Love is Ultimately a Power Play

Sometimes love sneaks up on people who are just friends:

If one person in the friendship is sexually attracted to the other, that’s a friend with potential complications.

If one friend tries to kiss the other and is rejected, that’s a former friend.

If the friend reciprocates the kiss, and it progresses, that is a friend with benefits.

If the friends with benefits want the sex to be exclusive, that is a relationship or marriage.

Sometimes love strikes like lightning:

Typically one person is more smitten than the other. Let’s call that person the chaser. The one being chased either plays coy, hard to get, or readily surrenders.

The chaser is vulnerable, they are the ones terrified of being rejected, or worse, being loved, then rejected.

Love ultimately becomes an issue of who obeys whom. And for how long.

One person generally tends to control the other. Perhaps by choice.

In the beginning, the genesis of our love matters, but every break-up and every divorce starts as a tiny thought.

We explore the idea that we may not want to stick with the life-long commitment we promised to keep.

Sometimes it is just a misplaced, fleeting, irrational idea, sparked by a fight or a temporary frustration.

Sometimes the idea lingers and marinates for months or years, with no action ever taken.

Sometimes it’s used to threaten someone into submission or obedience.

Occasionally, it backfires.

Maybe this is why so many young folks are not playing by traditional rules when it comes to dating, relationships, and marriage.

Perhaps the new notion of love is a perpetual co-habilitation, without labels or pressure, and if it happens to last a lifetime, great.

Regardless, we will never eliminate the vulnerability inherent in giving our hearts to another person.

And no matter what kind of safeguards we attempt to erect, we can only control our own thoughts and actions.

You cannot make someone love you, even if they once did.

We will never know the precise moment someone gets sick of us. Or just bored.

Because no matter what the love of our life tells us, no matter how they behave towards us, no matter how many promises they make, we can only control one thing, how much WE love them.

People speak of karma and how what comes around, goes around.

Perhaps every time our heart is broken, it’s payback for when we broke someone else’s.

How can we enjoy a loving relationship if we never know when it’s going to come crashing down? The same way we enjoy life even though we know we’re going to die. Minute by minute. Day by day. Year by year.

Isn’t that living in denial?

Yes. But the alternative is never living.

I had a close friend who was so loving it was almost superhuman. He never had children and feared he wouldn’t leave a legacy. Married three times, towards the end of his life, he prided himself on how he remained close with his ex-wives.

When he died, all three wives spoke at his funeral.

They explained how his caring spirit and positive attitude changed their lives.

The last wife said it all. She said his love changed her. She found herself mimicking his patience and kindness and ability to make other people feel better about themselves. She said he taught her how to be a better person and to enrich the lives of those around her.

For him, if someone deeply loved him, he loved them back for life.

They became his bloodline.

They became his legacy.

He died. But his love carried on.

He played it powerfully.