Get in here, Grecaboos.

Are you listening closely?


I.

This is the story you know:

"Narcissus was a man who was so in love with himself that he fell in love with his own reflection. No one else was good enough for him. He stared into the pool, and eventually wasted away."

But that's not the whole story.

When Narcissus was born his mother, Liriope, took him to the blind seer Tiresias and asked him for a prophecy: "will he have a long life?"

Before Tiresias became a prophet he had spent seven confusing years as a woman, and made two important discoveries about women. First, that women get more pleasure from love making than men. When he told this discovery to Hera and Zeus, Hera, in a rage, struck him blind, which lead to his second discovery: not all women want to hear this.

Zeus tried to make up for his blindness by giving him the power to know the future.
So Tiresias gave Liriope his cryptic prophecy:

"He'll have a long life as long as he never knows himself."

Now what could that mean?

II.

The story you know is that Narcissus was so beautiful that everyone wanted to be with him, but he rejected them all: no, no, no, no, no, not good enough.

One rejected lover was furious and begged Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance, for retribution. "If Narcissus ever falls in love, don't let the love be returned!"

Nemesis heard the prayer and caused Narcissus to fall in love with himself: he was lead to a pool of water, and when he looked into it, he fell in love with what he saw. And what he saw wasn't real, so of course it couldn't love him back. But Narcissus sat patiently, forever, hoping that one day that beautiful person in the bottom of the pool was going to come out and love him.

You should take note of this first, easy lesson: if no one ever seems right for you, and then the one person who does seem right doesn't want you, then the problem isn't the person, the problem is you.