On the Character of Love

Yes, that's right folks, I'm getting cynical about love. It's a sad day when this happens, but I think it happens to us all eventually.

Love is not a entity which knocks on your door like Despair. Love stands aloof and distant in a crowd. It has one of those faces which looks gorgeous from a distance. Huge eyes, sharp features and a sleek sinewy body. But when you get up close you realise that those eyes are a little too big and there is something unsettling about its beauty.

It moves like that ninja cat on youtube, getting closer when you turn your back or even blink. Before you realise what's happened it's pounced and rational thought has left the building.

There's this whole thing about how you're meant to trust the one you love. How can you trust someone when you can't think straight?

Once Love is in town it brings paranoid in its train and a crippling fear that something is going to go wrong. Yeah, of course there's all those warm fuzzy feelings following along with Love.

An evening in with Love goes something like this:

Remember that Love follows you around. Once it's got you it doesn't pop in and out like Hope and Despair.
Love sits quietly on the settee while you watch Doctor Who, it nurses the same glass of beer throughout the whole episode. It's quiet and undemanding. Just sitting quietly with its overly big eyes and elegant physique.
Once the show is over though, it starts to get a bit more chatty.
It subtly suggests ways in which the person you love might not want to be with you anymore.
It's easy to ignore though because its voice is soft and face beautiful but its persistent. It plays on your mind until its following you round the house shouting in your ear about how you're going to be traded in for a younger better specimen. Eventually a touch of rationality creeps back in and batters Love back for a while.
Then, when it's dark and you're all alone in your little bed Love creeps in next to you and starts laying out intricate scenarios about how your own love might die and how you'd feel about it.
It's only when the person you love is around that Love stands there with a little genuinely happy smile on its face and gives you a nice warm hug.