what's love?

^^see title.^^

all around me, people - friends- are either getting together or breaking off with someone or another.

i meet them, and i hear stories about being blissfully in love, or stories about bitter heartache.

this, in addition to me being an insomniac (plus there being nothing good on TV at the moment but soppy love stories) got me thinking about love - and at this time of writing, i must admit that i don't understand it, at least not entirely.

i mean, you may as well replace it with the statistical formulas that i am sure i have to painstakingly relearn this semester, because both are equally alien to me.

while i know that i am capable of familial love and friendship, i have a certain amount of suspicion that a huge chunk is missing from my heart (and/or brain?) where the romance department is supposed to be.

well, at least i think it's missing, because on hindsight, i have never been in love - i've merely been infatuated.

some infatuations that i've had were stronger and had lasted longer than others, of course. but like the nature of all infatuations, they burn out soon enough.

and while i am being frank, i may as well go all the way and tell the honest truth:-

i find myself being infatuated with someone new almost every day.

once it was a handsome stranger who smiled at me from across the street as we exchanged glances.

another time it was this hot barista with the most gorgeous eyes, who wished me a nice day as his hand touched mine when he handed me my coffee, and we both made no effort to pull away.

also not forgetting that person i met on the train with whom i exchanged e-mail addreses with, as we've just shared an intelligent and humourous conversation - we continued to write each other for a week before stopping cold, because we had found something new to do.

and many more, but it could also just be that oh-so-charming actor on my TV screen.

sometimes the infatuation just lasts within that particular moment, sometimes for a minute, sometimes for the rest of the day, sometimes more.

but that's all they are - infatuations that i can forget as easily as i've forgotten what i had for lunch yesterday.

i guess i'm a "slitherer outer" like Howl Pendragon - i constantly "fall in love" with someone, but only until they fall in love with me.

also, being "committed" and "tied down" to a single someone scares me: i am too young, too ambitious, too curious about the world, and most importantly too selfish to be involved - i enjoy flirting, i need lots of space, i need plenty of alone time from people - i want a career, i want to be respected, and i want money...

lots of it, and from my own hard work, because i want to be able to take care of myself and my family independently, without having to depend on someone else.

i also want to be able to afford all the things that i want without feeling a single ounce of guilt for it.

by now, some of you will be nodding your heads in approval and thinking "atta girl!" or "my sentiments exactly!"

some of you will be shaking them and smirking in that annoying "i-know-more-than-you" manner while making a mental note to tell me the next time you see me that "no one can stop true love, it'll just hit you whenever - you've just not met the right guy... your P.O.V will change when you do."

and while there is a possibility of the latter happening (although i hope it won't be anytime soon)... call me idealistic, but true love and attraction - for me, at least - is whether you can fall in love and stay in love with a person for a long period of time.

and i can't. because like i said, they've all been infatuations.
i tend to get bored rather quickly.

"well, stop playing around then!" you say.

i know, i know. but sometimes i can't help it.
my excuse?

infatuations make you do stupid things.

plus, you never know who's right without "trying" it out first, right?
and when i say "trying", i don't mean just by me.

you see, what i've learned only recently is that love is NOT just personal. perhaps it's just a middle-class family thing, but in my world i'm constantly taught and reminded that we keep money with money, education with education, ambition with ambition, and values with values.

you fit in either by being on (or working towards) the same level, although higher is better. lower means harder work (but not impossible), but a lack thereof is simply unacceptable.

you can call it shallow, you can call it stupid - you can hurl things at it - but it won't stop it from being true.

so really, i think i started off wrong by asking what love is.

the real question should be:

"are you going to fit well into my extended family?"






Postscript: as for my own personal requirements... well, here's an excerpt from High Fidelity that says it all perfectly:

"A while back, when Dick and Barry and I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like, Barry proposed the idea of a questionnaire for prospective partners, a two- to three-page multiple-choice document that covered all the music/film/TV/book bases. It was intended a) to dispense with awkward conversation, and b) to prevent a chap from leaping into bed with someone who might, at a later date, turn out to have every Julio Iglesias record ever made. It amused us at the time, although Barry, being Barry, went one stage further: he compiled the questionnaire and presented it to some poor woman he was interested in, and she hit him with it. But there was an important and essential truth contained in the idea, and the truth was that these things matter, and it's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently, or if your favourite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party." - Rob Fleming of High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby.