Funny how…

“It’s funny how the girls you fall in love with never fancy you, it’s funny how the ones you don’t do” ~ Airhead

Or, as defined by my dictionary

Unrequited (adj): (of love, affection, etc) not returned

 

Now I did a whole blog on love recently (it’s here if you missed it). I don’t intend to dwell on all those details again, just the unrequited bit. Or, to be more accurate, having a crush.

Aren’t crushes ace? I love them. That daydream you can go into over someone’s voice, or smile, or eyes. Or, if you want to get a bit more personal, their body. Perfectly harmless, passes the time, you’d never do anything with them in a million years for real but nice to daydream about it. I have a very happily married friend who loves her husband very much but she find life goes by that little bit more nicely with just a bit of a crush on someone else. She would never cheat on him in a million years, it’s totally harmless fun.

Then you get into the territory of crushes that may or may not be reciprocated. Do I like him/her? Do they like me? Your phone goes & you jump & hope & grab it & check the screen. The flutter that goes through you if it is your crush making contact is amazing. Even if the text is the most banal “Hey, how’s you today?” type, it still leaves you grinning for hours. Yet we so rarely get crushes on the right people. The ability of people to fall for the wrong people is truly mind-blowing, and I include myself in that. It’s painful when they are just saying hello and you are pining from afar. Or, and I find this one worse, you are the subject of the crush and you’re not interested. Your phone goes, you know who it’s going to be and you just ignore it, cos you don’t want to reply but you don’t want them. It really is funny how…

Sometimes these things can go very horribly south. We can convince ourselves that the merest ‘hello’ or pleasant word is a sign that they’re the one and it’s meant to be. I’ve been guilty of phoning a guy a few more times than was wise in my youth. Thankfully these days I am older, wiser, and slightly more mindful of my dignity. But I still get those crushes, generally on all the wrong people. And occasionally on a right one.

I wrote this cos my phone beeped half an hour ago. I haven’t looked yet. Cos I’m the subject of a ‘funny how…’ bad crush. Yet it beeped again just now, different tone, and I’m smiling, even though I haven’t looked at that either, cos that’s someone I have a crush texting me. Hope it says more than “Hey, how’s you today?”

Tell me about your crushes, good or bad. You can keep it anonymous if you like. I promise I will never tell…

 

Princess

Love

“Love is a many splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love.” “Oh please don’t start that again” ~ Moulin Rouge

Or, as defined by my dictionary:

Love (vb): to have a great affection for a person or thing, to have a passionate desire for someone, to like (to do something) very much

 

Many years ago I got a copy of Lazy Ways To Make A Living by Abigail Bosanko free with a magazine. It’s a fairly enjoyable piece of “chick lit” though its appeal is greatly enhanced for me by the fact it is set in Edinburgh, which is one of my favourite cities (the others being London & Monte Carlo, if you were wondering). Anyway, the heroine gets involved with a guy who has had cause to look up love in the dictionary to find out what it means. Now, I’m clearly no relationship expert but if someone has to look up love to find out what it is then they’re probably not the most ideal relationship material. Yes, I know, I looked up love for this piece. Don’t go on about it, ok?

Anyway, look at the definition. It doesn’t really encompass the great swathes of emotions that we expect, does it? What about devotion and adoration and the sacrifice of self for others? It seems it’s quite tricky to define love, as many of us think of it, without using the word ‘love’ itself.

There’s all different tyoes of love. The Ancient Greeks had four distinct types which seems a much sensible way to go about it. The way we love our friends, family, lovers, pets are all different types of love. I think we’ve missed a trick with the English language on this one.  I’m not entirely sure what words we could use but we could come up with some between us, surely?

Then, of course, there’s that old favourite of unrequited love. I’m pretty sure we’ve all been there. Also known as having a crush, falling in love with the wrong person, pining etc. I got into a lot of conversation about this much earlier in the year. It’s one of those areas that I think is well summed up with this line: “…longing in the abstact, in the theoretical, can be quite as painful as longing in the particular.” (From Girl From The South by Joanna Trollope). I think it’s perfectly easy to pine for love without there being a specific object of that attention. Equally, in those situations I believe we often express our desires of what we want for ourselves onto other people or situations or things.

Personally I have an incredibly romantic soul coupled with a deeply guarded and cynical nature. I’d like to say that Tennyson was talking rubbish when he wrote “It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all”  but I can’t. The ability to be stirred by that level of emotion is a wonderful thing. I’d take it, along with the pain and heartache over not feeling, any day of the week.

To finish, the best thing I learnt about love was in a novel I read in my late teens. Sadly, I can’t remember the title, author or indeed plot so if the following rings any bells with anyone please let me know! Anyway, the main character realises that when we say “I love you” what we’re really doing is asking “Do you love me?”. This struck such a deep chord with me and I made a resolution that, in my relationships, I would only ever tell someone I loved them when I knew within my heart that it was ok if they said nothing in return. It isn’t terribly easy and I’m sure I haven’t always done it but to be able to tell someone you love them free from any expectation of their response is actually rather joyous. I look forward to being in that place again in the future.

And so, leaving you with that thought to ponder on, I wish you all health, happiness, and lots of love for 2012.

 

Princess