WHEN IT COMES TO LOVE- MORE IS LESS

We humans pride ourselves on being (one of the) only species to be capable of love and other higher emotions. We often use our capacity for romantic or unconditional love as an argument that proves our superiority. ‘Love makes the world go round’ and all that jazz. One would think that a race that has been given such a unique gift, the ability to feel love, we might be a little less afraid and more grateful for it. I guess not.

I recently chanced upon a Thought Catalog article ‘Date a man who loves you more’. It was well written no doubt, but the fundamental thought behind left a sense of disquiet in me. It advocated spending your life with someone who loves you more than you love them, which not only means that someone loves you for all your flaws, but will also ensure that you have a stable and easy life (if not a passionate one). What I say further is in no way a reply to that article (God bless the writer and the person she’s taking all that extra love from). Actually long back, I had read the quote ‘Don’t marry the person you love, marry the person who loves you’, and though it seems like sturdy advice for an assuredly good life, I remember feeling that same disquiet even then.

What’s wrong with being with someone who loves you more, you might ask. Nothing of course. Being the object of affection for anyone is a great privilege, not to mention a huge ego boost. Someone loving you more means that you never have to change for anyone, as the person will think that you are God’s most perfect creation even when you yell at them to get them some soup as you noisily expel your snot. In sickness and in health...remember? Marrying (or co-habiting with, no judgement) assures you that you will always have someone to hold you, listen to you, share your dreams and fears with, watch sappy movies with and contentedly grow old with. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Except, it’s just too…convenient.

Because deny it all you want, for all our talks of adventure and thrill, we are a pretty boring bunch of people with mundane lives. More often than not, our bucket list remains in the bathroom (heh, heh) and we live out our lives vicariously on Pinterest boards and bookmarked travel websites. We take up safe jobs to ensure a monthly income and wait for the weekend to vent out the pile up frustration and have enough semblance of fun to survive the next week. All in the hopes of living a stable, cushioned life with minimum unpleasant surprises. Doesn’t it bother anyone that we club a thing as love with all these other mundane things, without a thought for what it does to our lives?

If love is what makes us humans capable of great feats that draw superhuman strength from a mysterious reservoir when the need comes, shouldn’t it be the thing that exalts us, makes us feel more than mindless beings on an aimless journey, and to make it simpler, feel alive?

And that is what being with someone who loves us more takes away from us. It barters the limitless potential that is tapped in love with a safe, assured and staid life. If being in love is a free fall, why do you want the rope of a guaranteed relationship tying you down?

When it comes to all other kinds of love- be it parental, love between friends or even towards your pets, we compete and argue about who loves the other more. Why is it that when it comes to ‘romantic’ love, we settle for someone doing additional loving that they’re not getting back? I reckon that it’s all a power game, after all, isn’t it said that the person who loves more always holds lesser power in the relationship? A relationship that dangles the sword of helpless love over you all the time is not much of a relationship to begin with. And at the lowest common denominator, isn’t it a HUMONGOUS blow to our self esteem that we hope to spend a lifetime on someone else’s charitable love without doing our part? And how is it fair to the other person to not experience what it is like to get more love than they can fathom? Split restaurant bills down to the middle all you want, that alone does not constitute true equality.

P.S.- If I'm being snarky, I'd say that most of us have done nothing for the Universe to owe us this kind of abundance, of delivering a love-loaded significant other at our listless doorsteps)

Love, in its best form, gives you courage, so why do people run away from the ultimate power that comes from feeling inhumanly protective towards the one you love? Loving someone more makes you challenge yourself every day, and be a better person at each turn, not because you want to be worthy of the other person, but because you won’t accept anything lesser for yourself. Love opens up your eyes to new possibilities of adventure and laughter; please don’t let them wither away for the practicality of having someone to share monthly expenses with. True love means never getting complacent and comfortable with our imperfect selves, and growing stronger and wiser together, because that is what this emotion demands of us. What’s the point of just getting old hand in hand if you have nothing to show for all those years?

Mediocre movies follow the same formula- Be confused about your true love, flirt with the risky proposition and in the end, tie your apron strings to the person who is crazy as a cuckoo about you (Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, I’m looking at you with all of Ajay Devgan’s bravado in the when faced with the wrong end of the gun). And that has become our idea of ‘Happily Ever After’- a life of conjugal bliss after the tiring merry go round that is find-a-hapless-soul-who’ll-have-me.

I don’t mean to say domesticity or a guarantee of forever love is bad. Just that this should not come at the cost of real, devastating and undiluted love that doesn’t whip out a calculator to measure which party has doled out more love. I know it’s human nature to want more than we pay for, but love is not a sabzi mandi, where you bully the poor vendor into giving you more lemons or coriander than you paid for.(It’s OK, we’ve all done it). I also know that it’s scary to give someone more of yourself when there is a distinct possibility of all of it blowing up in your face and giving you serious trust issues.  But all I’d like to say is that when the blessed time comes for you to say ‘I Love You’, don’t let there be a silent asterisk which says-

*Less than you love me

Be the bigger person and give all that you have without getting your weighing scales out. There is the slight selfish hope that all of it will come around and make your life rosier (is that a word?) but it can be done simply for the fact that when you do this, you’ll love yourself more than you ever have too. And that, in my book, is a bargain worth striving for.