The Rarity of True Love!

I started this blog over a month ago, by asking every adult I came across the simple question “How many times have you been in love?”. Most of the people I asked were between 25-60 years old. They were from all walks of life, CEO’s, Mom’s, Dad’s, single, married, rich and poor any one at all I asked. I wasn’t sure what to expect but the results I find fascinating.

The highest number of people someone said they had been truly in love with was 3 this was a 65yr olds answer, but just about without exception EVERYBODY else said 1 person or 2 people. I started to think about this a lot, how rare this makes LOVE. Statistically the average 50 year old has been in love twice, so we only find love on average every 10 to 25 years? This is dismal finding especially when you are divorced and single as I am. This question also opened a can of other worms, because I am a compulsive finder of the truth, I also asked every person to tell me if one of the people they truly loved was their present or ex-spouse. This is where things got statistically more shocking, only 50% of the people I asked admitted that one of the people they loved was their spouse. Digging deeper a lot of people quoted “first love as their one or only love” and also missed opportunity love as one of their true loves. I started to think about this too. First love is more obvious yes the first kiss, first butterflies, first sexual encounters perhaps bond you in a way that is hard to recreate, your first love you often can remember every detail tied to them, maybe our brains rank people by how clear memories are and first anything are usually always easier to remember than 7th anything or 588th anything’s. The kind of missed opportunity loves, lots of stories about wrong timing, being married at the time to someone else, intense holiday romances  and not based on reality kind of love maybe scored higher. Maybe these too our brain tricks us into believing are true love because like anything we don’t actually have we can in our mind imagine all the amazing ways things, would have, could have been. This too is tied into regrets, regrets as in missed opportunity love, I spoke to a man who decribed his number of loves as 2 and a half, I asked who’s the half and he explained it was a girlfriend who he logistically couldn’t see much timing was wrong so they broke up but later he realized he loved her and tried to rekindle this relationship only to find that she had moved on which made him love her more he lamented. Don’t we always kind of unfortunately value what we can’t have more than what we do have? Horrible human trait yet at times we are all guilty of this, but this leads me to my next waves of thoughts on love.

Love is truly such a rare and mystical thing, caused not by good planning but more happenstance chemistry, because we all know we can’t exactly control who we love. People fall in love all the time with people who clearly are bad or wrong for them, people who bring out the worst in them, people who we should steer clear of abusers, addicts, alcoholics, married people, we fall for anyone at any time almost without reason or logic. YET it’s still such a rare phenomenon that we cling to this feeling, these people in a way that somehow subconsciously we know it may be another decade or so before the next love comes along. Maybe this is why truly giving up on those we love and totally letting go is such a long and painful process. I fell in love once with someone who in many ways wasn’t even my type, yet when I met him for the first time, I instantly knew I was going to fall in love with him. Love at first sight I believe, It’s very unusual especially for me to instantly connect with someone on an intellectual, spiritual, emotional and physical level, never happened before or since really. I was undeniably instantly in love and although my brain over the course of our relationship showed me a million red flags, a million reasons to not be with this person I still was.

Things with the person didn’t work out maybe bad timing, maybe something else, but I did learn something about LOVE along the way. He caused me to analyze what love really is and I came up with these theories. Love isn’t controlling, when someone controls your daily life and behaviors they don’t love you. Love isn’t selfish when someone demands you do unsafe things, when someone has no concern for your health, safety or wellbeing making people drive 5 hours on no sleep to see them this is not love. Love isn’t about taking from someone, not taking money, not using people for social climbing, not using other person for what they can give you or do for you, this is not love. Love is not cheating on each other, lying, manipulating your life to have your cake and eat it to, if someone cheats on you leave them, they DO NOT love you. If you are wanting to cheat you are also not in love. Love is giving but  not allowing anyone to take so much from you that you lose yourself, or allowing yourself to be used or taken advantage of, no one loves you who you would take that much from you.

What love is and should be is unconditional, it shouldn’t be based on money, looks, power or control, love is telling people honestly what you think and feel even when it isn’t great to. Love is leaving the person before you cheat. Love is supporting the persons individual goals and letting them dream as big and as giant as they want to and being there saying yes honey I believe in you and I believe if you want to go into space you can, love is NEVER saying “don’t be ridiculous why do you want to do that”. Love is letting people grow not holding them back and keeping them in their small life, small job if they really want more from life. Love is about realizing yes of course there will be other people you come across you are attracted to but respecting each other and keeping the promises you made not to go down that path with anyone else as it is a choice. Love is actually on a deeper level just choosing to love that person, choosing to believe in them, choosing to be there to make yourself available to that person when they need you, loving someone for the person they actually are, letting them be the person they truly are, good bad or ugly seeing it all and still loving them. Love should never be about what you are taking from the other person true unconditional love has always been about giving to someone, without expectations of what you can get back. This true love is so incredible rare that I really highly recommend if you ever stumble across it, seize it, value it, hold on to it, screw bad timing if there is a will there is a way, do you really have another  decade or  two to wait for your next true love? Like many of us after a break up or divorce I do wonder if true love will ever happen for me again, I think this is a concern for many people, but all I think is you have you believe it’s possible because otherwise would we even bother dating again?

So if you find that true rare love y should thank your lucky stars that your paths crossed,  appreciate it and try as hard as you might not to screw it up…because as my survey said lost love and missed opportunities may perhaps end up being your life’s biggest regret !

 

Tiffany Beverlin

CEO

DreamsRecycled.com

tiffany@dreamsrecycled.com

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