... of Love and Everything

A close friend and I just had a two-hour conversation over coffee (and its companies, like cheesecake, etc., anything nicely fattening:D), and we spent most of it on the most talked-about issue: love.

It started when I told him about our other friend who's considering breaking off with his girlfriend. Main reason? Boredom. We exchanged views on this friend's situation, how best to handle it, what he should say to this soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend, etc. And somehow our confabulation drew to relationships in general, and - like mentioned above - love.

My friend, a seemingly happily married man, thought that one had better find true love "out there" to make his/her world more colorful (quoting Daniel Sahuleka, hehehehe...). Sparkles and new desires, the fact that it is forbidden, make it even more exciting. Marrying a true love, on the contrary, would only lead to plainness and dullness.

I read and heard similar thing (though in differing wordings) revealed by my guy friends, and by many men. These blokes argue that some additional "flavor(s)" to marriage would spice up the boring companionship. (They would never admit that being a better husband, while having an affair, is reflection of guilty feeling, and wives anywhere in the world KNOW that!)

What is true love, anyway? I feel people just say too much shit about this thing without even be able to define what "love" is. Perhaps they simply refuse to try to. Life is already too depressing to waste your valuable spare time to some useless activities.

But of course, lazy civil servants like my friends and I always manage to allocate some time and make excuses to discuss garbage (including those so-called perspectives on statehood... yuck..)

So I challenged him: "How would you know it is true love [that you find out there]? Only because you want her so bad? That's lust! Don't you think it's true love when you feel comfortable around her, and you can take her just the way she is? Isn't it true love if you can do your own things yet are still bond together?"

"Yeah.. you can say that, but love between a couple needs passion as well."

"So if you lose that passion, you're not in love anymore?"

Bravo! The million dollar question. How many times have we heard men complaining about not having sex as much as they would like to, blaming their frigid wives/girlfriends/partners for their cheating? Of course, as every creature on earth understands, that is only to justify their poligamy tendency (which is actually shared by women, but men won't admit it, because they can't stand competition!).

The civil servants of the Republic of Indonesia concluded this meaningful conversation with questions unanswered. Let them be.