What is love? What is it to be in love? Is it a place? A state of mind? Attraction? Infatuation? Have you ever been in love? Are you in love with somebody right now? Are they living in your mind rent-free? Is it reciprocated?
As Rihanna sings in her song “Never Ending”, love is “a drug and a dream, a lost connection.” The Cambridge Dictionary, on the other hand, defines love as “to like another adult very much and be romantically and sexually attracted to them.” Interesting… But that excludes asexuals and aromantics. But certainly, we’re all capable of loving, right? We say “I love you” to our friends, family members, celebrities, and pets. We love that color, that outfit, that beautiful sunset, I WANT TO MARRY THE SKY!, that delicious falafel wrap and hummus… No? Anyways, I digress.
Love is capricious caring. Love is fickle. At least the romantic type. Now, I don’t have much experience with relationships at all, other than the curated Spotify playlists I make to get over people I never even dated. But, let’s be real here. Who does? Certainly not the Hollywood producers that romanticize the crap out of falling in love at first sight and rom-coms. Certainly not that one friend who complains about their significant other as they constantly break up and get back together. Certainly not the teen fiction books we fell in love with in middle school. There’s no way you can convince me now that it’s realistic for a teenage girl to fall in love with a thousand-year-old vampire. We are capricious, unpredictable, ever-changing! We all know what it’s like to obsess over someone or something. Remember your first teddy bear? Your first smartphone? *GASP* Your first love?! But what are they to you now? Who are they? Repress, replace, and move on. Change is inevitable.
Everything has changed. Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran recognize that. I often find myself caring too much or too little about things. To care is to be genuinely concerned about someone’s well-being, in spite of all their shortcomings and to go out of your way to do affectionate things for them. To be vulnerable. How am I supposed to have the emotional capacity to love someone else, when I sometimes can’t even look at myself in the mirror without wincing in shame and disgust? How am I supposed to…
… fall in love with someone?
Feelings are fleeting. In fact, over 100,000 couples divorced in 2020 in the United Kingdom alone. Certainly, marriages shouldn’t be more dangerous than biking down the confusing zebra, puffin, pegasus and pelican crossings in the UK, right? But, less than 4,400 British bikers were killed or severely injured. So you’re telling me, cycling home shitfaced at midnight is a safer bet than getting married? Okay, no. Divorce is not comparable to death. But the millions of songs on heartbreak like We Are Never Ever Ever Getting Back Together by TSwizzle have capitalized dramatically on the excruciating pain of figurative death from falling out of love. How is it that the very thing that gives us so much life also feels like death?
Back to Rihanna and her take on love. It really is like a drug. You’re scared, but excited to try it for the mainstream euphoria. Before you know it, you are hooked on a fever dream. You experience withdrawals and heartache from the lost connection. You reminisce the night you met, where you had all of them, most of them, some and now none of them.
I don’t think any decent person wakes up with the intention to break hearts. We capriciously care. And in that process, we unintentionally make empty promises, because, at that moment, we really do care.
There is no one-size-fits-all love for everyone to experience. As for me, I am first going to love myself and treat myself like I would for somebody I deeply care about. It will be capricious since it’s unlikely that I will wake up everyday madly in love with myself. But I accept myself for who I am. And I deserve to be nourished every day. In the long run, the only person who will be there for you is you.
So, what is love to you?