Love, definitely

A good friend of mine is getting married this summer. When I received the “Please save the date” card, I learned that they had known each other for 2464 days. I literarily used my calculator and put down

2464 ÷ 365 = 6.7507

After six years of knowing each other, they’ll get married. How great is that?

When we were still in class, I asked my friend that when seeing a girl, how to know if she is the right person. He said something like this: “She would stand out from the rest of the world – so brightly you can’t help but notice.”

Adam Sandler also said something about “the right person” in The Wedding Singer: “You’ll know when you meet the right girl, because it’s not how you feel about her, it’s how she makes you feel about yourself.”

Great ideas. Great quotes. Yet Valentine’s is coming and I find myself hanging out with Isolation. After all the relationships I have had, I failed to earn my true love. After all of these years, I have to once again wonder what love is.

Well, the easiest way is to look it up in the Bible. So the Bible says:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, 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. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a NIV)

Ha, ok. This always sounds good. However, how would love, then, differ from a crush? As someone who has had plenty of crushes (unintentionally), I clearly understand how passionate, selfless, and forgiving a crush can be. When two people are having a crush on each other, what they feel and do to one another can arguably surpass those of two lovers, at least in scale if not in scope. I think maybe what makes love stand out is the longevity: a crush briefly occurs while a true love lasts.

When I was with my former girlfriend, Arwen, it was a happy time. We did what we could for each other even though we were half a globe apart. I thought I loved her, yet in the end we could not overcome our imperfections and said goodbye. After so many nights praying for the two of us, I found this ending heartbreaking. “O God, so she wasn’t the one then.”

Very soon, I met new people and got attracted. Maybe I have been wrong about love the whole time! Or maybe, I have never known how to love a woman.

At the latest time when I thought I knew what love was, I defined it as what remained after every fanciness of a crush had left. It never was true. When all the attractions, all the desires and passions have gone, a relationship would remain with responsibilities, obligations, and rational thoughts. Love would become despair. A crush, then, though silly and irrational as it is, is not at all insignificant. Instead of ridding this “crush”, true love may better be a crush that has matured and transformed into something everlasting. I think.

Now, when I meet some great person who is so attractive, I’d automatically have a crush – with all its passion and forgiveness and other goodies. I would deny them all, thinking how that is any different from other millions crushes. How do I know if fate is to tie me with this particular person? How dare I have any kind of hope? How do I even know what to pray about this?

My journey of finding true love is yet to be over.

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