What is Love?

(Baby don't hurt me, no more ...) Singing stops here

Wow! How does a GUY write a blog with a title like that? That's equivalent to asking questions like, "Why do I exist," "What's the meaning of life," "Why is there something instead of nothing" and, most importantly, "Why do drive-up ATMs have braille?"

In this blog entry, I will endeavor to do the impossible -- understand women. Just kidding, I will try to define the essence of love with a splattering of beautiful allegory, a sprinkling of quotes and a dash of prose and poetry. In the process, I will most likely fail miserably but to write about love and fail is better than to have never written about love at all.

"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down."
- Woody Allen

Love as a Shade of Confusion

Woody Allen sums up love beautifully with this quote. Love really is a crazy emotional state to reside in. Love, as the most powerful emotion, can tightly grip one's heart while causing immense amounts of pain and pleasure -- often paradoxically at the same time! It is the only emotion I've experienced that has given me the power and excitement to want to solve all the world's problems simultaneously. Likewise, what love givith, love can takith away -- and with brutal efficiency.

I've loved a woman at least a dozen times in a dozen different ways (emotionally, not physically -- thank you very much Kama Sutra for Dummies). Each time was special in some respect, but there was always a common underlying element -- the need and desire to share something very internal, unique and personal with another person in a way that would eventually completely expose myself to them. My heart.

Ahh, the great institution of love. It starts out like a formal dinner where everyone wears their best pressed clothes. We begin by flirting and courting with our best attributes -- we put on quite a show to show the other person, "I am quite a man, I am quite the catch, and I'm REALLY different then all the others." As time goes on and two people settle into a relationship while gradually and cautiously growing more comfortable with one another, we strip off the three piece suit and enter the "polo and khakis" phase. This stage gives one the chance to say with subtle actions and desires, "Yes, I am the quintessential modern-day metrosexual renaissance man with a flair for the romantic. You have seen me at my best, now look at the rest of my more neutral attributes that will turn out to be those cute little quirks that will make you want to love me even more!"

It is such a joyous and adventurous period of discovery between two people -- but the evil hands of time push those two quickly forward through the blissful naivety phase -- right into the calm before the storm . Time grips the cloth of love soon enough and wrings out every last bit of those "happy feel-good" chemicals that have built up during the beginning of the relationship. Still, everything is beautiful -- the sun is bright, the flowers are in full bloom, the last credit-card bill finally gets paid off and you're ready to max it out again -- in style!

"Honey, why are you wearing a wrinkled t-shirt and ripped jeans out to dinner?"

"Oh, you don't know baby? We're in the comfort phase of our relationship."

Yes, the third stage is underway. One is now ready to bare it all -- every last remaining dirty quirk, selfish fetish, perverted wish and strange desire. With the clean pressed suit long ago removed, a woman is now ready and able to accept me for the man I am. I've already shown her that I'm special -- different than all the other guys. Why continue to show her? Besides, what kind of woman goes to see a movie five times in a row unless she is neurotic, impulsive or a James Cameron fan?

"I don't like it when you ... "

Oh!!! Is this stage four? Our first "official" fight? I'm almost excited at the chance to see this side of you! Yes, the first fight is always the most special one (not just any special but the most special). No man ever forgets his first official fight with the woman he is dating. It is a chance to learn how to argue. It is a chance to heighten our mutual ability to communicate in times of stress and extreme emotions. It is an experience that will help us grow even closer since we are now sharing things ... loudly. Most importantly, it is a sign-post that reads "this is the beginning of the end," but the guy who planted that sign did it so it faces backwards.

"Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired." - Mark Twain

Love as a Hue of Endurance

When I wrote earlier to imply that stage four is the last stage before the end is near, I was not being entirely accurate. There is a stage five, but so few couples reach it. This is the stage where two people realize that the cycle of love really is not all that different from relationship to relationship but, despite their own relationship now consuming more effort, choose to remain as a couple for the long-term. This is the most beautiful point one can reach in love. It is a testament to the most precious of the human equation -- the ability to give another person something unconditional and eternal. Perhaps it is fear that prevents many from ever seeing this point in love or perhaps it is the addictive properties of fresh love that keeps people constantly shuffling among new lovers.

As many ways as love can blossom between two people, so can it end. Some relationships die a slow, soft demise with each day widening the eternal rift between two hearts that were once willing but ultimately unable. Perhaps in some relationships it was one person that chose to let it end. In others, perhaps it was both. However, there is no deeper sorrow or greater loss than a love that ends when neither wished it so.

It is that one circumstance in life where a man collects himself -- his heart and the last remnants of whatever love was left inside of it. Casually, it comes time to take one's place and sit down at the edge of one side of the great chasm and wave goodbye to her as she sits on the other side waving goodbye back -- no animosity, no regrets, no anger and no ill-will. Though the sun then begins to set while the season reaches its end, the memories from the shared experiences will echo onward across the rest of both of their lives. Now that is the bitter sweetness that love has to offer -- that love will offer -- to everyone at some point.

"Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit." - Peter Ustinov