I had a very thought-provoking conversation with Bliss tonight about life and love. Love. What is it about love that strikes a cord in everyone?
For those of you who know me, you will know that I can be kind of cynical and critical when it comes to notions of love. Now, I have nothing against love, I think it’s a wonderful thing. What I am skeptical about is the whole live-happily-ever-after, knight-in-shiny-armor, and finding one’s soul mate/other half etc, etc. I don’t believe in the over-commercialized aspect of “love”. I do not like how traditions and society seem to place an emphasis on couples. I especially do not like how we single people can be made to feel inadequate for being single, that we are not “complete” until we find “the One”. As we get older, one common anxious question my girlfriends have is whether they can find the right guy and whether they will ever get married. Ok, that was actually two questions, but they do go hand-in-hand. These are fabulous, smart, beautiful women who are questioning their self-worth because they are not married yet. Now you see why I’m critical?
I am also quite distain of some of the things that people go through and do in the name of love. If love if such a wonderful thing, why on earth would it cause so much pain and make people do horrible things? If you truly love someone and they love you back in the same way and the relationship is meant to be, I firmly believe that it will feel good and have no drama. The relationship should be easy and stress-free. There should be no questioning, no second-guessing, and no yelling matches. We are adults and we should be able to settle our issues in a civilized manner, no matter how emotional we get. I’m not saying that there will be no disagreements. But I believe that all disagreements can be resolved calmly and rationally.
But what about passion? Sometimes, one claims, people do things they regretted in a heat of passion. Well, that is a bunch of BS. I am a big supporter of passion. We all need passion in our lives, especially in your relationship. If you do not have passion in your relationship, then the relationship is not worth having. But passion and anger are two very different things, and most times, it is anger that leads into shouting matches and name-calling. We should all be able to feel passionate about our opinions and present them in a clear and coherent argument and defend them in the same way. If you have to resort to yelling and name-calling, then you need to examine your emotions.
What is my point in all this? My point is that because of my beliefs and high standards, I have not been in any “long-term” relationships, and you can even make a case that I have not been in any sort of a “real” relationship, period. Well, a lot of people have mentioned that they think I will meet the “man-of-my-dreams” on my trip. I think this is kind of funny given my dating history, but I am open to it. Like I said, I am not adverse to love; I just have not met the right person yet. And if I do meet the guy that I am willing to share my life with and to spend the rest of my life with, that would be cool. But if I do not, that’s cool too because I know that I will meet the right person when I am ready and that the time is right. I would still be happy because I would have followed my dreams and lived my life the way I wanted to. I followed my passion and went on this trip and I would gain invaluable experiences and capture priceless memories. And these, I’m willing to keep for the rest of my life.