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🇦🇷 Argentina /Culture & Society

Gabriel Rolón: “The grace of love is embracing the other’s imperfections”

From La Nación · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Interview Named sources Context piece
  • Argentine psychoanalyst and writer Gabriel Rolón said lasting love requires accepting a partner’s imperfections rather than expecting them to provide a sense of completeness.
  • He described a “vehicle inspection” for relationships and argued that fear of loneliness leads many people to remain in harmful or unwanted partnerships.
  • Rolón also said desire exposes what people lack, while love, success, work and family can become attempts to fill an emptiness that cannot be completely filled.

“What is the point of loving someone who is perfect?” Gabriel Rolón asked during an interview with LN+. For the Argentine psychoanalyst and writer, love becomes meaningful precisely when it embraces the other person’s imperfections.

Rolón warned that the ideal of finding a “better half” carries a built-in disappointment. At some point, he said, people may turn over in bed and discover that their supposedly complete partner is missing at least one piece. The illusion of completeness, he argued, does not exist.

What is the point of loving someone who is perfect? The grace of love is embracing the other person’s imperfections.

· Gabriel RolónRolón explained why he believes love depends on accepting a partner’s limitations.

He compared relationships to vehicles that need periodic checks, describing what he called a “VTV of love”. Many people, he said, remain in partnerships they would not choose because they have not accepted what troubles them about the other person, or because they have simply resigned themselves to the situation. Fear of loneliness can keep them there, even when the relationship has become damaging.

The fear of loneliness is intrinsic to human beings.

· Gabriel RolónHe discussed why people may remain in relationships that cause them suffering.

Rolón said loneliness is an intrinsic condition of being human. Even after someone finds comfort in the embrace of a loved one, he argued, the feeling of loneliness eventually returns. People can end up moving through love without a spare tire or a fire extinguisher, driving a vehicle that is already somewhat damaged.

He also focused on desire, calling it an uncomfortable force because it points directly to what is missing. Desire acts like a spotlight, illuminating the absence. People then circle that absence, giving it different forms through love, books, success, television, work or children. These may be noble efforts, he said, but none can fill an impossible void. For Rolón, living with that lack is part of being human and of confronting the tragic feeling that life ends in death.

Desire makes you uncomfortable because it points to what is missing.

· Gabriel RolónRolón described desire as a force that exposes absence and shapes human behavior.
About this summary

Originally published by La Nación in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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