ON LOVE

 This is perhaps the subject I am the most clueless about, but I have to salvage what little I can.

Love. When I think of love objectively, a few examples come to mind.

David and Jonathan. Romeo and Juliet. Mother and child. Brothers and sisters. George and Lennie from Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. But even then, I realize that I don’t know half of it.

Let me start with romantic love, because that’s where our minds race when we hear the word — and it’s also where we are the most clueless. If my ex-lovers’ opinions are anything to go by, I am a terrible lover, and to this day, I don’t know if I’ve ever truly been in love.

Napoleon once said, “The ivy clings to the first tree it meets. This, in a few words, is the story of love.”

In my understanding, ivy is a climbing plant that depends on strong trees for support and survival. But it doesn’t choose the best tree — it just clings to the first one it meets.

So, in essence, we fall in love with the first person we meet who is slightly compatible with us and willing to have us. If you had told me this a few years ago, I would have run mad. Everyone I meet seems to strongly disagree with me on this.

But think about it — if true love existed, we wouldn’t have ex-lovers killing each other. And yes, the opposite of love is indifference, not hate. But isn’t that evidence enough that love isn’t as real as we’ve been raised to believe? If I love a woman with the attitude that “it’s either me or nobody else,” was it really love in the first place?

The Chase and the Catch

Another significant issue arises — the only time love truly works is when both people fall in love at first sight.

If that doesn’t happen, one runs while the other chases. And unlike the Olympics, where an athlete can catch up with a runner who started first, love doesn’t work that way.

If she runs, you will never catch up.

Sure, she may stop — maybe out of exhaustion, maybe out of loneliness — and confess her love for you. But by then, the status quo has changed.

Her love for you will now chase your love for her, but your love — once so strong during the pursuit — will start fading. Your love was nourished by the chase, and the moment you acquire her, it peaks. But her love is still fragile. She has to teach herself to love you back.

So, if you tell her “I love you,” is she really justified in saying “I love you too” back?

I don’t think so.

Romeo and Juliet: Love or Madness?

Take Romeo and Juliet — their circus lasted three days. Are we truly justified in calling that love?

Notice that it worked because both of them fell in love at first sight. They knew their love was forbidden, yet they walked straight into the fire, naked, just to feel its burn.

Maybe they imagined a universe without each other and felt an unbearable emptiness — a hollow existence not worth enduring. Maybe they believed that the few days they spent in love were more meaningful than the uncertain years ahead.

Whenever I see the Hollywood version of love, I can’t control my impulses. They are so wrong.

Why does love have to end in tragedy? And why do the greatest love stories always start and end abruptly? It’s always the kind of love that consumes the soul, leaving it with a tumor and a hole that will take millennia to mend.

The Love of a Different Kind

My grandfather had four wives.

Each of them, he wooed by himself — he didn’t use the traditional arranged method. He was intoxicated by each of them, in their own time, in different ways, at different levels.

So tell me — why was his marriage successful?

When he died, all his wives held each other’s shoulders and cried their hearts out. That is not what I had expected, having watched Titanic and all these other cheesy romantic films.

Can we say that my grandfather loved his wives any less than Romeo loved Juliet?

We can’t tell — because love cannot be measured.

If you haven’t noticed, we don’t actually measure love itself — we measure it through actions. That is the great illusion of love. It can’t be quantified, weighed, or put on a scale.

But I am sure my grandfather never felt the need to label his feelings as “love.”

He just acted on them. He provided for his wives and children. And whenever he felt he needed another wife, he got one.

The Problem with Romantic Love

I have dwelled too much on romantic love because, well, it’s the juiciest. The other kinds of love are more defined.

If you love your mother, there is no push and pull — you just love each other. If she doesn’t love you back, the lines are clear.

But in romantic love, the lines are blurred, and you can’t tell what’s what.

Napoleon said it best:

“Love should be a pleasure, not a torment.”

I prefer Napoleon because nobody knows him for his prowess in love — only for his military strategy.

In a way, he is just like you and me in matters of love — clueless.

So, if love is meant to be a pleasure, not a torment, why do people stay in toxic relationships, tormenting each other day and night, yet refusing to leave?

Napoleon has an answer to that too:

“The gentle emotions of love, Cupid’s treacherous arrows, are poisoned, it is said, but we take pleasure in pain, we don’t want to be cured. Indeed, having tasted the sensations, the drunkenness of love, we dread the horrible solitude of the heart, the emptiness of feeling.”

The worst thing that can happen to a person is to experience love for the first time through someone who is controlled by the impulses of love.

Sure, their love burns brightly, but their hate is just as disastrous.

Notice that I said hate — because it is very easy for love to turn into hate.

Hate, after all, is just another strong emotion — just like love.

Remember Robert Frost’s poem, Fire and Ice?

“Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.”

In this case, I have likened desire to love. They are not the same, but in the case of a toxic couple, they might as well be.

I love joking that there is no better foreplay than a fight.

And honestly?

I’m convinced it’s true.

The Other Kinds of Love

Let me talk about other kinds of love, which don’t excite me as much as the romantic kind — and I’m sure you feel the same way too.

I believe that to be a better lover, one has to teach himself.

How does he do that? By loving himself.

If you can love yourself unconditionally, then there is a tiny chance that you will connect with your lover at a rational level — something that lovers are not good at.

Rationality is the enemy of the lover.

Because if you are a little bit rational, you will realize that love is the only transaction that doesn’t have rules.

Everybody is free to do whatever they please, with the only thing binding you together being an intangible feeling, irrational, and capable of changing to hate or indifference at the slightest provocation.

Sure, you can invite people to witness your love, elevate it to play house, but have you ever heard of the courts denying couples a divorce?

In a way, that certificate is just as useless as the love itself.

But enough of the negative — let’s dwell on the positive for a while.

Stay with me here — I know we’ll have to use our imagination most of the way, but it’s going to be worth it in the end.

If I meet a woman who loves me for who I am. Who doesn’t pressure me to say the three magic words too fast. Who doesn’t try to change me into the man she wants me to be. A woman who doesn’t change herself to accommodate me.

If I meet a woman like that, I will try to be a better lover.

If I love myself for who I am, with all my imperfections, following the golden rule of only changing what I can and accepting what I can’t, then I am one step closer to being a good lover.

I once read,

“If you are in a relationship, make sure you love yourself more than your partner.”

It can go both ways —

• Love yourself more than you love your partner.
• Love yourself more than your partner loves you.

Either way, it’s a solid argument.

Most people tolerate too much bullshit in the name of love. They end up tormented and miserable — forgetting that a miserable lover cannot love you right.

They have to fix themselves first before you can build anything tangible together.

Let’s be honest — it’s not easy to meet people who will fall for us at first sight.

So maybe the next best route is to find someone a little bit compatible, then let love grow over time, no pressure.

If it works? Great.

If it doesn’t? Que sera, sera.

Ultimately, you have to love yourself first before you love someone else.