In the absence of love
I am, perhaps, not the person to be writing this. This is a submission about love and I’ve never been in love. In truth, I have never had a romantic relationship and I’m in my twenties. So, again, I’m not the obvious person to be writing this. I don’t have the single qualification required of it but I think love manifests itself in different ways. On the surface, the idea of modern love implies romance, but romance is not necessary for love. This essay though will be about love in the romantic sense as I see it from the outside.
In its absence, I have spent a great deal of time considering love. I wish I could be a cynic, claim with certainty that love isn’t real and rest easy in my lack of connection because people can’t love the way they do in songs or films. But I am hopelessly a romantic. There are no stories of love without its absence. To be, it must not be at some point. Its absence at this point in my life perhaps gives me a unique perspective. I think I know enough, have seen enough, to have developed a reasonable, valuable opinion. My inexperience has allowed for contemplation and contemplation leads to ideas. And I have ideas about love.
This is an essay about love by someone who has never been in love as this is what I believe it should be. If I have the privilege of falling in love, I wish for it to be like this. This is going to sound naïve and foolish, especially to people who have been in love and know love from their reality. Perhaps it will give evidence as to why I’ve never been in a romantic relationship. I have deluded myself for so long about what love should be that my expectations make it improbable for me to accept love as it is. But I like to imagine it could be this way.
Love, in a romantic sense, I believe should begin with a platonic love. Not necessarily to say that one needs to be friends with the person before they take their relationship to the level of romance, but more that I think people should want to be friends with the person they love. If they were not together romantically, then they would be friends. It is that kind of love that, in my opinion, has the ability to prevail in any situation.
Perhaps my never having been in love is revealing itself, but I think that love in all forms is very similar. I don’t think that one could say that familial love, platonic love, or romantic love transcends one or the other. They are different but only in execution. I think love is decidedly one thing and I couldn’t try to put it into words, but that feeling, at its core, is the same.
Love is about respect, need, sympathy, companionship, reliability, compassion, trust, and so many other little things that equate to a person that is one’s own in a way that is unique and startling and fulfilling. It is an ownership that is not possessive or demanding. Love is not punishing or manipulating, demanding things without getting anything in return or offering oneself only to be ignored and rebuffed for the vulnerability. The person one falls in love with should listen to them, understand them — not simply do those things but want to do those things.
This isn’t to say there are not expectations in relationships, because there should be. I think it’s important to expect some measure of respect and treatment from a person. But that goes both ways. If someone is willing to ask something of someone because they love them, because they need it, then they must be equally ready to offer the same. Because love is not just about expectations but about sacrifice.
Love is a balancing act between two people, maintaining a sense of individuality and self, while simultaneously giving definition to a relationship that means more than words can express. It’s not the absence of self but balancing the self with another, respecting each as their own, two parts of a whole that are each as deserving of time and care as the other. That means the good and the bad, sickness and health, or whatever they say. Sometimes someone needs something and other times they have to give it.
Of course, there is imbalance because perhaps both people need at the same time and there isn’t a way to fill that void. But everything in the world desires balance, so people will find their way back to each other if it’s true. That is why there is other love in life, so that it doesn’t all fall onto a singular person to balance someone out. There are a handful of people that keep their web of connection in place and it works because it has to, because people need each other so deeply it is nearly written in the fabric of existence. We’re not meant to be alone.
And so, I hope that means I have the chance to fall in love. I like to imagine that perhaps there is someone who could love all the broken parts of me. I think if I truly loved someone I would not want them to bear the burden of my pain. Each person has their own suffering without the addition of another’s, so it seems cruel to ask that of my partner. If I loved someone, the best thing I could do is spare them the pain that would come with me.
Perhaps love is despite all of that. I might need someone to give a little more and, if they cannot do that, then it’s not love. There is a specific kind of selflessness that allows people to love because, as much as love is about the self, it necessitates the ability to look beyond the self to another. Then it feels contradictory though, because if my hurt would only cause pain then it seems the selfless choice would be to let them go, but perhaps that is where the selfishness comes in.
Love can be both, I think. To love we need to be selfless, but to be loved we might need to be selfish, knowing what we want and deciding to find it. And it’s hard to reconcile how those two opposing ideas can culminate to the same thing, but I think they do. I don’t know for sure, I’ve never been in love, but somehow it is both at once, everything all at once: sacrificing and expecting, selfish and selfless, give and take.
I’m sitting alone in my room writing this and I want to be in love. I want to love and be loved, but I’ve only ever considered what I can be for someone else. Imbalance is all I’ve seen and all I know. I’ve only ever been alone. Put simply, I want to be able to give someone everything they need. Certainly, I know that I should also consider myself and my needs, but somewhere along the way I decided I needed to be perfect before I could love so I could take on someone else’s pain without the weight of my own. I couldn’t ask another to take on my baggage, but maybe I have to, maybe that is allowing oneself to be vulnerable to love and be loved.
Perhaps someone could love me as I am with my past and my tears and my scars. It is just me who cannot love myself as I am, but that belief is not fatal. If self-love is just another kind of love, then it works alongside romance and friendship, pulling against gravity so everything remains in place in the delicate web of relationships, made of the fine line of self that is so terrifyingly unstable. I need more of the other love to pull me to my feet and keep my fragile self from breaking, so it can be a part of the glittering web of careful balance and easy grace that is existence. There isn’t anything wrong with that, I just might need more help than some.
I wish I could be a cynic and maybe after all of this I am because I’m incapable of giving or taking what I want or need. I write about love and its magnificence but will always push it away. But I want to love because I do love, intensely and completely. It is love’s absence that makes me believe in its existence, because if I can live my life without it, feeling where it should be, then that is proof enough of it being.
And that is what modern love is in the messiest sense of the idea. I don’t think it can be put into words because if it could then there wouldn’t be a reason to create. I’ve been trying to think of how to end this chaotic essay, but I think I’m struggling because there is not necessarily a conclusion to be had. This dissection of love is left without any kind of finality and that’s okay, because maybe some things don’t need to be known. In some small way, this is what I imagine love to be and, if I get the privilege to fall in love, I hope it will be just as beautiful and puzzling.
