What’s Love got to do with it?

In one of his writings, Bishop TD Jakes said that when a relationship is in the making, one of the two parties involved (or both) brings to the table a sales representative and not their real self. Now, my limited knowledge of selling tells me that the sales rep is usually not the owner of the company.

Meanwhile, my stereotypical and out-dated impression of the company owner is a Scrooge-like character — only meaner, fatter and balder — with dollar signs in his eyes and a drooping cigar at the corner of his mouth as a permanent trademark.

The sales rep, I believe, is glamorous, energetic, forever smiling and will hear nothing of impossibilities. S/he will move mountains at the speed of lightning to make one’s pipe dream become a reality.

This image was the focus of my thoughts as the topic of love clamoured for attention in my conversations and readings this week with such frequency that I just had to write about it.

Noteworthy was a discussion I had with my elder brother in which we sought to understand the meaning of love and beyond that, why people fall out of love.

The discussion had itself been prompted by a quotation I read to the effect that love is important when people meet, but for a marriage to last, they need patience, forgiveness, humility, wisdom and long-suffering, amongst a host of other emotions.

However, it is my brother’s contention that love comes naturally with all those emotions, unless it is not love to begin with. This is why perhaps we go on board the love boat of our romantic journey, armed only with infatuation and physical attraction, only to disembark with a very acrimonious divorce.

Going back to Bishop TD Jakes’ imagery, I realise that my brother has a valid point, and that what a raw deal we often get and give others because when it comes to our selfish needs, we often do not negotiate in good faith.

Many of us often abuse the word love when all we want is marriage, companionship, money, physical entanglement or a little bit of fun on the side. Needless to say, who in their right mind and state of sobriety would take seriously a proposal to have fun on the side?

Naturally these mis-definitions of love have zero longevity for the long haul of which marriage is intended, and have led to its demise.
In saying all this I realise that I owe someone an apology.

This person, who is as agnostic as ever when it comes to love, has often quietly enraged me whenever they say that out of their numerous relationships they have never been in love.

But I now realise that it is better not to lie and pretend to be something one is not, let alone something one does not understand.
In 1 Corinthians 13 verses 4-8 the Bible states: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

Like me, I’m sure most people aspire to this ideal. This is as love should be.
However, much as I do subscribe to the definition of love as referenced above, I am not too sure that when it comes to the crunch I am perfect like that, but I will bear allegiance to my life-long quest to try. This is how tough it is to love when you actually love.

But what happens when the sales rep is nowhere to be found? There is poor me, who fell in love with the fantastic sales rep, only to discover, oh horror of horrors, that I’m stuck with the owner of the company, the exact opposite of what I know and love.

At this point honestly, I think it would be the height of optimism or delusion, to expect anyone to stay in love. It will just be a matter of time and circumstance before this castle in the air expires to its logical conclusion.

It is because of this that for me the statement “there is a thin line between love and hate” can never hold true.
The mis-representation of love can only have at most, three legs to stand on. The fourth would of course be hate.

But true love in its divinity and majesty cannot be found on the same wavelength with something as base and carnal as hate.
It is on these grounds that I wish all of us referred to our moral compass, or in its absence, the Bible, the next time we have to say the magic words; “I love you”.