One of my best friends was just dumped by her boyfriend. It was completely out of the blue. They were the kind of couple that always seemed happy. Privvy to insider information, for the most part that was true. Everyone assumed that, if anyone had a chance of making it in this world, they did. But suddenly, they're over. It was a shock. Suddenly, my slowly blossoming hope that there could be hope for some of us has been shaken.
I've been writing lots about love lately, obviously. About what love means, about how to find it. I just read a book called How To Be Single by Liz Tullico (the woman who co-authored He's Just Not That Into You). The book was surprisingly good. It focused on the main character's battle through singledom. She quit her job and travelled to india, paris, rome, australia, china, bali, iceland and mexico, talking to other single women about how they managed. Sounds trite, but there was actually some pretty decent stuff in there. In the end, obviously, there's no one conclusion. Basically, the idea was that women need to learn to love themselves, love each other and never give up hope that there's a prince waiting out there for everyone.... It was supposed to be inspiring. At the end of it, i knew it was well written, but i didn't know whether it was just a woman writing about her despair, thinly veiling it in hope.
In that tell-all Wikipedia article i've been reading (yes, i use Wikipedia as a place to gather solid facts, especially on existential matters like love), there's all sorts of talk about our inner animal driving us to find love, as if it's a primal need, like hunger or thirst. Or maybe it's a chemical reaction, our pheromones. Maybe it's just psychological; an attraction or desire for affection and comfort, brough about by what we've been told about love. Let's face it, none of us really know.
All over the world, people have different ideas about how love works. Persians think that finding a divine love is the ultimate goal in life. In China, there are many sorts of love; Confucious preaches beneficial love, Yuanfen is a collection of bound destinies, and Zaolian is love early in childhood/adolescents/young adults. Japan has indulgent dependance, a passionate and caring love. All religions have different ideas about what it means to love, and be loved - Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism... It seems to me that, when it comes to love, nobody has any idea about what's happening when it comes to love.
The fact that the entire world is completely clueless about love doesn't exactly inspire me. At least it gives rise to a bizzare sense of solidarity.
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