Let us speak of love

What does it mean to fall in love? Truly, madly, deeply, I mean. Is it a split second connection, or is it something which must build slowly, over time, filling in the gaps where you hadn't even realised that there was anything missing?

Some people say that when you find love, you will know it the instant that you see them; that person who you are about to lose your heart and mind to, sometimes irrevocably. Perhaps I'm merely a cynic, but I believe that love takes more than single glance. To me, a glance is attraction, but it is time which gives you true love. You must experience things with this person, understand them, desire them in a way which transcends the physical.

Love is not a single glance. After all, it changes everything.

You'll have to forgive me, I'm new to this game. This lark that is publicly blogging my thoughts that is, not the love lark.

But I digress.

What is love?

What does it mean to fall in love with somebody? And, on the flipside of this, what does it mean to lose that love?

More recently I've been asking myself these questions over and over. I guess the end of a relationship will do that to somebody; it brings up all of those thoughts and feelings which you manage to avoid and ignore whilst you're caught up in the moment.

Earlier today I watched a programme, a piece of trash programme I must admit, called 'Undercover Lover'. I found this show whilst searching through 4OD for something to fill the endless time I suddenly seem to have acquired in the absence of University studies and employment.

On this programme, a young man who has made a success of himself has gone undercover to try to find 'true love'. Driven away by women who are merely interested in the type of car he drives, he seeks out love in cheap bowling alleys and seedy London pubs with girls who all look like similar, blonde copies of another, and all have jobs which I'm fairly sure none of my twenty-something friends have. Not that I'm questioning the reality of the situation or anything.

What drew me to this programme was that this young man, merely 24, was looking for someone to fall in love with because he wanted to get married. He said it like it was an ambition, much like someone would discuss a work promotion. For this guy, love was a box which was waiting to be checked off of the to-do list, and he would not be satisfied until he had found it.

It made me think; do every single one of us get into relationships, thinking that each one will be the be all and end all of our Universes? Do each of us think that this person is The One, until The One turns out to be a lying bastard, or a thoughtless person, or just Not The One after all.

If so, why do we do it to ourselves? What is it about the human mind which tricks us every time into beliving that this one, this time, it'll be the one?

Some people are lucky; I may be but 21 but I already have an invite to a wedding which has been held off for long enough. The bride will be but a few months my junior, and I couldn't be happier for her.

Others are less lucky, falling from relationship to relationship, always falling in love but never quite having the impact they want.

Of course, I am merely speaking for the sake of it, after all it is unlikely that I'll ever really understand why we do it to ourselves. People will tell me that the pros outweigh the cons, and I'll agree with them, because they do. When you're caught in the moment of love, nothing else matters. The cracks in the veneer have been filled in, and life is glossy and sweet. You forget what 'single' feels like, and you forget even more what the gaping spaces feel like until you get them back; like fleshy sore spots in my mouth after getting teeth removed.

But the gum heals, hardens. And before long we forget what the pain was even like, its agony a dim memory in our minds. After all, I don't think that everyone must be in a relationship in order to be truly happy. 'Single' is not some awful disease which grows in absence of romantic love, and not everybody spends their lives looking each day for The One. What I speak of instead is that pain of loss, of knowing what you have had and knowing that you have it no longer.

And yet it is worth it, for those beautiful moments it gives you. And it is those moments I suppose we must hold onto, even after everything else has faded away from memory.

For after all, where would we be without love? Our culture is built upon it, upon finding it, keeping it, chasing after it. I speak not only of romantic love by this point, but every kind of love; I love many of my closest friends after all, and tell them so without consequence. Without love, we are left keeping everyone at a distance, and that isn't a world that I can truthfully say I enjoy the sound of.

Let's keep love, then. I may not understand it, but I will never pretend to. Instead, I think I shall just be glad for what love I have in my life, I shall keep close to my heart and ignore the gaps in favour of glossy days.