Is it a bad thing to be in love with the idea of love? Personally I think not.
I love the old romance stories that you hear. The idea of courting appeals far more than 'getting off' with some dude in a night club. What sort of a start to a relationship is that?
Maybe this love comes from a love of the classics? The old style of courtship, the romance. Or maybe it's just the fact that if a person has similar interests to me, there is a high likelihood that they aren't much of an arse?
I just love the whole secret messages and late night calls. The idea that someone might leave a little note in your favourite jacket pocket, because they know you well enough that just after you pick it up you get a text saying that they wish they didn't have to miss the smile that just flashed across your face. The idea that a date at the pictures is just that, a date at the pictures, nothing more, no raunchy touch up in the back seats. The idea that someone might actually take enough care in knowing you and knowing what you like to know your favourite movie and quote a cute line. The idea that someone might call you a name of your favourite character in a book, just because they can, and because it's a way of saying "I love you" in public without causing me to blush and become uncomfortable. The idea that someone might just be romantic........ or is that too much to ask now-a-days ?
It's not actually that difficult. You just need to put a bit of thought into it. Actually know the person that you claim to love. Know their favourite book, and then read it, even if you hate it. Because there is part of the person you love in that book. He/She loves it for a reason, that reason being that they identify with some part of it. And that part is a part that you love. So really there is part of the book that you love too. There is just one example, there are many others but I think you get my point. There are so many ways to show that you care. And so many ways to be romantic. Really romantic, meaning not just a quick romp in the movies.
I have a blog coming up about the various kinds of love and how inadequate the English word ‘love’ actually is: we have to love our parents, partners, siblings, children, pets, countries, gods, films, books and indulgent snacks with the one word – can’t be done. I know since I was your age – what feels like a very long time ago now – and I was at that arrogant period in my development of thinking I knew everything, my confidence in definitions has become more and more shaky. I believe I love my wife – I don’t tell her nearly enough – but I would never want to suggest that this-thing-we-that-we-call-love is the love and we’ve finally mastered it. I think we’re more at the stage of saying, “Let’s just say this is love and be done with it. If it’s not and we believe it is then who are we hurting?” What we have now is a quiet love quite different to the loves-we-thought-we-were-in-before-with-other-people-but-which-ended-and-so-probably-weren’t-really-the-genuine-article-after-all kind of loves. People are too easily dissatisfied these days. Every few months it seems we’re being asked to replace all the technology we humph around we us because there are new shinier models out there. And it’s easy to feel the same way about a relationship. All my life I was interested in attaining things (and that includes acquiring people and things to love and – hopefully – love me back) whereas these days I’m into maintaining a relationship and that is another different ballgame completely. One of the most profound things I ever read that has stayed with me for most of my life was written my Aldous Huxley in Brave New World: "Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand." I think much the same is true for “true love” but what do I know? Anyway, as I’m starting to feel like your dad (or, worse still, your granddad) I’m going to bugger off and bother someone more my own age.
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