The Myth of Love

One of the evils of being single is having to socialise. Normally socialising should be relaxing and entertaining, but when the world is full of incompetent morons you begin to loose faith in humanity. Much like the economic recession, potential people are becoming scarce and I fear the worse for their recovery. Idiots find other idiots who spawn idiots to find other idiots, the vicious circle only continues. We fall victims to what we think love should be, not what it is. Most of us believe that there is the perfect person out there and that someone will unconditionally love us till death do us part. Ha! Lets not fool ourselves. Idyllic concepts are for the romantics who believe, contrary to evidence, that such deep love exists. I would go further to say that these delusionists suffer from Erotomania or at least have some sort of chemical imbalance that creates an obsession. If you suffer from this fantasy then you have my sympathies. I may lean towards pessimism but I do have compassion. 

Naturally, love has been talked about for several thousand years. It has been the foundation of romance novels, poems and movies etc. It has also changed society in how we act to one another, preying on one of our most primitive urges. Even I can admit that I am a sucker for a happy ending, but what happens when the lovebirds walk off into the sunset? You would think after a myriad of events that left Mr and Mrs Prince Charming struggling to hold on to one another, that they would realise that the world was against them? That they should just call it quits and find someone with less drama and issues and lead a perfectly normal life? However that would defeat the purpose of love conquers all. Ah yes, whomever spoke these immortal words should be brought before the court and imprisoned for causing several thousand years of misguided faith. Omnia vincit amor! We are kidding ourselves folks.

It was John Lyly who first brought forth the phrase "the rules of fair play do not apply in love and war". Wholeheartedly I agree, both war and love are based on belief and we have ample proof throughout history that belief causes widespread suffering. Why do we do this to ourselves? Our limited understanding and ignorance makes us fight for something we do not wholly understand. Our rapacious desires cannot be handled and while our technology and our reasoning changes over the vast number of centuries, we are still so keen to stand up and take what we want. I think we deserve a pat on the back for that at least! Who wants compromises anyway?

But that is all it comes down too doesn't it? Compromise. We have our ideal partner in mind at the zenith of their standing. We eventually learn that such people do not exist and so we begin to chip off the sculpture in mind until we arrive at a small, oddly shaped pebble that bears no resemblance to it's former shape. And why do we do this? Because the myth of eternal love is ingrained into our culture, so in fifty years time we can simper and smile and say "at least I had that". It is a dream that we torture and twist and make fit into the complex jigsaw of our lives, turning a jewelled conviction into an ugly hybrid of compromise and stability.