The thing called love

“Love hurts”…I must have heard this phrase so many times, over and over again. Looking at so many broken relationships around me I did think that it does hurt. But then the hopeless romantic in me wakes up and starts thinking ‘How can something so beautiful, hurt?’ The answer to this is simple. Its not love which hurts, it’s the expectations that people set on it which brings on the pain. Love is not restricted by any boundaries, it is unconditional.

When you really truly love someone, you love them for who they are with the negatives and the positives. If you try to change them, well then you loose the person you fell in love with and instead you replace them with an illusion that you have in your mind. There have been so many times all through my college life, so many of my friends asked me ‘who is the man of your dreams?’ To their surprise I would always tell them that I don’t have any image of a man of my dreams. If you stick to that mental picture that you have, you may spend your whole life searching for it, but will never find it. And if you do get someone in your life, you would try to change the person to fit that picture. That is not what love is all about.

Also, just because you love someone, doesn’t mean that you get it back the same way. I was once chatting with a friend of mine and he told me, ‘To love someone, and to be loved in return, is a great feeling. It keeps you young.’ I totally agree with that, no matter how old you are, being in love would make you feel like a teenager, always. And yes, being loved in return can be a huge bonus, but at the same time just loving someone could still give you so much, make you so happy.

People always ask, especially after a broken relationship, how do you stop loving someone? I wonder, why would you want to stop loving someone? Just because you are in love with one person doesn’t mean you cannot love someone else. Then why would you want to forget about the first person before you meet the next. Why would you want to fall out of love?

Love is just there, for us to feel, to give. It never asks for anything in return. So I guess, we should change the phrase from ‘Love hurts’ to something like, “If it hurts, it aint love”.

One of my favourite short stories about love (taken from Chicken soup for the soul series) though no relation with the above text:

The question is asked, "Is there anything more beautiful in life than a boy and a girl clasping clean hands and pure hearts in the path of marriage? Can there be anything more beautiful than young love?"

And the answer is given. "Yes, there is a more beautiful thing. It is the spectacle of an old man and an old woman finishing their journey together on that path. Their hands are gnarled, but still clasped; their faces are seamed, but still radiant; their hearts are physically bowed and tired, but still strong with love and devotion for one another. Yes, there is a more beautiful thing than young love. Old love."