This Rosey, Flowery Thing Called Love

Love is by far one of the most abused words in the human lexicon. Ironic too, when you consider that Love in itself as a matter of fact, abhors any form of abuse. Yet, we have come to use the word so loosely in reference to the idea of it, in a manner which more often than not, depreciates the true essence of it. When one ponders upon what love truly is or isn’t, one is left with the lingering question, how did we mess up the meaning of such a beautiful thing?

Recently, I had the pleasure of making a new friend. Senior citizen though he is, he makes it very easy for both of us to connect. He is a very lovely fellow, with a sunny persona, funny and incredibly kind. Unfortunately, he lost his dear wife about three years ago and it is a real struggle for him even now, coming to terms with the loss. Our conversations are usually epic, thoughtful but all around very insightful. I think we have a unique, beautiful balance because, he enjoys sharing stories of his life, and I enjoy listening to them. Once, I asked him about his late wife, and even though one would imagine it to be a really touchy subject, he was very gracious and only too happy to oblige me. Theirs was one of those love stories comparable only to a beautiful book of romantic fiction. Where a reader picks such a book up, and only puts it down when the book runs out of print. You know, the kind where you are so engrossed, that your heart breaks alongside the characters, but then it sings happy tunes when the protagonists find each other despite attempts by antagonists to thwart their love; and every once so often, you catch yourself smiling at the beauty of it all. For my friend, that beautiful love story came to an abrupt, tragic end and every once in a while, I can see him questioning without speaking out, the reason for his continued existence in the absence of his wife.

As sad as that is, what often grips my imagination in an endless marathon of complete wonder, is how two different people could come together and agree to share their lives together in such a manner that life becomes meaningless, if not totally unbearable, when death brings a separation or end to that union. I keep tasking my brain for answers to the many questions: How does one find such a partner? What are the odds that one could find a partner so synchronized to themselves in a way that two people, eventually become one? Are there things done intentionally or even randomly, to guarantee such a relationship? Does the universe have anything to do with it? How would it feel to love someone so much, that the lines between both individualities get blurred?

I wish I could tell you that I have those answers figured out. Alas, I am just a writer penning down thoughts as I muse, hoping that the answers come to me. However, one thing is clear; love like the one shared between my friend and his late wife, is fast becoming a scarce phenomenon in our fast-changing times.

In trying to recognize love when (or if) you are fortunate to come across it, it is most prudent to know first, what it isn’t. Many have said it is a feeling. Others say it is an action, suggesting therefore, a never-ending enterprise. Yet, others maintain that Love is a decision — like Ravi Zacharias said, “if you will it to love someone, you will”.

Religion says God and Love are synonymous — if that is the case, perhaps the artiste, Mannywellz was onto something with his song, Looking for God. Convention says Love is putting another’s need above yours. Practice says Love is found in romance and kind gestures. What is immediately obvious in the unclarity resulting from the cacophony of various opinions, however, is that in the search for Love, confusion has ensued between opposing notions, and ideas, and cultures. Experience drawn from one person to another in trying to determine how best to love, or define it, or what works best, has only further compounded an already sophisticated mystery between what one knows for sure, from what is sought to be known.

Take me for instance. I had my first real girlfriend at the tail end of my Junior high school. We would talk for hours through the night over the phone, depriving each other of necessary sleep in the name of love. At the time, I remember telling my dad that I was in love with this lady. I will never forget the look on his face when I did. It was a look of amusement, a hint of sadness but mostly intrigue. He threw in a small smile that tugged the corners of his lips just a little. “You Love her, do you?” he asked, and with that very telling cockiness of one so convinced of his innocent but righteous discovery, I replied with all the confidence of a teenager, very sure I had life all figured out, “Yes! I love her very much!”. Thankfully, he wasn’t dismissive of my “feelings” as most parents would have, and that is saying a lot, considering he was a very Hausa, Nigerian man. No, he had decided to let me learn for myself. After a decade and some years later, armed with the benefit of hindsight, I now realize that the different emotions I witnessed flash through his face, were really questions about my readiness to learn such a lesson, and indeed worry over how little of the subject I knew. At the time, I could have sworn it was love. But was it?

We learn in stages. In fact, it is widely accepted that the day one stops learning, one dies. So, it isn’t uncommon to grow up knowing something a certain way, only to learn much later through education or new available information, that not only was the previous knowledge wrong, but it also led to a wrong conclusion one previously held. In Nigeria for instance, potable table water is sold in many forms. One of such forms, is in little transparent sachets. It is very common to hear people refer to it as “pure water”. While one may easily recognize what they actually mean by pure water, the fact remains that by failing to address it by its proper name, sachet water, the possibility to inaccurately declare that it is out of stock or worse, that such a thing doesn’t exist, abounds.

So also love. What we often refer to as Love could range anywhere between infatuation, sexual attraction, crushes to obsession. The problem with differentiating between any of them, including the real deal, is that we have mischaracterized love so much, we have come to identify it by its attributes rather than its true meaning. Such that, a lot of people searching for love may never find it. Even if it were staring them right in the face.

You have probably heard someone say, Love is dedication. That is just a characterization. Or perhaps you have heard someone describe it as God. Admirable as that is, religion is generally accepted to mean; man in a search to find God. Many people find that journey in itself, inexhaustible. So, by trying to simplify the concept of love, all they may have achieved, is a compounding of such a person’s difficulty to fully grasp the concept. How should one define God at the first instance? And if you say, Love is a feeling… then you have lost the plot because, feelings are as enduring as the life cycle of a pretty flower in the field. Here today and gone the next, like the Bible says.

What then is love? Is it the dinners where we look into each other’s eyes, blush and pour out our hearts? Or perhaps it is the feeling that accompanies having a partner in your corner for life? Could it be the journey of intense commitment to hold another’s hands in yours as you wade through this fickle thing called life together? Really, which is it? How does one know for certain, they have it?

I am certainly not an expert on Love, I don’t claim to have or even know the answers. However, in my search to understand what it entails, I have come to the probable conclusion that perhaps the best ever roadmap to finding love, ever given by anyone in such a manner that it is easily digestible and understood, is the quote attributed to Apollo, “know thyself”. A quote reworked by Plato to say, “know your soul”. Over the years, we have added more to it (to provide context I assume); “know thyself and to thyself be true”.

What is immediately obvious to me, is that in the pursuit of love of any kind, what we seek first and above all else, is to be understood. Everything else comes after. Furthermore, it is that innate need to feel understood that drives us to share portions — or the whole of ourselves — with our chosen partners through the process of dating, in the hopes it culminates in marriage. An endeavor that only goes sour when we determine that we are either misunderstood, or understood but taken for granted, nonetheless. This is not generic however, as lots of relationships fail due to many other reasons. Not discounting those however, a case has to be made that, having someone understand you, taking the time to know what exactly constitutes you as a person, is easily the most romantic gesture anyone could demonstrate.

I am willing to wager that when the most compelling, heart-stirring love stories are told, they will reveal an acute understanding those lovers share of each other and as a result, the choice to stick to each other despite the kind of knowledge derived from that understanding. You cannot possibly love what you do not know. In the same way, you cannot give love of appreciable value, when you do not first know yourself and (or) love yourself. Knowing oneself and learning to love one’s own reflection in the mirror of truth, is perhaps the best way to loving someone else. In other words, one cannot give what one does not have.

That said, using marriage as the litmus test for love, a case has to be made to ascertain why arranged marriages appear to outlast marriages borne out of love. Research consistently finds lower divorce rates in arranged marriages — one study of three hundred arranged marriages in India found fewer than five per cent had ended after ten years. The comparison deserves caution: divorce carries heavy stigma in most cultures where arranged marriage is the norm, and in some it is legally difficult, so the gap in the figures is not purely a gap in happiness. Still, the pattern is persistent enough to ask the question. Why should that be so? Shouldn’t a union of two consenting, totally-in-love adults guarantee a successful union?

Of course, there is the possibility that arranged marriages have a higher success rate because love in this instance is secondary to trust. Trust in this case, being a product of parents knowing their children to an acceptable degree of certainty, therefore knowing what to look for in a partner for their children that would complement them, unburdened by the delicate walking-on-eggshells that lay in the wake of feelings or attraction, preceding true knowledge as a pre-requisite for trust.

Without doubt, building trust is a precursor to love. There cannot be love without trust. It is why trust plays a central part in both love-marriages or fixed marriages. Trust, being the belief in one’s character, truth and one’s ability to be dependable, is a process that not only brings enlightenment, encourages transparency in a way that could easily ignite the stirrings of love. Is it any wonder how seemingly strong relationships come to very sad endings, when trust is broken? The ecstasy in looking upon another, and knowing in all certainty, that such a person would always be whom they have professed to be, and that they would look out for your best interests even when their own interests could be threatened, is perhaps the single most stimulating thing ever! There, right in that moment, your trust meeting their trustworthiness in a beautiful confluence, is love laid bare and shining in all of its glory.

The missing link however, between trust and finding love is first of all, knowing oneself. Followed in short order by loving oneself. And where two people who have learned their individual selves, and have thereafter learnt to love those findings, meet, only then is knowledge translated to the self-confidence required to sharing with others, the unvarnished versions of themselves, opening up to learning about others, accepting both the flattering and less flattering aspects of each other, finding passion in building a symphony of different tempos with different chords and different beats, together. It is only after that laborious undertaking, that they may realize that somewhere between finding themselves individually, loving themselves unconditionally and committing to accommodating someone else based off of that knowledge, that they found love.

I guess I could truly say that, looking back now, my father’s smile appropriately met the moment. Mine was naivety borne out of eagerness to begin a journey I knew nothing about. You could even successfully argue that I had no business embarking on that journey.

It is indeed a part of love to feel the butterflies in one’s stomach. I would go as far as saying love is not without the roses and the flowery expressions, and the dilated eyes we make at people we want so desperately, to be ours. It is that and much more. It is sharing oneself with another, laying completely bare to the gaze of such a person, everything that one has learnt about one’s own self. It is being sure that vulnerability in such an instance, could only be valued by one who knows the strength of showing warts, cuts, bruises, aspirations, dreams, and all other aspects of you that makes you worthy of love.

My new friend can say honestly of himself, that he has loved, and he was loved in return. At the end of the day, it is all we ever truly want. It is often said that an empty cup cannot pour into another. I say, the cup has to first and foremost, realize that it is empty to begin with. Knowing if or when or even whom to pour into are mere secondary contemplations. One who knows himself, has begun the beautiful journey to finding love. The only hope in our hearts, is that the people with whom we fall in love with, are also learned students of themselves, so they too may pour into us in equal measure, all that we have to offer.