When I look around, none of those who enjoyed the privilege of their mutual first love are married to their lovers. Some broke after few years; some broke due to long distance issues; some broke when it came to concluding it to marriage.
It is just my observation from my relatives, friends and acquaintances.
There are several kinds of love. Some experience attraction very early when they are little kids; of course it is not a love with force and desire. The love we are interested in, starts from teen age to just before marriage. Yes, love can bite you even barely before your marriage plans.
Lets give LOVE a notion about. Love is a desire to have someone who appreciates you as a person, who cares for you, who nurtures you, whom you can protect and cherish and while doing so, you feel being a man in fullness (in the sense of taking care of a delicate female to whom you can give the sense of security in general, in life), and most of all who if they love you back, you will feel elated.
The last part of the love is very critical. When your loved one says 'I Love You' for the first time, you are thrown to the sky. What is there under that feeling?
When we are kids, we depend on our mother and father; and our family. We want them for security. We love them. If they are absent even for few minutes we are terrorized. We cry when mom is not around. We tag along with mom everywhere and always. But slowly, we go to school. Make new friends. Learn a thing or two about people. We notice good things in other people either characteristic or otherwise. We slowly tell our mom not to pester with small things. We tell her that we can take care of ourselves. We slowly go away or grow away from our family. Have a cozier life with friends. Life with friends is full of fights and fun. As we come of age, we just barely broke ourselves apart from our parents, but suddenly fall in love. A desire to depend on other person again. The ego is ready get the reward of getting total approval of who you are, even appreciation for being YOU from other person(lover).
What happened in between? We transition from Mother to Lover.
Now this first love, coming out of the total desire to get appreciated by the other person; the exciting feeling of knowing that there is one girl who likes you. Oh my god, am I that good?
Now lets pause for a while. How did you choose your first love? Heheh, I didn't choose. It just happened.
Now this first love, was not chosen with careful consideration and assessment for whether both of you can live together till you die. No character analysis. No horoscope. No financial and social security assessment from the girls point of view (some guys expect financial security from his girl; they are different breeds of men). No family assessment. No talent assessment. No career assessment. Nothing nothing at all about the life partner you have just chosen.
Wait a second. Did you say 'life partner'? No. It is not life partner. It is first love.
That's it. We never chose anything let alone a life partner.
We just acquired 'First Love'.
The process of acquiring first love has a completely different Objective from our parents' search for prospects to us. And it is completely different from our marriage partner search as well.
What men and women expect when they search for prospects for their marriage(not for love)?
Guys: Girl who is good looking. Whom I can have in control.
Girls: Handsome guy. Safe job. Safe financial background. Good character. Easy to live with family. And I will own him. In total, a Jackpot for life ;)
Now if you look at the girls' side, it is pretty complicated. May be justified because they are the ones who have to leave their family & life behind and start a new life in a new place with a new family.
Now tell me. Why the First Love is stupid and meant to fail?
Honestly, when you look at match making, except for horoscope matching, parents desire so many other worldly specifics than love and bond. Especially, those parents who refuse their children's love by default, but go out and randomly select a partner.
Some go on waiting for their true love. God only knows whether they will find theirs.
Not everyone can find a good match. Some might get a good life partner by luck. Most of us settle for and with a partner who we can bear to live with. When I see some elderly and above 40 couples, either they both ignore each other in order to make peace, or one of them become mute to let the other reign over, or they both constantly negotiate over everything, or rarely they keep their understanding polished on the on going basis.
Lets come from another road.
What happened to our first dream?
What happened to our first toy?
What happened to our dream profession?
What happened to our goal in life?
What happened to our childhood comic books that we loved more than anything?
What happened to our favorite childhood TV show?
What happened to our dream of becoming great singer?
What happened to those love verses we wrote?
What happened to our first bike/car?
Most of us say, "if I didn't become this, I would've become that".
All those first things, mark a turning point in our lives. They are meant to stay special and be cherished for lifetime. But they will no longer be in our lives.
It is just my observation from my relatives, friends and acquaintances.
There are several kinds of love. Some experience attraction very early when they are little kids; of course it is not a love with force and desire. The love we are interested in, starts from teen age to just before marriage. Yes, love can bite you even barely before your marriage plans.
Lets give LOVE a notion about. Love is a desire to have someone who appreciates you as a person, who cares for you, who nurtures you, whom you can protect and cherish and while doing so, you feel being a man in fullness (in the sense of taking care of a delicate female to whom you can give the sense of security in general, in life), and most of all who if they love you back, you will feel elated.
The last part of the love is very critical. When your loved one says 'I Love You' for the first time, you are thrown to the sky. What is there under that feeling?
When we are kids, we depend on our mother and father; and our family. We want them for security. We love them. If they are absent even for few minutes we are terrorized. We cry when mom is not around. We tag along with mom everywhere and always. But slowly, we go to school. Make new friends. Learn a thing or two about people. We notice good things in other people either characteristic or otherwise. We slowly tell our mom not to pester with small things. We tell her that we can take care of ourselves. We slowly go away or grow away from our family. Have a cozier life with friends. Life with friends is full of fights and fun. As we come of age, we just barely broke ourselves apart from our parents, but suddenly fall in love. A desire to depend on other person again. The ego is ready get the reward of getting total approval of who you are, even appreciation for being YOU from other person(lover).
What happened in between? We transition from Mother to Lover.
Now this first love, coming out of the total desire to get appreciated by the other person; the exciting feeling of knowing that there is one girl who likes you. Oh my god, am I that good?
Now lets pause for a while. How did you choose your first love? Heheh, I didn't choose. It just happened.
Now this first love, was not chosen with careful consideration and assessment for whether both of you can live together till you die. No character analysis. No horoscope. No financial and social security assessment from the girls point of view (some guys expect financial security from his girl; they are different breeds of men). No family assessment. No talent assessment. No career assessment. Nothing nothing at all about the life partner you have just chosen.
Wait a second. Did you say 'life partner'? No. It is not life partner. It is first love.
That's it. We never chose anything let alone a life partner.
We just acquired 'First Love'.
The process of acquiring first love has a completely different Objective from our parents' search for prospects to us. And it is completely different from our marriage partner search as well.
What men and women expect when they search for prospects for their marriage(not for love)?
Guys: Girl who is good looking. Whom I can have in control.
Girls: Handsome guy. Safe job. Safe financial background. Good character. Easy to live with family. And I will own him. In total, a Jackpot for life ;)
Now if you look at the girls' side, it is pretty complicated. May be justified because they are the ones who have to leave their family & life behind and start a new life in a new place with a new family.
Now tell me. Why the First Love is stupid and meant to fail?
Honestly, when you look at match making, except for horoscope matching, parents desire so many other worldly specifics than love and bond. Especially, those parents who refuse their children's love by default, but go out and randomly select a partner.
Some go on waiting for their true love. God only knows whether they will find theirs.
Not everyone can find a good match. Some might get a good life partner by luck. Most of us settle for and with a partner who we can bear to live with. When I see some elderly and above 40 couples, either they both ignore each other in order to make peace, or one of them become mute to let the other reign over, or they both constantly negotiate over everything, or rarely they keep their understanding polished on the on going basis.
Lets come from another road.
What happened to our first dream?
What happened to our first toy?
What happened to our dream profession?
What happened to our goal in life?
What happened to our childhood comic books that we loved more than anything?
What happened to our favorite childhood TV show?
What happened to our dream of becoming great singer?
What happened to those love verses we wrote?
What happened to our first bike/car?
Most of us say, "if I didn't become this, I would've become that".
All those first things, mark a turning point in our lives. They are meant to stay special and be cherished for lifetime. But they will no longer be in our lives.
machan, as usual, this post is very philosophical and hit hard on the facts straight, instead of beating around the bush...
ReplyDeleteVery well written da... but towards the end it became a little depressing... but I think it is what you intended...
You have rekindled my interest in writing my blog again...
Hi! Looks like you have done a lot of analysis on 'Love' :) Hmmm. Made me think too and hence, firstly, great post on a universal topic!
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I don't quite agree with the theory that first mutual love never ends in marriage. I think it is a function of how early that first mutual love happened. The earlier, the more the chances that it might break up. That said, I have heard of couples who were in a relationship from the time they were in 7th std (Yes!! 7th std) and still got married.
Many folks have their first relationship when they are working and usually a lot of these end up in marriage.
I loved your analysis of what love is about. Deep thoughts there. I remember, I gave my first love letter when I was in 2nd std!!! Ha ha... over romaantic gurl I think.
My theory is, the more a person shows signs of interest in us, the greater the probability of us thinking of him/her and falling for them.
It is also my theory that ANYONE can live satisfied with ANYONE if they try. Complex topic. You should write more on it.
End of the post, I fail to understand one thing - are you for love or arranged marriage? I didn't get the view clearly from the post.
@Amudhan: Nandri. You are the best friend :-)
ReplyDeleteDepression was intended.
Glad to hear that you are kindled. Numerous times I visited your blog even though no new post appeared.
@Sinduja: Thanks for reading my blog first of all. You are a great writer evident from a single blog I read.
I agree that many first loves succeed. Bless those people. Despite of knowing that, I tend to write little strongly ;-)
Anyone can live with anyone a 100% life. But it takes higher beings on both side. But, we are all ordinary men and women.
I'm neither for arranged marriage or loved marriage. I'm for marriage where the couple have some understanding about each other. Either arranged or love marriage anything is fine. Also lover after 21-22 yrs of age is mature. Especially love at work place is a boom. They succeed. They are mostly not first loves ;-)
Our old custom of marrying at age 10 or 12. That was an amazing concept in one way. You become friends with your life partner before you even get to know what is romance and such mature stuff. You learn how your partner is when [s]he is with full of innocence and wonder. You get to grow with them. I think it is easy to live with such person. But what to do, there are many negatives in that approach.
Thanks again!