Awful truth #10: You may never find your true romantic love—and that’s okay.
“Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve the continuation of the species.”
W. Somerset Maugham
“To be loving is to be open to grief, to be touched by sorrow, even sorrow that is unending.”
Bell Hooks
It pains me to share this truth with you. But this blog is not meant to shy away from difficult subjects. I once was a very romantic person. Perhaps someday I shall again be one. For now, consider me an objective observer, or as much as is possible for a human being discussing a most human of subjects.
The innate human desire to find romantic love is evident by the countless daydreams, songs, poems, books, artwork, and movies in which love is the subject. Part of growing up is experiencing our first crushes and overly dramatizing them in the goofy way of teenagers. Teenagers believe they’ve found their one true love for all eternity, requited or not at that time. Except in extremely rare cases, they’re wrong, but only accept this once hardened by a few more years of life experience. Don’t bother telling them this, that their first crush is unlikely The One. Their ears are deaf to such jaded wisdom.
Nevertheless, as adults we hope upon hope to find our true love and live happily ever after. There is nothing wrong with this desire because the fact is, if we’re successful, it’s a wonderful thing. I’m to the point in life where it makes me glad when people somehow find love, no matter how odd or unlikely the pairing.
Yet for many people this is never to be the case. I want to reassure you, that’s okay. There is much to life aside from this, and even those who don’t find true romantic love still have their important role to play. Our arising each day in order to go about our lives, as best we can, performing unglamorous jobs in anonymity, is a role far more important than any performed upon any stage or movie set or sports field. Love or no love, our world depends on this.
I know of examples where couples remain happily together, married or otherwise, their entire lives, and this is something to envy. But many people don’t find this other person, this life partner, despite one or more rounds of marriage and divorce or other attempts. There are also relationships done for financial security or other reasons rather than love (e.g., “settling”). Some people are unable to be alone and put themselves into bad couplings which end up doing neither party any good.
Though the vestigial romantic inside me might scoff at it, an algorithm at a dating website is often involved these days in one’s romantic pursuits, and I don’t begrudge anyone availing themselves of such modernity in an attempt to find the “right” mate. Dating websites claim algorithmic success, and if true only for one person, perhaps that’s a success rate we should celebrate as if the efforts of many placed a single man on Mars.
But scoff I shall: Matchmaking algorithms be darned. I fear these algorithms are flawed because they start with an imperfect definition of love, one based on a regression analysis working backwards from so-called successful marriages. This fails to account for the loveless marriages that endured or the loving relationships that did not occur due to a host of foolishness discussed below. In fact, these algorithms may reinforce this foolishness.
I want to reassure you that life without romantic love is full of wonders and things worth living for. If you end up having children whom you love, that’s truly all that matters. Life in the end is nothing but the continuation of the species by any means. The love for children is the epitome of this. Those without children have their role to play in building and maintaining a society in which children are born, live their lives, and perhaps have their own offspring. I don’t have my own children, but I’m blessed with my love for a goddaughter, two nieces, and two nephews. Does this love benefit the world at large? Yes, how could it not.
The question often asked is how one finds the so-called perfect mate for a perfect relationship. Ah, perfection. The great poisoner of every good or bad intention. There is no such perfection. There is just love, and it may be more likely to exist amidst the most imperfect surroundings. Certainly, both partners are imperfect. We must accept that there is no perfect marriage, no perfect wife or husband, no perfect girlfriend or boyfriend.
I think a relationship founded on true love is evident if it is a partnership that is strengthened by adversity rather than undermined or revealed for the poor match perhaps it always was. Financial struggles, a serious family illness, vicissitudes writ terrible, these are what prove love’s truth, and can only do so after the fact. I often joke that couples who meet at work may have an advantage because they’ve seen each other at their worst. An expensive wedding does not guarantee love or a successful marriage. Seemingly perfectly matched couples get divorced. Perhaps it’s either party’s fault, or both, or neither. They tried, then failed. Some move on and try again. Some accept a life of romantic barrenness. Some poor souls kill themselves. As bad and needless as suicide is, worst of all are those who harm the subject of unrequited or extinguished love. No one is worth killing another person or themselves over.
I don’t have advice to offer for finding love. What I do suggest is we not deliberately thwart for others the chance at it. This is my advice.
It’s tragic enough that people find ways to spoil their own attempts at love, but worse is the effort we waste disapproving of or foiling the attempts of others. These are irretrievable tragedies best avoided for all of our sakes. We can help matters by minding our own business in regard to the romantic endeavors of others. Gossipy fishwives are found a thousand miles from the sea—and think they know best about other people’s business, including their love lives. We spend far more energy finding reasons to condemn other people’s relationships than we do in support of them. Perhaps, this negativity is the manifestation of our own romantic failures. Frustration writ petty. Fate writ tragic.
I don’t expect people to not gossip or share their opinions amongst themselves. That would be naïve. But we shouldn’t actively interfere in another person’s romance.
A good rule for each of us to follow: Once two people are of the age of consent, they’re fair game for each other regardless of what others might think. It okay to disapprove, but we must allow them their chance. Those not directly involved (i.e., everyone but the couple themselves) may be tempted to find reasons why the relationship is wrong or doomed to fail. The reasons are as old as mankind itself: race, religion, tribe, nationality, age difference, physical appearance, sexuality, education level, career, socioeconomic status, common interests (or lack thereof), personality types, caste, geography, etc. The great tragedy of the human race are all the true loves that never were because of any of these silly reasons or by the foolish malevolence of the fishwives among us.
It is natural at this point to ask, “What is love?” Nobody can surpass its description in Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, but I shall offer my humble take…Love is when the other person’s happiness is more important than our own—and the other person feels likewise, neither party exploiting it. Love is being just as happy with the other person sitting on rocking chairs on a rickety porch attached to a tar paper shack, as you would be if you were on the balcony of a first-class cabin of a luxury cruise ship. Love is a completeness that survives and is annealed by life’s struggles. Love is doing things in order to be with that person rather than being with that person in order to do things. Common interests are a bonus but not requisite for love. The only thing two people need in common is that they care about each other and are able to endure life’s difficulties together. There is no computer code or artificial intelligence that can divine this.
We are creatures with free will and don’t have to act upon our inherent foolishness. In addition to ourselves, we must allow others their chance at romance. We must let them be, no matter what we think is best for the people involved. We’re unlikely to know what’s best for ourselves, let alone others, but nonetheless we revel in our phony “objectivity,” which is likely our own frustrations playing out at the tragic expense of others. Instead, hope for these others to find a measure of happiness, and if they’re profoundly lucky, find true love. No matter how odd the pairing, rejoice if they’re successful.
What of the age of consent? The age of consent should be either 16, 17, or 18 years old. A consistent close-in-age exemption can be considered. A society, its fishwives and all, must pick one and then live with it.
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