04/12/2024
I would like to believe that love is hard to find in general. Why? Because it is not something that has a traditional or conventional path to. You don't get a step by step guide to love. You find it by the same old tried and tested formula of trial and error. You try to love someone and hope they would do the same but you err and the cycle restarts. To me, it's as simple as that.
Chat with Aswani
I do understand your reference to the LGBT community though. I think it's because we don't really care as much for love as we portray ourselves to be in need of it. Ironically, I believe this is something we can learn from straight people.
As a gay man it has been challenging for me to find love. I come across people who I would genuinely like to know, explore and may be let them become a part of my life. Some do make it or I become a part of their lives. A few I think I could love. Fewer still I have actually fallen in love with only to realize that it's been an exercise in futility.
Indeed!
For most part what we think of love is that it's mostly got to do with physical appearance. There in we confuse it with lust which, though important, is not what sustains a long term relationship. You are attracted to a person's appearance for sure but you're mistaken if that is the person as a whole. You don't get to truly love a person without knowing them inside out. When you say you love them you need to love their perfections as well as their imperfections. You need to love them in mirth as you need to in pain. You need to love them when they're your knight in shining Armour as well as when they annoy the s**t out of you. You don't need to just love the idea of them but them. Period.
Dr. Love
And love comes with adjustments and a thousand different tiny compromises that one should be willing to make.
Well..
That is, I think, what we lack. For a fact we rarely care to go beyond one’s appearance. We fantasise spending lustful evenings and nights and mornings with them without admitting to ourselves that may be what they need is a person to know them and not a slave to worship their body. For the less endowed we shame them to the ends of the earth sometimes to an extent that we break their spirit and the way they look at themselves in the mirror. And to then ask why we, who are so hungry for love, never actually find it is a bit of an understatement. We do find love but not in ways we want. When we desire chiseled abs we get a plump tummy, when we desire flowing, ebony hair we get a receding hairline or dandruff filled scalp, when we desire someone who speaks to our soul we get someone who barely ever speaks. And instead of learning to love them we set our sight on the unattainable, people we can't be or can't have. Isn't it obvious now why we feel so alone?
Aswani Magazine
Vol: 16 coming soon
To summarize, a profound quote from a forgettable movie comes to mind- “ You like because but you love despite.”
