I was involved in a rather interesting dialog today with an old classmate of mine (thanks to the wonder that is Facebook) about relationships. Specifically, the concept of the friend zone and why nice guys always seem to end up there, and the bad boys (aka assholes) end up in the boyfriend zone. After a lengthy discussion, it led me to start thinking about that rather vague descriptor of feeling that we humans call love. Now, far be it for me to have a decisive answer as to what it is exactly. After endless poems, songs, stories, plays, movies, books, and countless other forms of media, it seems that we still haven’t come to any sort of agreement on what love really is.
However, despite not having a concrete answer on what is love, I thought about everything I learned about it up until this point in my life. If you’ll indulge me a little, I’d like to go through those things, and maybe we can get a little closer to understanding what this crazy little thing called love really is.
- Love can take any form you want it to. I want to stress that this is the most important thing that I have come to realize about love. You cannot put a limit on what you think love is. Just because it does or does not work for you doesn’t mean that you can use that as a blanket for everyone else. Whether you are an adult who has been through multiple relationships, whether you are a child who feels something weird for that girl or boy that you just met for the first time, whether you are a teenager who can’t stop thinking about that one person in class, if you want to call that feeling love, than that’s what it is. You can be gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, monogamist, polyamorous, or whatever, no one has the right to tell you “You don’t know what love is,” because I can bet you, neither do they. Everybody experiences it in different ways, and everyone deserves to express it in the way that they feel most appropriate.
- Love is free. This is the second most important thing that I’ve learned. Let me clarify, when I say love is free, I don’t mean the “Free Love” that they espoused in the 60s. That wasn’t love, that was sex. No, when I say love is free, I mean that there should be no cost or payment attached to love. Love should never be hampered by feelings of guilt, or obligation, or repayment. When you do something for someone out of love, you should be doing it because you want to, or that it makes the other person happy (happy being another subjective thing, but this isn’t really the place for that discussion), which in turn brings you joy; not because you feel that you have to in order to make up for something stupid that you did, or because it’s repayment for something that the other person did to you. That cheapens the intent, and turns it into a transaction. Love should be free of these trappings.
- Love is pure. This may seem like one of those clichés, but give me a moment to explain. Love should never be used as leverage. You should never use love as an excuse to get someone to do something for you. This is similar to “love is free” but this comes from the opposite side, where people use love as a means of currency. I’m sure everyone at one point in time has heard, “If you don’t do that for me, I won’t love you anymore.” Love is something that is meant to bring joy to both parties involved in the relationship. Never should it be used to manipulate someone in any way. Whether it’s getting someone to clean the house for you, getting someone to buy something for you, or one of the more sinister uses, to get someone to sleep with you, it is a cheap and dirty way of getting what you want, and once you do that, you’re showing that you don’t truly love the person, you just want something from them for your own benefit. This is wrong, and you should never misuse love that way.
- Love hurts. Everyone has heard this one before. This is probably the most difficult thing about love. There are a lot of people out there who seem to think that when you love someone, and you are loved back, everything is peaches and cream, and you will spend all your days traipsing through a meadow of flowers, holding hands, and skipping on a sunny day. I’m sorry, but it isn’t easy. First and foremost, love is a commitment. Whether it’s to your family, your friends, or your significant other, love is something that has a responsibility to it. That responsibility is that when you love someone, even when it’s tough, you have to remember that you love them. Because we are all human, there are times when we are far from perfect, and loving someone may seem really hard, and may even cause you some pain. This is the time when love is most important, because you have to remember that you love them for who they are, and at some point, everything passes. I don’t mean to say that you should ever remain in an abusive relationship because you love someone. If that’s the case, they’re breaking the “love is pure” concept, and it’s no longer love. What I am saying though, is that love can cause you pain because you have to be willing to be vulnerable enough to accept both the good and the bad. Otherwise, you won’t be able to feel the love. Shielding yourself from pain is a nice idea, but you inevitably shield yourself from the good too, and loving someone is necessarily an open process. If you cannot have an open heart, you will never be able to feel love. Unfortunately, it can lead to getting hurt, but that is the price you must pay. However, I have to say, when you find it, it is completely worth it.
- Romance is not love. For all of you people out there with dreams of dashing knights, and maidens in distress, and all that other fantasy claptrap, I’m sorry, but you’re just fooling yourself. Romance is a wonderful thing, and it’s lovely… but it’s not love. We see a lot of people confusing the two nowadays. People who want their entire relationship with someone to be romantic, and incredible. These people inevitably are single much of the time, complaining about how they can’t find someone to love. They have these unrealistic expectations about love where every day has to start with roses on the bed, and end with candlelit dinners, and incredibly passionate sex. These people are NUTS! Love is hard, it can be very not pretty, and love is most definitely not always romantic. Romance is a fun way to get away from reality for a while, to feel like the world is your oyster and that everything is perfect, at least for a little while. However, it is an illusion, albeit a fun one to indulge in from time to time. The only problem is, when all you want to do is live in a fantasy land all the time, crashing back to reality is going to hurt that much worse.
- Sex does not equal love. I just want to state this plainly. Love and sex are in no way intricately linked. You can love someone without sex, and you can have sex without love. You don’t have to have one with the other. Refer to the earlier statement about love being whatever you want it to be. There are plenty of swinger couples who can have multiple sex partners, but still completely love their primary partner, and never have a problem. That being said, this does not give people carte blanche to go have sex with anyone you want and tell their significant other “But baby, they didn’t mean a thing to me, you’re the only one I really love.” As I said earlier, love is about commitment. If you enter into a relationship with someone who is a monogamous person, you are committed to them, and therefore, you cannot sleep with anyone you please without violating that commitment. If you chose this person to be with, then you have to show to them that you are willing to “play by the rules” so to speak. This actually leads nicely into my next point.
- Love is a mutual thing. It’s hard to feel love unless it is returned in some way. I wouldn’t consider one-sided affection love, because at that point, only one person would be feeling any sort of happiness; normally the person receiving the love. For those of you who would say “But I’m happy just being around that person,” I wouldn’t call it love, I’d call it desperation. You are so in need of being around this person, you are willing to forego your own feelings to do so. I think we all have our own ranges when it comes to the things we need to feel love, and in a one-sided “love” very rarely are both parties getting what they need to feel it.
- Love supports. When you are really in love, it strengthens you. When you think about that person, it brings a smile to your face, improves your day, and generally gives you the fortitude to keep on going, no matter the difficulty. It is something that makes you a better person. It can actually improve your health, even if it’s not directly. When you love someone, you want to be with them longer, or be there for them longer, and in turn, you begin to take better care of yourself in order to do so. Without love as a motivating factor, a lot of people just fall into a lazy, comfortable sort of stasis, and with nothing to live for, what’s the point in trying harder than you are now? If you are loved, then the world is a much better place, and you’d want to stick around longer.
- Contrary to popular belief, love is not all you need. Love can be a pretty decent base, and it’s great at support, but there is a lot more involved when building a strong, healthy relationship. Commitment, perseverance, fortitude, planning, and creativity are all necessary elements as well. Basically, to think that love is all you need to get through anything is naïve at best, and dangerous at worst. Too many people have jumped in headfirst into a difficult situation thinking that as long as they’re with the one that they love, everything will work itself out. Unfortunately, life is not a movie, and you’re more likely to end up down on your luck, and possibly even single if you think that all you need is love.
Those are some of the important things I have learned or realized as I’ve lived my life. It’s not the full list, as I cannot quite put into words everything that I have learned. Some of it is a feeling, some of it is just… not capable of being put into coherent form for me right at the moment. Love is this incredibly nebulous thing, and it takes the shape and form of whatever people like to call it, but I think there are some things that are just universally true, which is what I was able to put up.
People who know me know that I love fully, and intensely. I love my friends, my family, and most importantly, my wife. I freely admit that I would die for any of them because my love for them extends itself beyond this mortal coil. Despite the aggravation that these people may cause me from time to time, I always remember that all of that isn’t important, because ultimately, they’re good people and are deserving of my love. I’m not one to throw my love around freely, but if you have it, then you’ll know that it is not easily given up. It took me a long time to realize how important it was to truly love these people in my life, but when I did, it opened up my eyes and improved my life tremendously. My life is so much better with these people in it, and I can only hope that their lives are better with me in theirs. When it comes down to it, that’s all I can really hope for in life… to love and be loved.
