the truth about love

love has to be the most abused word in the language. i love that dress, i love this book, i love my parents, i would love to take a holiday, i'm in love with... we're so free with our emotions that it's possible to use the same word to describe how one feels about a man and a skirt.

i'm also really amazed by this whole obsession people have with being in love. like their careers, falling in love is an objective for most people - something to aspire to. and it starts earlier and earlier - i mean, for the average teenager now, coupledom is cooler than being single.

me, i'm very wary of this love thing. sure, i believe it can exist, but falling in love is certainly nowhere as easy as it's made out to be. the chances of feeling something stronger than attraction, more permanent than lust and deeper than need are very slim - and i'm totally convinved that unless what you feel is separate from all these three elements, it ain't love.

that apart, i've got a few theories about love. here's how i see it.

1. love doesn't last. forever-ever-after is an aberration, if it happens at all. i think love is as inconsistent as the rest of our lives. you can be madly in love one year, and not remember the man/woman's name a few years later.

2. 'true love' is about as rare as Hailey's Comet. my theory is that it can exist only with total lack of expectation, and without the wish to 'possess' or be with the loved one. 99% of us are too selfish/self-centered to feel it.

3. when it comes to love, women's lib/men's lib/chauvinism etc are all bullshit. you do what's needed for the good of the one you love. whether or not it's good for you is incidental. it doesn't make you a wimp or a walkover.

there's more, of course. love is too complex to be dismissed in 3 points. more in another edition of the truth files.