i love you... only you?

I love you….only you?

Ok this is what happens when I go out, drink two double espresso’s and then Yvonne comes over and asks the question: ‘can you go through life loving just the one person?’ (and there wasn’t a drop of alcohol in sight, I promise). Its quarter past 3am (yes Donell Jones springs to mind too) and I have decided to play devils advocate sitting in front of mums laptop. Here goes…

One of my favourite quotes of all things love is by Aristotle. He said, ‘love is a single soul inhabiting two bodies’. Isn’t that the most beautiful thing you have ever heard? Well, devil’s advocate says not really. This thought torments my psyche constantly. I’ll tell you why. The simplest theory put out there is this: ‘man meets woman, they fall in love and spend forever in love with each other’, right? Well, I don’t know about that! How often does that happen? Often enough… and if for some reason we could get an x-ray type insight into the minds of some of these lucky people, what will we find? Well, let me introduce you to an unspoken truth about the monogamous mind.

Let’s analyse the specifics. Is it possible that you love one person and only that person forever? Well I don’t mean to rubbish the idea of perfect love but it seems that although ideally this is the way it happens, while our outer beings are busy loving each other like the good uncomplicated people we are, our minds have other ideas really. No? Well when you were on the train the other day totally drooling over that person you thought was most delicious creation since sliced bread, were you thinking about the love of your life then? A bit of eye candy never hurt anyone is what you say. What do I say? I say read on.

Let’s break it down even further with some questions. Have you ever looked at someone (ok for the sake of argument and less hullabaloo, let’s say in the past, before you met the love of your life) and just felt either 1. the unendurable desire to rip your clothes and then theirs off? 2. spoken to them for five minutes and had your heart swear that you have known them at least all your life? or 3. realised that you were looking at each other and your minds were having a conversation that if explored had the potential to explode? What happened when it was the time when it was a combination of all three and someone out there at the time was called your other half? Let’s assume you moved on from the insane momentary intensity you felt and stayed put with the rightful owner of your heart, are these thoughts banished from your mind forever (if the answer to this is yes, how then do you remember the specifics of the incident so vividly?) or do you at some vulnerable moment think ‘should’a, could’a, would’a’? Once committed to a significant other, is the human mind programmed never to find any other person appealing?

And there’s more! In friendships, for example, there are bonds formed between different sets of people for different reasons and each one on one friendship is determined by a single or collection of ideas that sets that person apart from other people and endears you to them, hence the title ‘friend’ as opposed to ‘acquaintance’. (One has many friends, right?) Is that the same for love? Is there not that person(s) who will pop into your head from time to time and betray the sense of every thing that is just and simple and straight forward and moral within you by making you smile? So there’s that person that knows you so well that they predict your cold before your first sneeze, the other that makes you feel naked by the way they look at you, or that person that sees your soul, that person who you can speak to on the mobile phone until your initially full battery dies and swear it was only five minutes. So these people are your friends (except they are the opposite sex and there is a slight ‘inconsequential’ twist), but are they not people you love? No? At this point, I am tempted to, but refuse to bore you with endless definitions of love (well I have to save some of devil advocate’s ramblings for another day), but I will say this: if the thought of someone softens your heart even ever so slightly, is there not (a tiny little bit of) love?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not referring to the ‘the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence’ theory. This person may not even pose a threat to your love life or surface in your thoughts everyday or want a relationship with you. This person might just serve to tickle your mind every now and again, gently persuading your thoughts to wonder, sometimes not for long and not necessarily in an unhealthy way. They just might be someone you happen to simply like (love can be a frightening word sometimes) for whatever reason.

Ok so they are relegated to the background in the ordinary course of your everyday life because of the choices you made or life threw at you but when you do think about them and smile or get really angry (because they broke your heart or something), do these random thoughts not equate to some sort of emotion? Love? So for you sitting and planning the perfect ridicule to this article because you love the one person only forever and ever and Romeo and Juliet have got nothing on you, have you never interacted with anyone else ever? It’s just a thought – maybe you never had a past or a vulnerable moment or an incident, maybe you met your soul mate and never wondered if someone thought your bum looked taut in those skinny jeans last Tuesday… maybe. Or maybe…..

So here’s the question again- do you love only one person? Be honest (or not)!