Love Isn't Science

Two things used to shoot away within my skull when I thought about love.

First, that nobody, past or present, knew what it was and second that I wanted nothing to do with it. Of course, every theory needs to be proven and everything proven needs to have evidence to back it up, and in my eyes I had that. I had all the possible evidence you would need, so I had rightful reason to believe the way I did. I could explain it easily, and with such passion that you’d think I’d never stop once I got started. I was so firm in it, that as long as the earth would continue circling around the sun, I couldn’t and wouldn’t part ways with it.

Without any trouble, I placed love into the depths of science, through and through.

Observation. Simple. I observed that across the media and among the chit-chat of people heading down the path of their day to day life, nothing aligned, and that many of these ones would agree with things that are opposite of what came out of their very own mouths. Someone could say that love is complicated in a sold-out stadium, and every single ticket-buyer would shake their heads in agreement, but then someone could say that love is simple and nobody would throw a fit about that either. One will say that love is sweet, but will nod when told that love is bitter. Same goes for hot and cold, near and distant, light and dark and so on. It appears to be a fill in the blank of senselessness.

And that leads me to ask these questions: is it accurate to say that love parts too far away from logic that it doesn’t deserve to be depended on? Is it accurate to say that keeping my space from it is the way it’s meant to be out of my own intelligence and understanding? Would that be for the greater good? I could hypothesize that to be the case. In every place love contradicts itself and contradicts itself again. It’s reasonable to say that it’s flaky and confusing. If it were a person, it wouldn’t have created a very positive reputation for itself. It would be difficult to look at it as something to be relied on.

So I experiment with a mental survey, and it brings about the same message to an even greater degree. Couples’ proposals arrange themselves right smack in the middle of Disney World where the whole population of earth is granted access to watch them and cheer on a love story they know nothing about. They share a kiss in front of strangers’ awes and coos and are drowned in applause of insanity and chaos. Their weddings are big wild parties with dancing, drinking and even a cake fight if they so please, and it slips deep into the night as if tomorrow would never come. Their love is loud, but still, I hear whispers of mankind telling me that love is quiet, serene, peaceful and tranquil like a light breeze beneath the trees, and that includes that couple I watched scream from the top of their lungs, I’m surprised they didn’t collapse before the moon rose and the sun died.

The hypocrisy grows mightier and mightier, and as it does, the results come in. It looks like common sense. Love is too messy to immerse myself in. It’s not the sun on a summer day that’s to be basked in by the poolside and it’s not the snow angels formed in the front yard during a snowed out afternoon. It’s unpredictable and unorganized. It’s left and then it’s right, up but then down later on. It is never ever the same, even if it’s a lifetime with the same person. It’s meant to be feared so that it doesn’t take over me, and that was that. I lived by that. It was the only motto I accepted more than any other one, constantly on top in comparison to everything else, any other principle or rule. I was swayed by absolutely nothing. I planned on taking that mindset with me to my grave.

Until a random, yet ordinary Tuesday evening. After an exhausting full shift, I wrapped myself up in the covers in search of having time to myself that I needed so much, and I immersed myself in TV show binges, celebrity interview marathons, and social media stalkings of the people I wished I could be, when I came across the beautiful thought of Jim Parsons. I typically didn’t keep up with his updates, but out of pure coincidence I found his words, “an act of love, coffee in the morning, going to work, washing the clothes, taking the dogs out-- a regular life, boring love” the very words that I needed to hear. Sometimes I wonder where I’d be now if he didn’t basically punch me in the face.

I’ve learned that you can’t put it into the cage of the scientific method because not one version of it is the same as another. Love is like fingerprints or like snowflakes in that way. It can be everything and nothing at all, and there’s no other way to explain it, but once you feel it there’s no denying that it is true. Some people like the upbeat kind of love, where they want to shout from the top of the world that they’ve found the one. They admire big gestures, lightning strikes to the chest and a bold lifestyle, though they have their subtle, gentle moments on the side here and there that they cherish just as much. Love really is both bitter and sweet, hot and cold, bright and dark in it’s due time depending on the bond and how it is built.

My kind of love was just a little bit different than the way other people might like it. I like the quiet kind of love to take the driver’s seat; to sit in on cold days with hot cocoa and maybe childishly build a fort for the heck of it. To have moments specifically between the two of us that makes the memories extra special, even if it’s only one in the morning dancing in the kitchen in our pajamas while the popcorn pops in the microwave or ‘I love you’s before the lights went out at night. Yes, I tend to find joy in the little things, with the occasional dramatic ones here and there to take me by surprise.

It’s for reasons like these that we are not drawn to every person who passes by us on the crowded sidewalks. We don’t fall for every person we see, but we click with the one who matches the kind of love that we crave for and the one who can give us what we seek. It sparks a connection that’s unique and tighter-knitted that you could get to somebody else, and it exclaims that something there is built to last, that two people were meant to grow together.

I know what love is now. In fact, I’ve found the girl that’s better for me than what I could dream up. I’ve figured out what it means to believe in love, the kind of love that fits me and that is most definitely not one size fits all. It goes to say without a doubt, that the sayings you bring can change a life. Goodness, it could change the world.