Ahh--the eternal question. Is it fate? Or just chemistry? Is it our destiny to bond with one special person, or are there many possible mates out there for each of us?
Who do we fall in love with? We fall in love with the people around us. It's not romantic; no one's going to write a sonnet or make an epic movie about that, but it's true. The twin to your soul may be milking goats right now in Kazakhstan, chopping soybeans in Uruguay or weaving mats in Angola, but if your paths never cross, that potential will never be actualized.
We fall in love with the people we see. The cashier in the supermarket. The guy down the street. The girl across the hall. Why? Because THOSE ARE OUR OPTIONS.
If a 13 year old girl protested to her annoyed mom, "But I love him!", her mom would probably say something like, "You don't know what love is!"
But, fourteen year olds have very strong emotions. Watch the news; people steal and kill in the name of love. And not just teenagers. Adults leave their homes, families, countries and children. Kingships have been abdicated.
I think that love is like pain. Nurses are taught, "Pain is what the patient says it is". Since it is impossible to know, we have to take their word for it.
We have been fed a steady diet by the media of how love should look and feel. Those are fairytales. They are misleading and unrealistic and provide a very distorted idea about what a relationship is.
Love doesn't look like this:
Arranged marriages have a high success rate for a reason. Emotion doesn't cloud the issue. Two sets of parents--who presumably know their children well--negotiate for the best bargain.
That's what relationships are: negotiations for the best bargain. You must be willing to accept someone who is less than perfect, because--guess what? YOU are less than perfect.
Rather than staking your future on a labile emotion, use some logic. Your mate needs to be three things: a partner, a lover and a friend.
The partner is someone who you might go into business with. They are willing to work and don't squander money.
The lover is someone you are physically attracted to and enjoy having sex with.
The friend is someone you want to be with and talk to.
Our feelings are not constant enough to base big decisions on them. Fireworks always burn out. Find someone who can be your partner, lover and friend. And consider yourself the second luckiest person in the world!
The first luckiest being me.
2 L
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