Romantic Love

“I would die without your love.” “You’re nobody until somebody loves you.” “I want to know what love is.” You getting the picture? These are old love songs – the newer versions aren’t much different, perhaps a bit more cynical but the subtext remains the same – only romantic love is genuine & worth striving for. To knock that fantasy is to be jaded, hard, compassionless & designed for a life of futility and emptiness.

refection of love

I can’t count the number of men & women I’ve known who have drowned in the despair of love disappointment, who as a result of their investment in that fantasy have ended up in a morass of futility, the same morass they are ready to cast those who don’t buy into the fantasy. So drowned, they attempted suicide, prefer death to disappointment, death to the feeling of betrayed.

love shaft of light

You know something, I can live without your love, in fact I can be quite happy without it, but that doesn’t mean I won’t, don’t enjoy it when it happens. I’ve accepted, happily, the fact that romantic love is a product of fiction, Hollywood. That sunset moment in the movie that broke your heart as the right song came up and the two of them look at each other – it’s not real – it’s lighting – those actors don’t even hear that song – get over trying to make real life mirror that moment & then be disappointed when it doesn’t.

Is it infatuation, fetish, stalking or a momentary lapse of reason? There’s a moment in ‘God Created Woman’ in which Bardot get slapped by the man she’s not sure of & she says, “He loves me.” Not that I need to be slapped by love. I can live without it but that doesn’t mean I don’t like it – ditto for chocolate.

fallen phallic

I’ve been head-over-heels in love, more than once, & have felt some disappointment when things ended, but such is life. Things last as long as they do & because they aren’t everlasting, as love often is in the movies, is no reason to deny myself the pleasure of enjoying them when the opportunity presents itself.