I'd catch a grenade for you

People (specially males) tend to express their unbounded love via how they would act on extreme situations, how they would die for their significant other, to fight even knowing that the battle is lost or to give everything up. Take for example Grenade by Bruno Mars

I’d catch a grenade for you

Throw my hand on a blade for you

I’d jump in front of a train for you

You know I’d do anything for you

I would go through all this pain

Take a bullet straight through my brain

Yes, I would die for you baby

But you won’t do the same

We can think that this is the pinnacle of love, that one could not love any more than this, that in here a maximum of loving and generosity for the partner is achieved. But I think that this is rather selfish instead.

Let me elaborate on this point. I believe that making such a distant and big promise somehow excuses the promiser of any futher responsibility. In other words, by making sure that the other one knows that you would do this very big sacrifice, all other sacrifices are minute in comparison, and therefore can be somehow justified if not done. But the important part is that all other sacrficies are the ones actually happening, probably on a daily basis, and consequently matter much more than the behaviour in front of a blade, grenade or bullet.

I believe that it is much more effective to promise (and act) on smaller things that have an actual transcendence in the life of your SO. For example doing the dishes at night when no-one wants to do them, attentively listening to how their day has been, asking about that thing that interested them, or just being there when days are rougher than average.

I truly reckon that this makes a much bigger difference than promising on some very distant and vague idea that most certainly would not take place, and if it materialized, probably no-one would judge the outcome due to stress. But it takes an effort, and sometimes we have to do the thing we don’t want to just to save the other one from doing it.

This is not just relevant for affective partners, but for all kinds of relationships, be it friends, siblings, parents, strangers, customers or work colleagues. It feels good to observe the details and act on the little things that make other people feel appreciated. Normally this requires an additional effort on our part, but they are more often that not noticed (even if it is silently¹).

By taking care of these small details you make people happy, and increasing the happiness in any environment is always a positive thing. And being the provider of these small actions makes other people like you and consider you a good person. Two of the goals that make a life well-lived for me. Be considered a good person by the people I love and make their life nicer than if I were not in it.

To finish this piece, I remember I once read in some substack (sorry, I don’t remember the name) that we should Walk to a wedding but run to a funeral, and I think of it as a nice way to frame that we should be present when times are hard. And sometimes being present is just that, staying by someone’s side, expecting nothing to happen, but just being there. But this showing up rule is nice enough to make a future entry.