’t, and you meet the night on your own.
Or you do call, and he doesn’t answer, and you feel like you’ve slipped, like you’ve lost power because you’ve revealed your want. As if wanting makes us weak. As if having power means having power over someone. As if being strong means having no wants at all.
We believe that people want what they can’t have, so we design elaborate stratagems to fuel desire. We fashion ourselves into formidable opponents—hoping to be worthy of love and war.
Maybe war is in our nature. Maybe we love the challenge of someone who fights back. And yet, thinking of love as having a winner and a loser misses the mark for me.
Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.
The real art, perhaps, is in knowing oneself and one’s army, in building one’s own strength, in being capable of knowing someone else, in readying oneself to receive.
We do this by living fiercely despite our fears, of seeking fulfillment outside what others can give us, of knowing we will be okay if she isn’t at the bar or he doesn’t answer our call, of having faith that we can weather disappointment and loss, of discovering power that isn’t contingent on someone else. Of readying ourselves to receive by knowing ourselves and owning who we are, and believing we are worthy.
From this place of power, wanting isn’t weakness. It’s an invitation, a battle cry. But not for a war in which there is a winner and a loser.
Formidable in our own right, our strength draws others to us. Not because we’re unavailable (for how sad, actually, to be closed down), but because self-actualization is alluring. It energizes and promises that all things are possible.
Maybe what we want isn’t to win the war. Maybe we want the exhilaration of a good fight, pursued fairly between equals. Maybe we want the craftsmanship of wit, the push and pull of flirting.
Maybe the best kind of war, in which both sides win, affirms life r