It was a lovely night after a long day of walking, sightseeing, and eating, my friend Dan and I decided to go for a drink.
“I don’t particularly like beer, but what I do enjoy is how people become more open after they’ve had a drink”, Dan remarked.
I agreed. Cuz not so long after we started drinking that I heard him asking me “What is love?”. Bruh, you know, this is not the kind of question you’d want to ask a 20-year-old girl on the first day we met.
To provide some context, Dan had recently broken up with his (now ex) girlfriend, and the failure of their relationship had teared him down so badly.
“I invested so much effort, time, and even money into the relationship, and now I feel like it was all a waste, a complete joke. The biggest joke in history” – Dan vented.
“I was thinking about settling down, getting married, buying a house, and becoming a successful person”
“I loved her. I thought I could do everything for her”.
But life is tough bro:
“Then one day, she did something I couldn’t tolerate, and that made me realize that I couldn’t do everything for her,” Dan explained.
“If I couldn’t do everything for her, does that mean I didn’t love her enough?” (Sounds like an abusive relationship to me lol)
“What is the purpose of love when, in the end, we still struggle to fully understand the person lying beside us?”
“What is love?”
“What is love?”
“What is love?…”
I couldn’t come up with an answer at that moment. Till that point, I hadn’t known what love truly was or experienced it myself.
Later on, I told the story to “a more experienced” friend of mine, and what she said has totally changed my idea of love.
She said: “I think, love, and being in love are two different things. Being in love is the initial feeling, the attraction. But love is a decision”.
“My parents have always told me that it’s their desicion to love each other. Love means deciding to love the other person for who they are, accepting that they are human and capable of making mistakes. Because, ultimately, love is patient, love is kind, isn’t it?”
Make sense to me.
Romanticism leads us to believe that there is a “perfect match” for each of us in this vast world, and the only challenge is finding them. However, as Dan pointed out, “Does a perfect match even exist when, after all, we still struggle to understand the person inside us?”.
We are distinctively human beings, evolving and learning as we go along. We are all on a journey of discovery. How can we expect others to understand the person that even us don’t know fully.
Love requires effort, compromise, and the conscious decision to support and nurture the relationship. Love involves embracing the imperfections and complexities of the person we care for.
We all yearn for love, but… are we truly willing and capable of loving someone?
What do you think about Dan’s relationship? Personally, I think Dan did not waste his time on his failed relationship. He enjoyed, had good memories, and certainly grew from the relationship. What’s more to ask?