IS IT REALLY LOVE?

What is love? We all think we have the answer to that question. After all, haven't most of us loved, as well as being loved.

What we do know about love is that it comes in a variety of packages. There's the love for a parent and a parent's love for a child. There is the love for siblings and friends. Then there is love of a favorite food, or song, or movie star. And finally we have the most emotionally wrought variety of love--romantic love.

But do we really know what love is? There is strong evidence that many of us don't have a clue as to the meaning of love. For example, people often speak of love at first sight when describing their romantic relationships. But is there really  such a thing as "love at first sight?" I contend there is not. There is certainly infatuation at first sight, and sexual attraction at first sight, but these feeling do not qualify as love. And here is why.

When we say we are in love with someone, it goes beyond the mere physical. To truly love someone we must thoroughly know that individual. We must know their personality, character traits, moral values, likes and dislikes. It is these attributes that we fall in love with, as well as the physicality. Ultimately we fall in love with the mind and heart of that person. Regardless of how strong the physical attraction, could you actually fall in love with a child molester, or rapist, or killer? It is not until we discover the underlying values of another can we truly say we have "fallen in love." For those values are who they are and what they are.

There is yet another example of misplaced love. Unlike the case of romantic infatuation, this second example is between people who know one another for extended periods of time--maybe their entire lives. The two most common examples would be the parent-child relationship, and the spousal or partner relationship. Now let us assume that there are people in these types of relationships who are victims of physical, mental or emotional abuse. Perhaps all three. The victim may be beaten, tortured, raped, humiliated, held up to the most vile types of verbal abuse and belittlement. Despite being subjected to these horrors, a child may swear their love for an abusive parent, a wife swearing her love for a sadistic husband. These two scenarios beg the question: How can you possibly profess your love for someone who causes such physical, mental and emotional pain and anguish? How can you love someone who holds you in such contempt and has no regard for your safety and wellbeing. That truly ranks as distortion and perversion of the term "love." So how can this be?

In the case of children, they are conditioned virtually from birth to love their parents. To do otherwise, regardless of how much they are brutalized by a parent, would be blasphemy.

In the case of spousal abuse, the abused partner believes themselves to be unlovable and unworthy of love, and as a result, even though they are abused by their partner, their thinking is that at least someone is there for them, no matter how sadistic that someone is.The alternative is loneliness and rejection. In both cases the root cause is a lack of self-esteem. The child and the  spouse are beaten and degraded, and yet are dependent on their abusers for food, shelter and some degree of companionship. It is this they confuse as love.

Love is something all human beings seek and crave. It is the priceless commodity that should not be wasted on the undeserving. To pledge your love to someone is to reward them for their strength and values, while reaffirming your own self-worth and humanity.