Love to Love

I've had a couple of conversations lately that have seeded a slight alteration in my perspective on life. In one I learned that someone, a person I thought I knew pretty well, had been responsible for breaking a young man's heart in her youth. When it came to the crunch she had just hadn't been in love with him and so she ended the relationship before it progressed into marriage. My first response to that revelation was surprising to me -- the more so because I do not usually consider myself particularly quick off the mark when it comes to especially apt ripostes. But later I was talking with someone else and the subject of my own love life, or lack thereof, came up .... "But you'll probably want another relationship, eventually," said Linda. "I am pretty sure I won't," I said. Linda regarded me doubtfully. "I think I am too selfish," I added by way of explanation. "After all, when push comes to shove, a 'relationship' is only really a licence for having sex." "Isn't that a bit cynical?" Linda said. "Maybe it is. But it doesn't really stop it being a true analysis of most people's actual situations ... as opposed to the fancied ones that they cling too in their daydreams." (Now I was being cynical!) That piece of conversation was ironic, not just in its cynical tone but also in its subject matter in the light of my previous conversation. The first individual, whom I will not name, had expressed herself in terms of love. Specifically that she did not love the man she rejected. I challenged her. I said surely love wasn't the real issue, wasn't it more to do with lust. The truth was that you didn't fancy the pants off of him! She thought this over for a few moments and then smiled and agreed. After kicking the idea around for a little longer we reached agreement that love comes out friendship and that neither actually requires lust as a precursor but in most cases (of lifetime sexual partners) a little fruity lust can go a long way. The crucial element in a marriage is the trust and sharing that arises out of friendship and (or) devotion. (Many a 'tradtional' marriage survived more on the devotion of the two parties to their vows than it ever did on friendship.) Anyway back to my conversation with Linda. I was very mindful of my prior foray into similar territory so recently and I therefore felt myself unfairly prepared to resist Linda's casual-seeming determination to marry me off, decently, at the earliest possible opportunity. "I'm too selfish for cohabitation," I said. "I have tried it twice and both times it failed, mostly because I hated to share. I have trouble being honest with myself so I can't possibly see how I can do it with another individual entirely. Cohabiting just brings out the control freak in me." "But you could have a relationship without actually living with someone," Linda said. Her eyes seemed to say that she had scored a winning point. "But that isn't a relationship, Linda. It is an acquaintanceship, or a friendship, or even a love affaire. Marriage it isn't. It needs no respect, it needs no sharing, it needs no committment." "So it's committment that you are afraid of, then?" Aaarrgghhh! "No," I said. "I can commit to friendships with people of either gender without fear that sex will become an issue. I can (and have) committed to love for people -- love that cannot be assuaged and that does not require the sticky elements of coition for its sustenance. And sex ... well anybody can have sex ... can't they?" Game set and match to me, I think.