Down with Love!

“I say I don’t believe in love but that is not really true. Love is just the name of an emotion. It’s like on steroids, its lust with ethics.” Tammara Webber

The most unfortunate emotion that a human being has is the ability to feel what we have come to know as (eros/philia) love.

Let me get it out of the way; I do not believe in love. I find ‘like’ a more recognisable, steadier, and reliable emotion than love. I understand the concept of parent-child love and sibling love and yes, I deliberately stopped at these two groups because literally they are the only two groups that do not have a choice than to be connected and connected here could be conceptualised as love because down the road of living together, we’ve seen some horrible family dynamics. However, in the end the mantra is “family is everything and family sticks together no matter what.” However, this subset is not what we are talking about here.

‘Love’ between a man and a woman is the most primitive of emotions. The problem with how love is touted is that lust is often taken out of the equation and put in a silo, however, love is predicated upon lust.

My first awareness of this emotion was in primary school. I remember him clearly. He was eye-candy. Even at that young age my human nature instinctively told me that this was the kind of boy my eyes should behold. Though he was slightly shorter than me; I guess the refinement of what my ideal man should look like would come with age. The problem though was that human nature did not tell me how to navigate this terrain Somehow, my classmates knew there was ‘something’ there whatever it is. Memory does not serve me quite well as I have no idea how that panned out. At this age (6-11) really what exactly could I have been feeling? Answer: attraction but as affection. Why? Because that is how human beings are wired and at this age, it is the start of connecting with the opposite sex that will drive our existence and keep us on the look out for that person. And this is why the most annoying human emotion known to man is ‘love’.

The interaction for human beings was really for the purpose of procreation. Animals were already in existence before man came along and so had already been practicing what we came to practice on a higher scale. (do remember your biology-we are higher animals).

Going back to my point of lust being the foundation of what we eventually come to refer to as love stems from the first point of interaction between a man and a woman. As teenagers, what is the one fear? Hormones! And we try to wave a huge red flag in front of these kids telling them that it is treacherous hormones (lust) driving them and not love and if they are not careful, they will alter their lives forever. We cannot discountenance the drive that teenagers have. If we understood it more than just looking at it through a moral lens we would be calmer in guiding them. We all know how it felt feeling something we could not understand for the first time and the power it wielded. This same powerful force catches us with us but this time we are adults and have matured with the ability to take our lives into our own hands. Well, so it seems. This is the period that these same powerful feelings and reactions we felt as teenagers that we are now labelling as love because we are adults. *eyeroll*

Tina Turner, ‘what’s love got to do with it?’ captures this conundrum perfectly as read in the lyrics.

You must understand, though the touch of your hand makes my pulse react
That it’s only the thrill of boy meeting girl, opposites attract
It’s physical
Only logical
You must try to ignore that it means more than that

Oh-oh-oh, what’s love got to do, got to do with it?
What’s love, but a second-hand emotion?
What’s love got to do, got to do with it?
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

The nature and character of love is seen at its most pronounced during the sexually active phase of our lives. This indicates to an extent that eros is tied to sexual expression and invariably supports the idea that love, and lust are tied together. Without lust, there would be nothing like love, because love would become indistinguishable from the other expressions of love.

I blame Mills and Boons (M&B) for my predicament of being a hopeless romantic. Ah, those books did a number on me. Brooding, emotionally tortured, fine, tall man with means that will fight for me and sweep me off my feet and this hunky dude would ‘love’ me. In my adult years, the trilogy of Grey and prelude (50 shades of grey) was so annoyingly good or bad depending on which side of the divide you are as a glorified M&B story, but it still sold the same narrative only that there was better sex! GOSH!!

The most sung about emotion, event, predicament, issue etc is love, its complexities and heartbreak. The sub-subject is the struggle to find love. I find love manipulative, contradictory, unfulfilling and downright upsetting. It sells what it cannot give. Simple. Let’s look at the fallacy. Most people will not marry the person they would truly want to. Apparently, the chemistry will not allow them “see road”, they will walk on their heads etc and so somewhere we decided that ‘love’ is stable and that you will spend the rest of your life running from the only person who gets you and stay with the one you are with for stability. I thought we were doing it for love. *hissing*.

Then unrequited love; another bummer. You are whistling and going about your merry way then you run into this stranger that turns your world upside down. “Something’s gotten a hold of my heart” by Gene Pitney capture it perfectly

Something’s gotten hold of my heart
Keeping my soul and my senses apart
Something’s gotten into my life
Cutting it’s way through my dreams like a knife
Turning me up and turning me down
Making me smile and making me frown

But then you came my way
And a feeling of unknown shook my heart
Made me want you to stay
All of my nights and all of my days

I have often wondered if ‘love’ is what it has been touted to be, why do people have the capacity to love another after choosing to love a certain person? Why do we still have the capacity to connect with another person and in some instances on a deeper level than the one we are with that we ‘love?’

Why do people in love hurt each other? I thought love would have sorted that all out? And please don’t tell me that we are human beings and are prone to blah, blah, blah.

Then we have the group of people who believe they are destined for this wonderful emotion but alas unbeknownst to them they are destined never to find this eros. We are built for relationships, we so it seems so it is a bit unfair for some people to be excluded from this ‘wonderful’ feeling. Anyway, what do I know? One last query. Have you heard the love songs churned out? Why do we sing so heartfully about love but reality is so different?? Music too has confused me on this matter.

Let me summarise my scattered thoughts. Love is predicated on lust. Men hunt to get a mate to procreate and replicate self. To get a woman to this, he ‘courts’ her (just like the peacocks), At this stage she has the power. Once she is ‘conquered, the power shifts to the man. He decides to either stay or leave. Reasons beside lust, then come in and these reasons for staying build ‘love’. Staying is to protect his bloodline, really. If we can be this clinical about our interactions, wouldn’t we have won the battle against the vagrancies of love?

Ill drop a short playlist of songs. I would have done a deep dive but I’ll highlight the annoying parts.

I wanna know what love is – Foreigner

( I wish he didn’t bother)

I wanna know what love is,

I want you to show me, I wanna feel what love is,

I know you can show me

Is this love? – White Snake

(Tau, he can’t even figure it out!)

Is this love that I’m feeling?

Is this the love that I’ve been searching for?

Is this love or am I dreaming?

This must be love ‘Cause it’s really got a hold on me.

Somebody to love- Queen

(on the eternal quest)

Can anybody find me somebody to love?

Said I loved you, but I lied- Michael Bolton

(Yawa! when it begins to turn you mad)

Said I loved you, but I lied
‘Cause this is more than love I feel inside
Said I loved you, but I was wrong
‘Cause love could never ever feel so strong
Said I loved you, but I lied.

I will always love you -Whitney Huston (she killed this song vocally by the way!)

(ode to unrequited love. Such a darn shame!)

Bittersweet memories
That is all I’m taking with me
So goodbye, please, don’t cry
We both know I’m not what you, you need
And I
Will always love you
I will always love you.

It must have been love – Roxette

(the fickleness of it and oh, the movie Pretty Woman did us no favours arghhhhhh)

It must have been love, but it’s over now
It must have been good, but I lost it somehow
It must have been love, but it’s over now
From the moment we touched, ’til the time had run out.