Image Credit: Niño Jose Heredia / Gulf News (2017)
I've been waiting for me to come along -
And now I've swept myself off my feet!
The case of 40-year-old Italian fitness trainer, Laura Mesi, has brought the subject of sologamy back into the public arena, with many commentators perplexed and angered at the idea of self-marriage ...
Predictably, the charge of narcissism is often made against those who take themselves up the aisle, as if this were the most terrible of all imaginable crimes. Ironically, however, it's a charge that is itself born of narcissism; for the anti-narcissist is essentially objecting to the fact that there are some people who don't find them attractive as a potential spouse and they're offended by that.
Other critics sneer at sologamy as a transparent and profoundly sad attempt by (mostly) single women attempting to rationalise loneliness and justify isolation as an affirmative lifestyle choice; i.e. the ultimate act of individual autonomy and empowerment.
Personally, I don't see any need for nastiness and hope Laura and all the other self-loving sologamists live happily ever after. However, what interests me more remains the idea of divorcing the self - i.e., of releasing the self from the self [se déprendre de soi-même] as Foucault would say, offering thus a rather amusing definition of freedom.
Ultimately, ethics is not a question of remaining faithful to the self, but, rather, of subjective infidelity; of learning how to answer not I do, but No, I don't, when asked if you wish to have and to hold on to yourself, in sickness and in health, until death do you part.
Ultimately, ethics is not a question of remaining faithful to the self, but, rather, of subjective infidelity; of learning how to answer not I do, but No, I don't, when asked if you wish to have and to hold on to yourself, in sickness and in health, until death do you part.
