What Is Love?

People love each other for all sorts of reasons. It’s still loving each other despite other reasons that impresses me more.

This rant came to me after cleaning the bathroom. Specifically, after scrubbing the toilet. More on that later.

People fall in love for many reasons. Physical attraction, intellectual attraction, same taste in movies etc…. It’s easy to fall in love. It’s more impressive when people still love each other after finding out all their faults. After all the hardships life throws at us.

Real love, as some popular movie quotes would have you believe, does NOT mean never having to say you’re sorry. Hell now. Love means having to say you’re sorry, or you get the couch. Sometimes.

Sometimes things just don’t work. You start off with plans and dreams, but those don’t always come to fruition. One of you may lose your job. You may not be able to produce those children you always planned for. You may never be able to afford that big house with a big back yard. The true test of love is being happy with someone regardless of all the things you won’t have or do.

Now for the lighter, and in some cases icky, side of this rant.

Real love means sharing. Sharing many things.Good things, and bad things. Really bad things sometimes. Here are a few things we need to share with the people we love, and somehow still manage to love them.

Space.

Visiting someone’s home and living with them aren’t the same. Some people will make a point of cleaning up when they expect company. (I know my husband did.) When you live with someone and you have to pick up their dirty socks and underwear, it doesn’t exactly make you want to, well, you know. Humpa Humpa, as my charming hubby used to say.

The dishes need to get done. The laundry is piling up. The garbage is starting to stink and why the hell won’t he just take it out!!! Ahhhh! Those can be just a few instances where one might be tempted to commit homicide by frying pan. “I don’t know what happened officer, he said he wanted to fry up some eggs and accidentally fell on the pan. 4 times.” Ahem.

Bills.

It’s easy to get along with someone when the biggest thing you have to worry about is what movie or restaurant you should go to. Once you have to share living expenses though, boy do things start getting interesting.

If one of you doesn’t have your share of the bills and the other has to pay up for you, it can create a little animosity and resentment. Perhaps they spent too much on fast food? Or video games? Or on shoes? Who knows. If you’re not sharing an account, you probably never will.

Sharing living expenses and responsibility is hard. It’s not always the case that both of you are going to be great with money. One of you could downright suck. Relying on someone for your very livelihood demands a lot of trust and faith. If they slip and let you down, sometimes you just have to accept it, kick them in the shin, and move on. You have to really love someone in order to accept defeat, so to speak. It’s not just anyone you’d fork over your hard earned money for.

A bed.

Sharing a bed with someone for a couple a dates is not the same as sharing a bed with someone once you’re living together, and committed to each other. Some guy having sex with you doesn’t mean he loves you. Some guy wanting to still have sex with you after you’ve been less than sexy in bed however, now that’s true love.

First example: When I was dating my husband, I kept my make-up on when I slept over. I’d bring make-up for touch ups etc…. I remember taking a shower there and, due to the impromptu activities and consequential sleepover, I had no make-up on me. *Insert doom music*. “He’ll never want to see me again if he sees me like this. Oh no, on my god.” I might add here that I was 20 at the time. Ergo, I was stupid and naive. He obviously wasn’t that stupid and shallow, hence the 10 year (and still going) relationship that followed.

Waking up next to someone who looks completely different than when you went to bed together can come as a shock. What, you’re missing a tooth? Wait, your hair wasn’t facing straight up before? What’s all that black crap around your eyes?

Second, and most poignant example in my opinion is this:  women who are dating will make a point of holding in farts or running to the bathroom when she needs to let one rip. Once you’re in love, you can relax those cheeks and rest assured that he’ll still hold you. Once the smell has dissipated that is.

The bathroom.

No, I’m not just talking about how much time women spend in there. Lucky for my husband, I don’t actually get ready in the bathroom. I don’t fuss with my hair too much and I put my make-up on in the living room. Better natural light in there. Nothing worse than looking like a clown when you go outside because your bathroom light is slightly more yellow than the outside light.
No, my tests of true love is a little less pleasant than that.

First, women have a certain time of the month. Yup. Call it aunt flow. Riding the cotton pony. Whatever, we bleed. The evidence of which can be found in the garbage can. Nothing is sexier to a man than going to the bathroom, sitting down and looking at those delightful application tubes. Cringe if you will, it’s not sexy and we all know it.  They might come as a handy warning for what your partner is in for.  Can you say, “MOOD SWINGS!!!” . What’s even less sexy?

Real love means that, every now and then, we’re going to have to clean our man’s crap out of a toilet. Literally. If you can get on your hands and knees and work out a sweat cleaning up the result of the prior day’s burrito fest and still want to have sex with them, then you’re in love. It’s not exactly sexy, but when you love someone, you’re willing to put up, and clean up, a lot of crap.

Real love also means having to tolerate your husband using the freshly cleaned toilet.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 21st, 2010 at 3:50 pm and is filed under Random Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.