LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT IS EASY!

Do you believe in love at first sight? I’m not really sure if I do or not.  I suppose this phenomenon could depend on who or what you are falling in love with when you first see it or them? I think the definition of love needs to be brought into consideration here in order to really answer the question.  At times like this I like to consult my trusty Dictionary & Thesaurus and having just done that I’m now very confused as to whether or not falling in love at first sight is possible.

Here are some of the definitions of love and you will see why I’m struggling with this……warm affection, sexual passion, whole hearted liking for something, feeling a strong emotional (and sexual) attraction for, cherish, hold dear, idolize, worship, savour, desire, caress, cuddle, embrace, fondle ….and the list goes on and on and can also mean a nil score in tennis by the way!

Now looking at some of the definitions above I would say that it is certainly possible to fall in love at first sight with, let’s say a huge cream gateaux in the window of your favourite cake shop.  Desire, caress, fondle and savour could definitely apply here too but if I were to apply those same definitions to a raven haired beauty I spotted in a nightclub I most likely would end up being escorted off the premises to a waiting police vehicle and that’s without even resorting to embracing and sexual passion!

Love at first site is a commonly used phrase and I’m beginning to think it’s a phrase that’s bandied around far too easily unless you are indeed talking about cream cakes or Ferrari s’.  But then again cuddling and fondling a Ferrari that belonged to someone else could see you taking the short walk to the waiting Police vehicle again so I’m still confused!

Maybe we need to take a couple of steps back here and say that desire or lust at first sight is certainly possible but surely in order to really love someone you need to know them?  How can you idolise and worship someone you don’t know?  I don’t believe you can.  I have seen stories of people who claim to love, idolise and worship someone they have never even met but that’s usually in the form of a front page story in the Sunday papers after the restraining order has been served on the besotted individual who is then dubbed a stalker!   I believe a lot of people confuse initial animal passion with true love.  Hey don’t get me wrong animal passion is great and a fantastic way of getting things started and it’s brilliant if you can maintain it throughout a long relationship but real and lasting love is so much more than just an urgent need to get inside each other’s pants at every opportunity.  For me real love is unconditional.  Real love sticks around when the going gets tough.  Real love is there for the long haul and doesn't sling its hook because the journey through life has had to take a detour across unexpected bumpy terrain.

Love at first sight is easy if indeed that’s what it is.  At first sight there are only positives, no complications or challenges, just two people falling in love and it’s a great way that the Universe has developed for matching us up to our ‘Soul Mate’ but then we need to take the reins from there and build on the foundations to create real and solid love.  Yes you have to work at building a loving relationship... maybe work is too strong a word because if you have to work too hard then maybe you are with the wrong person but you certainly need to nurture your new found love pretty much like a gardener nurtures and tends a beautiful garden in order to bring it out in all its vibrant, colourful glory.

When I first met Trudie more than 30 years, ago she was that raven haired beauty in the night club and all the definitions of love certainly applied for both of us that night.  I reckon I could have got away with some embracing and fondling, without being escorted to the Police car but chose instead to be the perfect gentleman and controlled my lust.  I think I knew deep down that there would be plenty of time in the future for passion and so our relationship began....

It was young love without complications or problems. It was easy and happy go lucky love that grew with each day that we knew each other more. There were no plans for the future as we enjoyed each moment as it came.  It was so, so easy to be in love and it was as if we were the only two people in the world.

We were at the getting to know each other stage of our lives without commitments to mortgages, bills or anything long term. The furthest we looked ahead was planning which club or party we would be going to next weekend or where we would go on holiday next summer.  Love on that basis is easy.  Love on that basis takes no effort because to you the other person has no fault’s, they are perfect in every way. There is not a thing in the world they could do or say that could even remotely irritate or bug you.

Because young love like that is so perfect it’s easy to see why couples decide that they want to spend the rest of their lives together.  They can’t imagine life being anything other than the perfect joy and bliss they are experiencing at that moment in time and the lifetime commitment to marriage seems to be the obvious next step.  They want the feelings they have for each other to last forever and of course that’s only natural.  No one gets married while their new found relationship is ‘a little bit iffy’ with the idea that they can grow into a loving couple with time, do they?  Well I would hope not, surely it’s the other way round because if the relationship is not strong to start with how can you cope with the stresses and strains of life that will surely come along to test your resolve in the future?

I’m beginning to answer my own question here and I’m going with the theory that love at first sight does not exist and here’s my reasoning….

I've already said that I met Trudie nearly 30 years ago but as it happens she had actually spotted me some time before.  She was walking down the high street in Preston with her girlfriends and pointed me out to them and proclaimed that she was going to marry me!  I don’t know exactly when she saw me and certainly I had no idea that she was planning a trip to Pronuptia to look at wedding dresses or I might have set about getting the restraining order served on her there and then but one thing I know for sure is that because I was out in town I would have been spruced and preened and looking and acting my best.  I’m a good looking (and as I keep saying a modest) guy so Trudie could be excused for thinking she had fallen in love with me at first sight but let’s imagine a slightly different scenario had taken place….

What if in the imaginary scenario when Trudie first spotted me I was picking my nose, scratching my arse, belching and farting (not that it would ever happen but go with me on this)….  Would she have been so quick to point me out as the man of her dreams to her mates and announce her new found love?  I don’t think so!  Yet fast forward 30 years to now, and imagine we are walking through town together and we bump into the same friends and after those 30 years I am still busy picking my nose, scratching my arse, belching and farting, is she going to pretend that I’m not with her?  Is she going to make out like she doesn't know me? No she would not.  She may be bloody annoyed and no doubt embarrassed but she would own up to being with me because she has grown to love me over 30 years in spite of my (imaginary) appalling habits.

Do you see where I’m coming from with this?  Real love is when you love someone as they say ‘warts and all’ and I’m not saying it’s ok to behave like a complete slob in front of your partner because she loves you come what may, I’m purely demonstrating that another old adage is true, the one that says ‘to know me is to love me'.

I’m being light-hearted and frivolous here in order to make a point but let’s get serious for a while…

This loving the person you know thing is a two way street.  You both have to get to know each other because if it’s only working in one direction then the relationship is doomed to failure.  In the scenario I painted earlier where I was acting like a slob in front of Trudie’s friends I said she would in the main overlook my appalling behaviour because she had grown to love and accept me for who I am over 30 years. However in that 30 years I should have grown to love and know her well enough to realise that behaving in that way would upset her (no shit Sherlock! But you know what I mean).

I’m not saying you have to live your life by the other person’s rules.  Far from it and I will talk more about that another time but I am saying that with true love grows a respect and understanding for your partner’s likes and dislikes and your behaviour towards each other harmonises to a mutual satisfaction to the point where you both act the way you want to as individuals without upsetting or offending the other person.  I’m not saying you become ‘as one’ either, because it’s your differences that attract you to each other and keeps things interesting. I’m saying share the same experiences as different people…. two individuals who find each other interesting, fun and exciting to be around.  Two individuals who know each other well enough to know what makes the other tick. Two individuals who know each other well enough to be able to make the other happy and find that making the other one happy gives you a great feeling of achievement and satisfaction.

The best thing I get from making Trudie happy is the payback of how good it makes me feel!  Just think about that for a moment….making the person you love most in the world happy makes you feel happy.  It’s the exact opposite to a vicious circle and you know what?... It comes back to you tenfold as the other person reciprocates and you have two opposites to a vicious circle (I’ll have to find a name for it, a happy sphere maybe?) intertwined!  How good is that!?  It’s brilliant but it doesn't just happen, you have to pay attention to what’s going on in your relationship.  You have to know what makes your partner happy and the way you do that is by getting to know them.  Ask yourself what on the face of it may sound like a really silly question but here goes…do you talk to your partner?  I mean really talk as in meaningful conversations?

The reason I ask is because of something I see far too often usually in restaurants....  Couples out together for a meal where there is just the two of them sitting and eating in complete silence or just exchanging the odd words such as “pass the salt please”.  I've seen old couples like this looking thoroughly fed up with each other’s company as if they have completely given up on each other after 40 or 50 years of being together. I've seen middle aged couples who look as though they are out together simply as a way of being away from the kids for a while and I've seen young couples who are more interested in texting on their mobiles as opposed to talking to the person sat right there in front of them.

I’m not exaggerating here I see it all the time and have to wonder if on a night out where you specially set aside time to be together, if you are not talking, then when do you really communicate with each other?  You have set aside quality time away from work, away from the kids and you have nothing to say to each other? That’s not working at a relationship, that’s being lazy in a relationship and the idea of ‘let’s go out for a meal’ becomes just a token gesture, something you think you maybe should do because you are a couple.  If you are going to sit there in silence you may just as well have gone to the cinema where silence is appropriate or simply stayed at home slumped in front of the TV.  Don’t let it get to that and if it has it’s never too late to change things for the better.

The old couples in the restaurant must have years of brilliant memories to share if they put their minds to it and you are never too old for romance.  The middle aged couples can talk about the kids they left at home and complement each other on the wonderful job they have done in bringing them up and talk about the great times they have had as a family.  The young couples need to put away the iPhones and start getting to know each other properly in order to plan the wonderful future they will spend together.

What’s the first thing you want to do when you first meet somebody you fancy? You want to get to know them in order to develop the relationship. You also want them to find out who you are, you want to impress and naturally as human beings we work hard to create a great impression in order to get close to the person we want.  We talk and flirt and entertain. We take care with how we look and behave in an effort to create the best impression we possibly can to someone we hardly know.  In short we do whatever it takes to get them.  So why then all too often in too many relationships do we stop making the same effort as when we were strutting around like Peacocks in the early months and years?

Why does the person you grow to know now deserve less of an effort on your part?  Why should we succumb to apathy or laziness in our relationships? How can it be right to take your partner for granted the more you get to know and love them?  Surely it should be the other way round where you want to give more and more of yourself as you fall deeper and deeper in love with that special person?

You know the saying ‘You’re as young as you feel’? Well I think the same can be said of a relationship. You can keep a relationship young and fresh by maintaining the same mind set as you had when you first got together.  I don’t mean you have to act like the oldest swingers in town and get your selves down to the disco (not that they call them that now) every Friday. I mean stay interested in each other. Unless you are joined at the hip you will both be leading separate lives, working at different places, meeting different people every day and having different experiences, so how often do you really talk to each other about your day and who you met and who did and said what?

You will have different moods and feelings about all manner of subjects and topics in life so how often do you sit and discuss how each of you is feeling or do you both just take it for granted that all is fine and dandy with your other half so there’s no real reason to talk?

On a personal level my conversations with Trudie now are far more interesting than the conversations we used to have on first knowing each other all those years ago because unlike then I really know who she is now.  I know her likes and dislikes and what makes her tick.  Likewise she knows the same about me and though you may think that knowing each other so well means there’s nothing to talk about quite the opposite is true.  There’s always something to chat about or discuss and even now after thirty years we still find out new things about each other and when that happens it’s really mind blowing!