Ceteris paribus

I recently added this new application on Facebook called Typing Race. The application was interesting in the sense that it trains your typing speed, but at the same time as part of the race, you would type through some quotes or lyrics by people from modern and ancient times. One of the quotes was "When you fall in love with a person, you fall in love with a personality, but you would have to deal with that person's character". That very phrase has been nestling in the back of my thought bank over the past week, and at times I realise that having a relationship with someone off the opposite sex can be seen almost as a tradeoff between what you would like and what you would have to deal with. So what is it that people mean when they say "I love you?" Does it mean that I love the personality that I see, and I'm willing to put up with the character that you are? Or does that refer to the idealistic view of "I love everything I like about you, as well as everything I hate about you"?



Speaking from past experiences, I can safely say that you can try as hard as you want to love what you see as "flaws" but you can't hide the irritation that eventually overwhelms you when you need it the least, and you know that you can't run away from what you're about to face. So how do you tell someone that you can't handle their character? Maybe you don't. That's how my parents did it. At one point in time they couldn't get along with each other to the point that my dad would drop everything and leave the house for a drive, occasionally I tag along and I realise how eked my dad was at my mom. This started happening, thankfully, when I was in my adolescence and hence, I learnt about the harsh realities of relationships, and at the same time, my idealistic ideology of love and marriage and eternal happiness was fractured bit by bit.



Many would say "Why if your parents could do it, why can't you?" And at those moments of truth I realise that I can't handle relationships, let alone marriage. My parents are married for over 20 odd years now, and to find a girl I can be myself with and not frustrate myself to the point of depression is pretty much a miracle. I understand that people would eventually get annoyed at each other, but I believe that my parents have really a match made in heaven. If not for them, I would not have been born, I would not have been brought up this way, and I would not have been able to be at this very moment, living life in Melbourne with light warmth education and Internet.


In all this pondering on whether love is worth pursuing, I can conclude two things: Love is probably worth pursuing because of the feeling of pursuing love, the "thrill of the chase". If no one made an effort to love someone, there would be no definition, or even measurement of 'how much you love someone' such as what one can sacrifice and do to prove their love for someone else. It's a very interesting concept, especially since it works, as in some cases the loved one loves you back in the end.

Secondly, despite all the pitfalls of loving someone, what I find keeps relationships together is the one of the very basic, most awful habits of man: forgiveness. Sorry seems to be the hardest word in an argument among a couple, but it's easy to "sleep" off the argument and discuss about it the next day, provided that things don't get too exaggerated and both sides are ready to come to terms with themselves that they've brought this mess to themselves. If not, I find that forgiving someone, even forgetting about the argument temporarily, can be the easy remedy for most problems in relationships.

Well I've put in my two cents, so I'll just leave it here for now. Cya guys next time.