The following scenarios are taken from recent communications. (I’ve altered certain things and omitted others. Some may or may not recognize pieces of themselves in which case I apologize in advance, I mean no disrespect.) I felt rather compelled for some odd reason to make some what I am afraid will be ramblings on the subject.

Scenario One

He’s honest and loyal, treats you like a queen and has the means to do it. He is rather set in his ways, a child of the forests and seasons, but you think that if you could polish this rough diamond up just a bit he’d be just perfect. He has been starving for love for a very long time and for a short while he allows you your ‘improvements’. Soon it wears thin, he is after all a MAN, and men secure in their ways often do not do changes well. It goes against their grain so to speak, and there is the ultimate rebellion, rejection and retreat to lick their wounds.

The truly sad part is that most women of today when faced with a man (or woman) steeped in the ways of nature, go about killing the wildness, the very thing which attracted them first about this person. They do this with the best of intentions, mistakenly believing that their actions arise out of love.

Once you are set in your ways, it is very difficult to adapt yourself to another person. Love has nothing to do with it; sheer co-existence can be a challenge.  Had they accepted the person for who and what they truly are, they would find much of what they are looking for.

Scenario Two

A young woman of my acquaintance is married with 3 young children whom she adores. Her spouse is in the military and was deployed overseas. Prior to his leaving, they discussed divorce and not for the first time. While he was gone she fell in love with someone else. The spouse came home unexpectedly to find another man in his house, bed and with his wife and children.

Needless to say he did not take it well. He is now back overseas, and the young woman and her lover are dealing with the aftermath. They truly care for each other; the marriage is over in her view. The lover just wants the best for her and the kids.  The husband says that no one is going to take his wife without a fight. He’s using the threat of taking the kids away forever with no visitation rights as a weapon to ensure her compliance. All three are flirting with disaster, all in the name of love. My primary concern is the children and yet my heart aches for them, and that includes the husband who hasn’t a clue why the woman he loves has done a 1-80 on him.

Scenario Three

Someone says that you are the only one they will ever love, they alternate between threats that if they can’t have you no one will, to threatening suicide if you don’t return their affections. You are convinced that they are more than half serious in these comments and take steps. You may begin to carry a weapon, change your name, phone number and move, change jobs, and avoid places that he knows you like. He finds you, hires people to help him do so, documents your every move. Any new endeavor or friend is a threat and therefore must be eliminated or otherwise neutralized. You become more paranoid, your ‘spider senses’ tingle and you dread the moment that the other shoe will drop. You know that it will, just not when.

This is not love. This is obsession and fixation and a dangerous one at that. RUN - do not walk where someone can assist you. If no one will listen or believe you, continue to document on your own, keep records, seek professional assistance, be it police, support groups, whatever.

Scenario Four

 You’ve been with him for some time now. Most nights he falls asleep in front of the TV with a beer. You clean up; put the kids if there are any, to bed. He doesn’t offer to help and expects to be waited on, to have his dinner delivered. He doesn’t ask about your day but often tells you about what a crappy one he has had. You’re tired, he’s sat on his ass, lord king and mayor of his domain. You are the chief cook, bottle washer, maid, nanny, chauffer, nurse, and accountant. You go to bed, seeking that most divine of all elusive things…sleep. You wonder where the romantic man you married who used to help you, who used to kiss you and hold your hand went. The insensitive man in the other room bears little or no resemblance to the man you remember and who captured your heart.

Later he may come to bed. He may or may not wake you up to fuck, you can’t call it lovemaking. He rolls off you grunting and starts snoring. This too is not love. This is the day to day existence which sucks dry the very well-spring which feeds love. Love needs to be worked at; it doesn’t just grow by itself. Does he love her? He may or he may not, and often doesn’t even have a clue why she has her ‘moods’. Does she love him? As he becomes more and more insensitive a thousand little ‘wrongs and slights’ begin to chip away at any feelings for him she has left.

Scenario Five

They are the other half of your soul, true soul mates. You both know it. It’s never been like this before, tho the two of you have never met. You’ve exchanged countless emails, and telephone calls. Perhaps even sent photos or shared web-cams. Their voice makes you melt. Every waking moment you day dream of them and the wonderful life the two of you will share. You are ready to give up anything just to be with them.

This first flush, is this love? Are there indeed soul mates? Is that what love truly is - the compulsion to find that individual who completes you somehow? Put to the test of time, will this last? When you meet will each of you past the test and end up where joint hopes and dreams have led you both?

And should it for some reason not end up on the path you had hoped and dreamed for. In disappointment do you cut all ties because it didn’t measure up to your expectations? Will you miss out on the friendship, the sharing of your lives because they weren’t ‘the one’ after all? What a waste.

Someone once told me a story about man's preocupation with that emotion. The Gods, afraid that man would one day be greater than the Gods themselves, voted that humanity be exterminated. The Goddess of Love who was herself in love with a mortal man, threw down her mirror and when it shattered decreed that each man and each woman would have their souls split into as many pieces as her mirror. That each soul would be too busy searching for the other pieces of itself that humanity wouldn’t have time to challenge the power of the Gods.

Thus each of us search our whole lives looking for that special someone, the other half of our souls, and this is the search for love. Perhaps this explains why some people love many, we find bits and pieces in several different individuals.  Regardless, true love remains the greatest of our emotions, from which spring self-sacrifice, loyalty, dedication, passion.

Perhaps it is, who knows?