Q. What is love? How would you define it?
Dorothee: I think there are two ways of love. Just two, between man and woman. One of it is the normal way, that means, I think I need someone to clean my flat, to tell me that I am beautiful or to spend some time with me or anything like that. It means I have a need. And this is a ‘shit love’.
On the other hand, you have to be a complete person of your own. You have to fulfill your own self first and then there is something that you can give. And if you reach this point that you are a complete person of your own and now you can give something, and you meet a person who gives something as well, then it’s like a good relationship because you can create something together. Because you don’t need the other person to feel good or to live your life or whatever. You are self-sufficient and independent. Then you don’t need someone to fill the gaps inside you, like you are alone and for that you need someone. Then you have the real love because it’s from free will. Here you don’t need the other person to do something for you to make you happy or lucky, because you have to be always happy or lucky the way you are living. You can’t ask the other person to make you happy. That’s stupid I think.
Dorothee Heckmann: ‘Love and Romance’
Q. What is your famous love quote? Do you read love poems?
Dorothee: I hate love poems. I never read love poems. I think love poems are the worst poems in the world. But there’s a love quote I like. It says, ‘Eifersucht ist eine Leidenschaft, die mit eifer sucht, was Leiden schaft’. (Jealousy is a passion which passionately craves to cause suffering)
Q. If two persons are in love, does it mean both are very romantic? And what ‘being romantic’ means to you?
Dorothee: No, love and romance are something very different. I love someone even if he is mean to me or far away from me, and I still love him. And ‘romance’ is just a situation you create by yourself, like some people think candles are romantic. Other persons think cooking a meal or pick you up from work or whatever. But to me to light a candle seems more artificial.
Sometimes you realize it (‘romance’) after the situation that it was romantic, as an example you spend time together, and you get a natural feeling that it was romantic. May be the nature around you was nice or you shared the humor together. This way of romance I like, and the artificial one I don’t like at all.
Q. Does the so-called ‘true love’ exist? What is ‘blind love’?
Dorothee: I think ‘blind love’ is, if you love the illusion and not the person behind that illusion. If you see someone and you like his outward appearance or you like his behavior at that moment, and then you feel something in your heart because you like the moment but you think this is the person, but it was just that moment. So you don’t look behind, you don’t really look in depth about the person, his character. You don’t see the hard stuffs of that person, you just see the perfect stuff for a time being.
And true love is always the love, when you love the person as the person himself is. You don’t want to change that person, you don’t want to force that person to be the way you would like him to be. And you are not asking the person to be loved back. You just love this person and it’s not necessary that this person loves you as well. This is true love. True love hurts.
Q: You mean ‘True love’ hurts?
Dorothee: Aaah….. Ja…
Q. Can love be divided into categories?
Dorothee: I don’t know….
‘Love and Romance’: Dorothee Heckmann
Q. How to be lucky in love? I mean you get the person you want, make a good life, happy family?
Dorothee: I think you can be lucky in love, like the first question I answered, that you are happy with yourself at the first place. That’s the most important thing. Because then you can be happy in everything, in relations as well. You always have to know that you are a person of your own and the other person is a person of his own. Then you can, let’s say, share something together. But you are always ‘you’ and the other person is always the ‘other person’. You always have to be independent even in the relationship. And then you can be happy because you are looking for your own self, for the other person and for the family. And this is the way you may have luck or you feel good. And if you are just like ‘giving, giving and giving’ or ‘taking, taking and taking’, and then it’s not a healthy way to live your life. Because if you only ‘take’, then you are so hungry that you suck everything from the other person. On the other hand, if you only ‘give’, you expect something back even if you don’t say it. And this is not healthy. Just do it, if you have something over-flowing and try to make the other person’s life good, but keep in mind that you always have to care about yourself. And this is nothing selfish, it’s a need. You have to care for yourself because you are responsible for your own self. And then you can have a good relationship.
Q. What will happen to you when your love (I mean the person you love) will leave you? Will it have devastating effect on your life? Will you be lost?
Dorothee: So….. If you know that you can live ‘good’ alone and you can ‘organize’ your life, and that you have friends, you have hobbies, you have a job and everything, you can manage the situation although it hurts. But if you care about yourself then you are not lost. Because you have so much stuffs left. Of course, it’s a big whole and it hurts, you feel awful and your heart is aching. Nevertheless you go on. But if you only focus on your partner, you want to be whole day with your partner, you want to do everything what he wants, you totally forget yourself and you make your whole work around your partner, of course then it’s devastating. But even in this situation when you are devastated and you think your life worth no more and you want to kill yourself or whatever, you still and always can explore that there is another life possible, and from this day may be it’s good that this person is leaving you and that you have so much pain, you can reorganize your life and you can start to live yourself a good life and then it becomes so full again that you can have another relationship.
Q. Any advice for new lovers and old ones?
Dorothee: For new lovers, be nice and don’t play games. And for old ones, look for your own responsibility. Don’t say like everyone else ‘it’s not my fault’ rather take the responsibility.
‘Love and Romance’, the way I see it: Dorothee Heckmann
Thank you.
*Dorothee Heckmann is currently working as an Executive in an insurance company in Halle (Saale), Germany. She loves to play Piano, spend time with friends and watching movies. She is actively engaged in different social activities.