If love, as they say, is blind, how do we ever see the beloved accurately, beyond the images we create of the person we want to see?

Meridian falls for Alden's intellect and the challenge he provides for her eager, bright mind. He accepts her—at least at the start—as an intellectual equal, and he seems not to limit her because she is a woman. If love, as they say, is blind, how do we ever see the beloved accurately, beyond the images we create of the person we want to see?

From the start, Alden was the one challenging Meridian intellectually, not the other way around. Because they were in their comfort zones at the university, it worked for them then. It took an outside event, the work that Alden did at Los Alamos, to take the blinder off and see Meridian as not quite his equal. It also made Meridian see Alden as he really was, an intellectual snob.

I think the beginning of a relationship and the interactions at that time are not always the reality of the individuals involved. There is a bit of a blindfold on each person and they see what they want to see. As time goes on the true self of each is revealed slowly and there are always adjustments and accommodations that start happening on the part of at least one of the individuals but usually there is some of that for both of them. In this story Meri is the one who is expected to go along with Alden's way all the time. Unfortunately that was pretty much true for all women at that time and it is a little hard for women of a generation or two later to see that and not feel a little disgusted by it. Meri was a victim of her times and if she had been married decade or two later I think that things would have been a lot different in this marriage. Women were allowed and expected to have a mind and goals of their own and to actively pursue them within the bonds of marriage.

I think time is the only thing that allows you to truly understand or see the beloved accurately. I think the first few years spent with someone are spent seeing what they want you to see & what you project onto them but after spending a few years together & truly paying attention to each other...you can begin to accurately understand who someone truly is.

I wonder how the relationship would have been different if he had either remained a professor, or had gone back to the "real world" after a few years in Los Alamos.

I'm not sure we really accurately see beyond what we want to see. I agree their lives might have been different if they were in a metropolitan area.

I think love is blind because we don't want to see our beloveds accurately, or we do see them accurately and love allows us to overlook anything that causes conflict or concern.

Piper is right on - it is so true. . . .love is blind and we only see each other as time goes by and we put down the blinders and look at the core of that person.

This is an interesting question for me. Especially in light of a book I recently reviewed called How Emtions are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett in which she turns the whole traditional notion of emotion on its head. Among other things she has proven through research that emotions spring from all parts of our anatomy and that the brain is slave to our body, constantly striving to keep the *whole* in balance. Thus no two people experience love in the same way. Thus love may not be blind so much as our individual response to current needs neurobiologically.

I agree with dorothyh in that we don't always see what we see. There are so many factors involved love that can make or break a relationship. Maybe if Meridian had had more self confidence in herself she would have had more doubts about Alden.

I don't believe that love is blind. Sometimes we confuse what we think we want with love. Meridian was a woman of her time and expectations were different. Alden fulfilled her perception of her needs at the time, before her experience changed what she needed.

I say Thank God love is blind. Civilization would have ended centuries ago otherwise! Seeing the 'good' in a person is a gift and sometimes it can last a lifetime.

Love may be blind at first and/or in the throes of passion, but anyone who is totally honest about his or her relationship has at least a moment here or there where they angry, turned off, or maybe even temporarily repulsed. It is at those moments that one has to decide: "Am I out of here or do I calm down and assess the overall situation as worth hanging on to?