Real Love

Elbow, One Day Like This

If you are only going to listen to one song in this story, try this one. It is a beautifully simple message of love, wrapped in an amazing tune.

The first time I fell in love, I was standing on Lidcombe station platform, watching a train roll past slowly, when I saw a beautiful girl with long curly red hair, who smiled at me just when I thought she was already gone. I was maybe fourteen and on my way to school. By the tell-tale school uniform she sported, we were living parallel lives. Trains passing in the morning, never to meet.

Now we all know I didn’t fall in love. It was just my raging teenage hormones playing tricks on me. I don’t care. It felt wonderful and heartbreaking all at once. I never saw her again, though I stood at the same place each day, simply hoping for a glimpse of that perfect face and beautiful smile.

It occurred to me while writing this, she may have been laughing at me rather than smiling at me. I was an awkward teenager in an ugly grey school uniform, also there is a safeness in unrequited love from a distance. You get all the feels, without having to do too much. There’s no romance in that though.

You gotta love love though, right?

Are we born to look for romantic love or is it just those pesky hormones playing mind games, telling us it’s nearly time to procreate. Long ago I spent my Saturday nights, watching old Hollywood movies with beautiful, amazing actors like Doris Day and Audrey Hepburn. I wanted to be as suave as Cary Grant or sing like Bing Crosby, perhaps be as funny as Bob Hope. I‘m really not that old, and many of these movies were old when I watched them as a young boy, but they were such a great departure from my reality.

If I was going to catch romance anywhere, that’s where I got infected.

Due to my aging heart and rampant cynicism (the only true religion), I find it difficult to think of myself as a romantic nowadays, but I was then, and I guess when time and inspiration allow, I still can be. I still do special things for my wife, and she seems to appreciate them.

Moving forward past my tweens and into young adulthood, I desperately wanted love, not to fall in love, that was easy, as I fell in love with just about every girl I met, but I think my awkward desperation shone like the sun and smart girls seemed to know to discourage any interaction.

I wanted love like in the movies, but I had no charisma, and I was also terribly shy and would turn beetroot red when caught in a one-on-one conversation, with a female girl of the opposite sex.

I wish I’d had better role models.

I did have one real girlfriend in my late teens, but that situation is still only spoken of in low whispers, behind closed doors. I was courting disaster.

How I ended up with my one true love, defies explanation, but I think higher powers were responsible. By this I mean, my future father-in-law. We worked together and he found some work for his daughter there, while she was applying to become a nurse after leaving high school.

Our workplace was full of alpha males or wannabe alpha males, and I think, luckily for me, I didn’t fit this description, neither did he. He was a quiet steady man, and I was a quiet young man, and we got on pretty well. The reason I‘m certain he played a part in our romance; he would get me to help her load the delivery car she used, whenever the opportunity arose. Proximity then played its part.

The strangely, beautifully awkward part was, I waited till she left the company before asking her out. Through the whole year she worked there I hadn’t spoken to her, other than in assisting her load the van. I also asked permission from her father to ask her out. Then on our first date, I got the day wrong for the concert I’d arranged to see. How the hell did that work?

What a klutz!

Phil Collins was the concert I got wrong. I know this is Genesis

There have been times I have questioned my wife’s’ sanity in saying yes to my proposal. Even that was a bit clumsy. By this point it was obvious I’d missed a few life lessons, and I was winging it big time. I was so entranced by this beautiful, caring woman that it was like my head was in a fog, and I still don’t know why it was reciprocated; I felt like I had nothing valid to offer the relationship.

Can you really call it love, at the beginning?

But that’s the thing. In the beginning of any relationship, we’re all winging it. We walk around in a brain fog of pheromones and emotions, anxious for acceptance, convinced we’re not suitable to take the next step as adults, but driven ever forward, desperate to merge our DNA with someone else’s. We combine this chemistry with what we glean from movies and songs and what we see on TV, and watching how our friends and relatives do it, and if we are really lucky, our parents are good teachers.

I can confidently say, not mine.

I couldn’t tell you how often I question my abilities as an adult, a husband, a father, a brother or even a friend. It has taken a long time to know what works for me. I keep my groups small (mainly family). I separate work from home, and I try to keep my wife happy. This last part is actually pretty easy. She is a naturally happy person, so when she isn’t happy, I know it’s for good reason.

Queen, You're my best friend

At what point in human development did it all get so difficult?

It should be like any other animal group, procreating for the survival of the species. We evolved and screwed everything up with the premise of love. Love is a toss of the dice at best. We certainly don’t need more of us, do we. (sorry, I don’t mean that. Or do I?).

As much as I love the idea of romantic love and all the fun and joy that comes with it, I believe real love comes with time. It comes with shared experiences and how they are enjoyed, or even endured; not everything in life is rainbows and butterflies. Life is mortgages and power bills. Births and birthdays. Loss and grief. The unrelenting pressures of day-to-day life. The wonder of watching your children become adults, but not being able to see them as anything but your children.

I watched a movie recently about a man who had decided to let his parents arrange a partner for him; a common thing outside most of western society. It was an interesting insight into the process. A lot of thought goes into choosing the right fit, certainly more than a random hook up, or the ‘love-at-first-sight’ fantasy you see in rom-coms.

Okay let’s wrap this up.

I consider myself extremely fortunate in my situation. On paper, we are not that compatible. We like different movies. She loves sport, while I only really watch it because of her. We have different tastes in music, something that is so important to me, but it works. We have playlists we can tolerate together. She is super smart, while the most flattering description of me would be 'artsy', and I'm not confident in that. The key is, we listen to each other, an attribute that is so important to any partnership and one I have had to learn, and I am a slow study.

This is our song

Now who among you remember the old “Love is” thing, from the 1970’s. This is my version.

Love is; always saying sorry, even when you are so sure it’s not your fault. In a lifetime of mistakes, not saying sorry is the worst.

Love is; the quiet times when nothing needs saying.

Love is; when you are so, so angry with each other that you can only think the worst, but you know deep down, it will be ok. Sometimes it takes a while to find the right words.

Love is; knowing she is usually right, and accepting that.

Love is; not being a total dick to each other, after spending a lifetime together. We can all be dicks sometimes, just not all the time.

Love is; hearing each other. It’s a noisy world, it can be easy to get drowned out.

Love is; being comfortable with someone. There is nothing that warms the heart more than sneaking a peek at your most precious person, only to find them doing the same.