Go with a Polish friend, as prices change according to accent. Amongst omnipresent Asian polyester, you will find clothes with designer labels that may might survive two washes, and accessories with well-known "luxury" names. You will also find endless pirated software and bootleg music. Beware the plastic amber and avoid the toxic Russian whisky. Anything that looks valuable probably isn’t, and anything that seems antique was likely made last year. The bazaar represents a counterfeit culture.

Sellers will carefully scrutinize your money before they accept it. The more something is valued – the more motivation to make copies, and the more important to detect and reject whatever is counterfeit.

[ Mother-Son Codependence . Father-Daughter Entanglements ]

Happiness vs Fun: Substitutes for Love

If you value love, you can find fake love for sale, at the bazaar and elsewhere. Lonely people support large industries. Sellers of pornography and prostitution offer little pretence or justification; they are honest compared to people who pretend love in relationships based on codependence, passive aggression, manipulation and humiliation.

Counterfeiting love may seem easy. Loving relationships need care, attention and nurturing. It may be easier to be lonely, or to be codependent, than to learn friendship and partnership skills. Becoming a biological parent can take a few minutes of unskilled labor - fulfilling parenthood takes years of dedicated and often challenging effort. Joining a crowd requires little effort - creating a community is work. Fulfilling human life is a lifelong task.

Do you sacrifice your desire to love and be loved for substitutes? The most common substitutes for love are probably power, security, success or family traditions. It is useful to recognize the counterfeit.

You may not miss what you never had. If your role models suffered toxic entanglements, you may assume that all relationships are toxic, and search for happiness elsewhere. In disappointment, you may turn to substitutes for love - to "romantic" books, music and films, to medication, to alcohol or nicotine, or to obsessions or addictive distractions. Many businesses cater to lonely people and compete in selling fake love - short-term substitutes for happiness!

Substitutes for love that can be manufactured, duplicated and sold are valuable commodities. Stories about love, songs about love and pretended acts of love are eagerly sought by the lonely. The pretence of love in advertising and sales helps persuade the gullible that products such as clothes or a car will bring attention ... respect ... happiness ... love .... without any effort or risk on their part.

Is THAT what you want? Love for your clothes or respect for your car? Be careful what you ask for.

Love Addiction

If you are a love addict, you may prefer unfulfilling relationships; perhaps convinced that you are seeking a perfect partner. Like other addicts, you may proclaim your ability to stop at any time, while securing a supply of your intoxicant - expressions of love. (If you are entangled with opposite-sex parents, you may be unable to create long-term happy partnerships and become a love addict. See: Emotional Incest, Mother's Little Prince and Daddy's Little Princess.)

Your investment in quality clothes, furniture or food reflects the effort, skill and ingenuity in their creation. Your investment in quality relationships reflects your effort, skill and ingenuity in creating love.

Your relationships reflect your beliefs and relationship skills, which you likely learned from family, friends, co-workers and TV. People try to copy their role models – with predictable consequences! But any person can choose to change! Any person can change beliefs and improve skills.

A popular American idiom is “Fake it until you make it”. For some people, “Fake love until you make love” is a life pattern. In life, as at the bazaar, many people prefer the counterfeit, often not suspecting the beauty and benefits of the genuine.

Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 2001, 2008 All rights reserved.