Eros and Perception: Part VII: Marc Gafni

Another scene of such erotic perceiving comes to mind. It was in one of those impersonal high rise building in New York City. Sue, one of the women who I worked with there, was having a bad day, or rather a bad 365 days. She had been in a marriage which she described bitterly as “a two year long hitchhike in a truck of explosives driven by a chain smoker.” Well, the truck had finally exploded, leaving her with third degree emotional burns.

So, I remember this one day, she went out to lunch in a horrible mood, and I expected her to return in the same state. But the woman who walked back into the office an hour later was far from the same. She was transformed. She was buoyant, absolutely giddy as she exclaimed, “Heaven is located on the 27th floor. I have just had an elevator ride with a walking angel, and he got out on the 27th floor.” Apparently, on the ever impersonal elevator ride up to our 42nd floor office, Sue had met a man.

“I felt someone looking at me,” she said, “So, at first I glanced over at his shoes and slowly inched my way up the leg of his grey, perfectly tailored pants to the pleated grey jacket and the smooth grey hair and, well, then I found his eyes. It was as if they were just waiting for me to finally find them, waiting for me to see that they were seeing me. And they were a grey more perfect than any perfect suit and a look more real than I have had in years. And then the door opened, he nodded his head, smiled and stepped out of the elevator onto the 27th floor. And it doesn’t matter if we never meet again. I will always have his perfect grey gaze.”

It is not by accident that the common term for dating is “seeing someone” or that the somewhat outdated but no less expressive term for trying to pick someone up is, to “make eyes” at them. Our language reveals that being seen is essential. It is really what being loved is all about. We know then that love is a perception. A great lover is one who trains, refines and excels in perception. When a lover is with someone, that person has the wonderful sense of having been seen. We know intuitively that the sense of being seen or looking is modeled by the sexual in it’s ideal form, yet not exhausted by the sexual.

marc gafni
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