Love?

No, I am not myself contemplating whether I am in love, and I do not intend to try and describe it. I intend merely to make observations on situations that may or may not be on the subject of love, depending upon the authenticity of the claims of respected parties.

Where do I begin? There is such a vast number of observations and many more unmade conclusions on them. When can you as a friend trust in the judgement of a friend who claims to be in love? One would like to think in all foolishness that it would be instantaneous, after all what trust is there when you cannot trust a friend? But it would be a lie to claim that I had absolutely no doubts in the claims of my friends. We are at our most unobservant and our most ignorant when we believe we are in love. Perhaps as it can be said that ignorance is bliss, it is true to say that bliss is ignorance. However, I do not mean this as a general rule. I mean only to observe that I cannot recall any case where someone has concluded unquestionably that they had not been in love and admitted that they had been wrong*.
It is our weakness, and yet our strength also, to hold onto our dreams so dearly, and what greater dream is there than that of sharing something special with someone other than yourself? No one would wish to return to the dire loneliness that inflicts those that are not in love, even if our error is clear to see. Not only this, but should we have been so sure of our being in love, it is only natural in future to assume a position of greater skepticism in believing our feelings as we have experienced the consequences of being wrong.
*I accept that one cannot totally believe oneself in error for having claimed to have been in love. Love itself has often been compared to a plant (I am trying to avoid describing it); it must be nurtured for it to flourish. We are quite capable of being in love and losing that love, and thus not being wrong, but becoming wrong in allowing the delusion of love to persist.

I suppose one can take the view that becoming more skeptical of one's feeling is a bad thing, leading us to doubt ourselves and taking us ever further into depression and paranoia based on a lack of trust in oneself. However, one can also take the view that it is in fact a development that improves our ability to know when we are in fact in love. As such it can be said of love that to find it, one must climb a rigorous learning curve to be able to discern it clearly from our mistaken suspicions. Once one has learned to understand one's feeling with clarity, it could be said of oneself that one has passed the course.

However, I feel it does no justice to love to consider it in such a simple way. I believe that learning to realise true love when it comes your way is an important part of finding love, but it is not the sole constituent of love.

My reasons for doubting my friends are perhaps based on my own doubts as established by the processes detailed above. It is easy to believe yourself in love when you see a kind face. It is too easy for one to associate a character with that person and to fool oneself into believing it is love. We can confuse ourselves by creating dreams of what our love would be like and grafting that dream onto reflections of a person's character, thus giving them the illusion of perfection. Unfortunately it is the perfect illusion because it is based on our unique ideas of perfection. Hence, I suppose, why situations arise where someone can believe themselves madly in love with a decent sort, while all their friends perceive the 'decent sort' as a person of no clear profligacy, or perhaps even worthy of criticism.

I would continue by asking "When then can we say that we are in love?", but I would be dancing dangerously close to the line of attempting to describe love itself. Instead I'll continue by detailing some observations of consequences from the often long thought battle with oneself (and yes, I have deliberately used the wrong thought) as to whether one is or is not actually in love. Not only this, but also the consequences of believing that you know the answer.

Those of us who dare to love learn rather soon that it is not just an experience of pure happiness. And love is not always a simple case of falling in love and being together. In fact, these two things are entirely separate. One such example is one where the person you fall in love with loves you, but already has a partner who they love. It is interesting to wonder whether it is possible to love more than one person at a time. I don't mean to say love as in a crush or mere compatibility. I mean to say true love, where you could not and would not dare risk breaking the heart of either person that you love. And further still, I must define further the boundaries within which I mean "not wishing to break either person's heart". This can be a selfish act, whereby the person stuck in the middle simply does not wish to feel guilty, rather than wishing not to cause pain in the respective persons. However, the opposite is also a case worthy of noting. True love is not wishing to inflict pain on the person(s) you love and neglecting to consider the multitudes of guilt that you will feel. But here I find myself defining true love, and so again I must cease.

I make the assumption that it is entirely possible for us to love more than one person at any one time. However, by making this assumption we must explore the realms of comparison between the two or more persons loved by a single soul.

If one should find oneself in a position of loving two persons, should one be forced to decide between which of the two persons they will continue to love? I feel that it is a "decision" and I say this so that I make clear that I believe that there are no external forces (but for society who would have us believe polyamory wrong) forcing the lover of two to pick one answer over another. It is in every sense a dilemma because both choices will result in good and bad consequences. However, we must realise that in a real situation, one choice will inevitably produce more good outcomes, and therefore less bad outcomes, than the other.

With this realisation, we see that the lover of two will either choose to maintain a relationship with both persons, or be forced to choose between them. With the latter, one begins to identify the criteria of the different persons that would be good and bad. The process need not be conscious. Basic awareness of our surroundings and of other people occurs without any effort (I say "basic" because of Francis' post on awareness recently). One would like to believe that the person who must make the choice is intimately aware of every intricacy of the personality of both persons that they love and so can immediately make an informed decision. But it would be wrong to suggest that we ever entirely know a person (I now find myself touching upon Fergus' post).

So we now realise that not only do we not totally know these people, causing us to perhaps disrepute our feelings to a degree due to their civil conflict, but that we shall never entirely know these people. All I can say here is thank God for rational thinking. We should not be discouraged by the apparent impossibility of knowing everything about someone. We can still learn a hell of a lot about someone and continue to do so for a very long time. And so just because we can't know everything, it does not mean that we should not try to know a lot of things.

Once one has passed this time of doubt, or perhaps simply learned to think alongside it, one realises that there are significant differences between the two persons. I am not suggesting that there are not significant similarities, only that I assume that there are differences between the two, and in the case of deciding who to love these differences become more significant in the eyes of the chooser. It is these differences that lead one to try to make a decision between the two. But it is only trying to make a decision because even if one were to eventually choose one person over the other, the positive outcomes that will never come out, because one chose one path over another, leads one to doubt oneself (little giggle for Fergus there - Clive James would be proud).

And so I say again, it is a decision for the lover of two, but it is a decision that can never be fully resolved with absolute belief in oneself in having made the "right" decision (and there in itself is another topic for discussion - what is right?).

Should one actually be able to make a physical choice between the two, even if not the mental one, one commits oneself and the two persons that were and are the object of their love to a single, narrow path. Should one lose one's footing, it is of no surprise that one would try to find one's way back onto the path, retrace one's footsteps and find oneself back at the point of decision. Here then one may find themselves choosing to love again the person that they decided not to love any longer. And then so many more problems begin.

This post is an unfinished article, but there are quite a few points of discussion within this alone to satisfy a few curious minds with the will to read and respond. I still have to talk about fallback lovers and misinterpretation. I also did not discuss the perils of maintaining a relationship with two lovers at any one time. I may also wish to go onto the subject of marriage.

Upon mentioning that I was reading Pride and Prejudice, a friend of mine told me that they were in the process of writing an essay on why the marriage between Charlotte and Mr Collins was a bad thing. Perhaps I'll use that as my springboard for my next post on this. But you'll be glad to hear that that will most probably not be for a fortnight, if not longer.

If you've read this far, thanks for taking the time to trawl through this article.
Alternatively, if you've scrolled down to the end of the post, go back and read the whole thing you lazy git.