Finding the right person is not easy. Sometimes we think we have found the right person, but are mistaken. Young men look for physical beauty, which is superficial, and neglect to consider more important traits, such as kindness. There are beautiful people in the world whose beauty is skin-deep. Inside, they are selfish and lazy, having learned that they can receive rewards without earning them.
Women are aware of the male preference for physical beauty and take pains to make themselves seem more attractive. None of this effort will assist the longevity or the quality of a long-term relationship. It is superficial. It will help in establishing a relationship, but no more. The same trait, physical beauty, that attracts a man will also lure him away to others who possess it in a novel configuration.
Even if we do find the right person, winning anyone over is a more difficult task by far. Attraction must be mutual, an unpleasant fact that leads people with a sub-par appearance to consign themselves to lives of solitude. Many people are alone who need not be. They have much to offer a partner, such as loyalty, affection, and friendship. There are many other forms of love of greater value than romantic love. Also, the media dwells upon sex because it sells copy, but sex is a small component of a relationship. Only form a relationship with a trustworthy and kind person. Any other relationship will be marked by discord and unhappiness in the end.
As a boy, I listened to songs from groups like Led Zeppelin, Styx, the Scorpions ("Still Lovin' You"), David Bowie ("China Girl"), and countless others that describe a blind, superficial, romantic love based upon physical desire and unrealistic expectations. I used to play these songs over and over again. I could never get enough of them. They described a version of reality that I had never experienced before, but had great appeal to me. I had a hunger for that kind of experience.
Romantic love took firm hold of my imagination. Maybe it was because I was focused upon scholastic achievement. My heart yearned for drama to relieve the tedium of academic study. I was forever falling in love with people that had little to offer besides stunning looks. None of these crushes led to a relationship of any depth or meaning. They were just learning experiences at best. I often assumed that my crushes were profound and spiritual. I wrote hundreds of pages about the objects of my affection, analyzing every facet of their being and of mine. Decades later, when I went to inspect this prose with cold blood, I recognized much of it was drivel, of no value to me or to anybody, no better than the lyrics to the songs that we hear on the radio. I realized that I had been deluded. What I had written was false in many respects. The songs I had been listening to on the radio, over and over again, had infiltrated my psyche, encoding viral memes into my thought processes. I had believed the song lyrics and aspired to follow them. It was like a false religion.
Romantic love is a strange drug with soaring highs and crashing lows. I think it is just as the Ancient Greeks said, a kind of madness. For me, the worst case was with a girlfriend in college. We knew each other for a brief time, but in those few weeks, much happened. My intentions were serious, but hers were not. There was drama in her life that she concealed from me until the end, when all was revealed late at night, in the middle of a deserted city street, in a bewildering explosion of confessions. Her deep, dark secret, as she viewed it, was that she had an ex-girlfriend, a much older and abusive ex-girlfriend, who still wanted her. I did not mind, because I had my own secrets, which I revealed to her in full for the sake of reciprocity. Candor occurs naturally when one is in love. I do not regret telling her what I did, even though she used it as a justification for ending everything between us. Nothing good can come of lies. She showed the measure of her worth through her actions. All is just as it should be.
One always remembers the highs, because they are without compare over the course of a lifetime. The highs occurred when my beloved gave me a token of affection, such as a kiss. Opium pales in comparison to the brain's indigenous substances, which are produced in abundance under the right conditions. I remember pleasure so intense that I expected to be incinerated. My hands grew as warm as when I had had the flu. Reality transformed into paradise. Everything was imbued with new meaning. Nothing was random anymore. God became real and was taking a hand in my life for the first time. I would have married her in an instant. These are some of the thoughts I had at the time.
She drove us in her car. The summer sun poured through the windows. Her eyes were the color of sapphires. I asked her why she was smiling. She said she didn’t know. I offered her my hand, which she accepted, her fingers intertwining with mine. She remarked upon the warmth of my hand and asked whether I had a fever. I said I didn’t know. When her eyes were focused on the road, I made an adjustment. She said, “What are you doing?” “Nothing.” “Tell me.” “Sunlight has this effect on me.” I felt embarrassed until I perceived her thought and then I wasn’t. Time slowed down as she took matters in hand. She drove another five miles before the end. Marked were her hand, her chest, the gear lever, and the dashboard. She laughed at the abundance. Kissing her hand, I made an offer that was declined. I closed my eyes. Sometimes I opened them just to see my dream looking back at me and smiling.The moments that I were with her were stored in memory. Later, I would turn them over and over in my mind, looking for meanings, trying to understand as much as I could about the experience. When she told me things or showed me things, I remembered them all. Even today, I can recall with precision many details that are no longer of any importance to anyone. The information has remained through a process similar to imprinting. I used to think things like this happened for a reason, but now I think that accidents happen for no reason at all. Much more is random than we would like to believe. There may be a design, but it is of a general nature, and many details are left to chance.
There are two sides to the idiotic passion, the highs and the lows, and I soon discovered the latter. Romantic love is often one-sided. One partner may offer all, while the other offers only a portion of themselves on a temporary basis. Some look for a relationship, while others are just having fun. I think she felt flattered to be with me. I was handsome. She liked to show me off to her friends. But that was all. "Love" is a loaded word. Don't shoot that gun until the target is ready. I shot too soon. If love is not felt in the other, then they shrink from the intensity of the emotion. Sometimes, the other may not love themselves, and they wonder what is wrong with you, that you love them.
My sweet dream was destroyed as fast as it had been formed. I think she made her decision with too much haste, but it does not matter now. The door has been locked shut. After that experience, I began to view romantic love as a hard drug like heroin. I can't say I never fell again. I did fall, a couple of times, but it was never as intense. I observed with a kind of relief the decline in the intensity of my feelings. Wisdom replaced foolishness at last. At last I have a partner that loves me in the same measure that I love him, someone that I can trust and that can trust me in the same measure.
Today, I think romantic love, the unrealistic and idealistic variety, is overrated, but then I am older now, and older people often think so. Affection, compassion, honesty, kindness, and intimacy are more important. Romantic love seems brittle to me. It breaks upon the rocks of hard reality. But it remains popular, judging by the subjects that pop stars sing about and writers write about. Young people have an appetite for it, and where there is demand, supply will follow.
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