Do You Believe in Love?
A friend just sent me a story of young love. (Very young love. Seven? Eight?) It was adorable and sweet and cute. These stories keep cropping up around me, maybe because I’ve been reading a lot of YA, or maybe because it’s been in the movies quite a bit.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped believing in romantic love.
I keep watching and reading these stories, and I catch myself wondering if love can really be like that. If I reach hard, I remember what love was like when I was young.
Can it be like that when you’re older, too?
Letters to Juliet seems to think so, but so many of the stories involve young teenagers. The Twilight novels captures love well, especially given its foundations in Romeo and Juliet and Wuthering Heights. These stories of romantic love have resonated with us humans since stories began.
Love is an odd thing. Having been adopted, I think I grew up with a keen awareness of the limits of love. Maybe that in itself precludes me from believing in unconditional love, or the type of love worth dying for, or a love whose loss we won’t survive.
The world is a hard place. Maybe we grow up and realize that we can, unfortunately, survive the loss of everything we hold dear. But should that realization diminish the feelings of love within us?
Lately, I’ve been yearning for a love that I’m not convinced is even real. And I avoid writing about it, simply because I’m not wholly convinced of the kind of love that finds its way into our stories.
But does it exist? Am I just missing it? What about you? Do you believe in love?
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Natasha Fondren is an eBook developer, writer, and classical pianist. After a fifteen-year piano teaching career, she moved to Arizona and built a book design business. She enjoys the lizards and desert heat in Arizona with her Border Collie, Padfoot, and her cat, Dixie Doodle.
Yes, I believe love does exist. Similar to your situation, I was a child of foster homes, so I certainly didn’t grow up with anything other than a fantasy image of love. Eventually I grew up, I did marry, alas, not someone who truly inspired “love” but I managed to survive that disastrous situation, and over the years, truly did fall in love, with my children, with men, with friends, with my 3 little pugs : )
Good luck in your journey.
Awwww, how cute! (The pugs.) I’ve fallen in friendship, which is very nice.
I was noticing that my characters never say “I love you.” Probably a problem since I write romance.
I believe in it, but I’m not feeling it lately. It struck me while driving home yesterday that this is the first time in over six or seven years (probably closer to ten) that there isn’t ANYONE I’m yearning for, loving, or what have you. Feels strange.
That’s awesome, that you believe in it. I remember those feelings, but they’re sorta faint. I must have watched Eclipse ten times this summer, though!
I have no ideas about this at all. Love has such a multitude of meanings, or maybe it is just an ambiguous term.
That’s a good point, Eric. There’s so many types of love. We need more words for it.
I believe! I believe! But there’s nothing like that first flush of love where you talk to the person all night, think about them all day. It just mellows into, “Could you please shut up so I can read, now?” That’s all.
Hah, Robin! That’s hilarious! SO true!
I do believe it exists. But we have to be in the right frame of mind to see it’s there. If we build up movie love, or book love, or even fairy tale love, we won’t see the real stuff when it’s right here with us.
Very true, Janna!
it took me a long time to believe in the everlasting love. i wasn’t surrounded with a lot of happily married people AT ALL, but i experienced my parents fall in love with each other again, and that actually helped. i think the real power of love is in forgiveness, which is something else i have yet to understand, but to me, when you can forgive a person for lying, or for cheating, or whatever and then still be able to look at them with a sparkle in your eyes, still smile the warm smile you keep just for them…(ugh, getting mushy), then that’s really love. it may not be book love or movie love or whatever, but to me, that’s love in its truest form.
Lexcade, awwww… now that makes me feel all mushy. That is a special love.
I like Robin and Lexade’s answers. On Wed., I was making dinner while listening to the small TV on my counter. Oprah went off and the news came on, and they said they’d just received a report of an accident in the town where I live, involving a motorcycle and a semi. Then they named two main intersections.
I went numb. My husband had driven his motorcycle to work that day, and the intersection was one he would take to go home. I looked at the clock and it was ten minutes past his normal time to be home.
Two minutes later, I heard his motorcycle pull up in the driveway. When he came in, I was crying with relief. Ever since, I’ve certainly felt more of that young love vibe. It probably won’t last, but maybe I’ll remember it every once in a while.
oh wow… i’m so glad he was okay! can’t even imagine how scared you were.
even if the feeling doesn’t last, the love is still there. sometimes you just have to remind yourself.
OMG, Edie! Holy crap! Awwwww, I’m so glad he’s okay. *hugs* That’s just awful to consider.
I sort of forget what young love vibe is, but I’m trying to remember for my YA.
Romantic love – I’m defining this as a soul-mate love – do I believe it exists – yes, I do. But I believe it is very, very, very rare – such as perhaps 1 or 2 % of the population. Do I believe in lifetime love? Yes, but I think you can love a large number of people – to me timing is more the issue than love in regards to marriage etc. Then I think it is a matter of the two people, and what they are willing to sacrifice to be together, and how lucky they are. And, how patient they are. I believe that most relationships have this type of love. Maybe I’m too cynical though.
Now “unconditional love, or the type of love worth dying for, or a love whose loss we won’t survive.” this is easy for me – I feel this love for Brie – I’d die for her in a heartbeat, no questions asked. I don’t know if I’d survive her loss – I pray that I don’t have to face what is truly my biggest fear. But for a partner – again, I think it is extremely rare – but I don’t think this is anyone’s fault, or necessarily bad – I just think that this is the way life is – and in general, I think it is necessary for life to continue.
Isn’t that something? Yeah, I think that sounds about right. 1%-2%. I imagine I’ve been mostly practical about such things, but then you know me better, LOL!
I think most people would die for children, no questions asked. It’s hardwired into us.
Yup, I believe in love wholeheartedly (huh huh).
I fell in love with my Rhaina before we’d even met face to face, and once I’d made the 2k trip over the sea to meet her, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.
Adam
Glenn and I were the same way when we met. (Both the 2K and the decision.) I hope you guys are together very soon!
Love morphs. Sometimes it’s romantic, sometimes a life-line, others the subtle look that keeps the status-quo. If you believe that it’s one of the above and not all, then love is a sinking ship.
It does do that, Kath! I think we need more words for love.
Do you believe in love?
Absolutely. I love my husband with my whole being, and am honestly frightened at the thought of him predeceasing me. He’s a wonderful man, and the perfect person (for me) to spend a lifetime with.
Of course there are little things each of us does that annoys the other. We’re both aware of our faults, though, and try not to let them get out of hand, as well as realizing that the other has to put up with a lot. I’m difficult to get along with on a 24/7 basis, and I appreciate his love and tolerance more than I can express. His two previous wives (he’s my first husband, just as a data point) both left him within less than a year, one after just a couple of months, and he appreciates me sticking around too.
I think it’s just a matter of finding the right person, someone whose good and bad points, who’s quirks and virtues, dovetail with your own just right.
That said, there are a lot of standard romance-fiction tropes that I don’t believe occur in real life, or which are often handled badly, or which IMO are misinterpreted. Love at first sight, frex., is no such thing. Lust at first sight? Sure. Infatuation? Absolutely. And with infatuation, your brain literally drugs you — natural high, whee! — into believing that it absolutely is True Love Forever. When a book uses the love at first sight gimmick, or even just tries to present me with an HEA when the characters have only known each other for thirty-six hours, I just eyeroll.
Same when the author doesn’t actually show the characters getting to know one another, however long they might be acquainted before declaring their undying love. Too many romance writers use hot sex as a signal for true love, on the assumption that anyone who can give you mind-blowing orgasms must be your True Soulmate. Umm, not so much. What are they going to do the other twenty-three hours of the day? What non-naked interests and activities will they share? How are they going to deal with the chores and annoyances and minutiae of living together? Too many writers never show us any of this stuff, or maybe throw in one or two token housekeeping or clothes-on dating scenes and figure that’s good enough. From a realspace POV, it’s really not.
That said, so long as a story is well written, I have no problem suspending disbelief and going along with the romance, for the most part. If I can enjoy a story where an apprentice wizard defeats a demon, or where a bookstore clerk solves a mystery that baffles the cops, or where a talking cat helps a pig-herder’s son marry a princess, there’s no reason why I can’t use the same suspension of disbelief to enjoy a love at first sight story.
A really good writer can make me like all kinds of things I’m usually not into. And correspondingly, a mediocre or bad writer can mess up even the most promising, original story concept, no matter how many of my favorite tropes it features.
Angie
Yes, i believe in love, again. But my definition of it has changed with my years and experience. I’m much more content with love at 43 than I ever was at 23.
Oh, Natasha. It sounds like you’ve reached the point I did six years ago. However, what I found via research helped tremendously. And that is – love – at least, the Hollywood/Hallmark/Harlequin version, does not exist except as a temporary chemical process in our brains. It has a definite shelf life before the whole chem soup evaporates and leaves the couple in question wondering where the magic went.
HOWEVER, what can be left in its place (if both people are willing) is a different type of chemical bonding similar to that which takes place in pack animals. It is this bond that keeps people together through thick or thin, and is truly the “love” that lasts a lifetime. (Aslo similar to that which we feel for our children)
Unfortunately, however, that first hormonal/chemical high that people associate with “love” is also very addicting, and like most junkies, once the high wears off, they are off looking for their next fix. We also live in a society which glorifies the disposable and instant gratification, thus making it even harder for people to stick around for that other, deeper bonding to kick in.
It’s that bond I’ve discovered that I want – but whether it will ever happen is unknown.