True Love

'Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous,
and it pricks like a thorn.'

Romeo and Juliet

Someone was recently bemoaning not having met her life partner. 'I meet guys, but I'm not sure about them, and in the end, I can't be bothered.'

In this day and age do people, grown people, really believe they have one predetermined lover that they just have to stumble into before the sparks can let fly and the lifetime of bliss begin?
Where does the nose picking come in? The farting? The regular fights because one of you, when unpacking the dishwasher, apparently can't tell the difference between a serrated dinner knife and a non-serrated butter knife? No matter how many freaking times I point it out. She just doesn't care and throws knives in the drawer like a fourteen year old attempting to hide his skin mags stash while his mother breaks down the bedroom door.

Sex, sure, by all means start with the desperate, urgent, "can you wait 'till we get home, 'cause this pub's toilet cubicles have locks?" sex. It'll pass; and then one horrible, grey, day you'll find that both CSI: Wherever and Law & Order: Dog Squad are repeats and you have to talk to each other about something.

Your star-crossed, eye-glazed, slack-jawed love ain't going to help you out of that one.

Love is not some external force, striking you down like Ebola. It's not going to happen to you. You have to build it, and to do that you have to commit to it.

Take your object of affection, strip away the finery, add tracksuit pants, uggies and five kilos. Picture him scratching there because it's comfortable, or her running away leaving you holding the dog when it craps in the water in front of fifteen beach-going families.

Now love that with all your heart.