[color=indigo]I don’t believe love is a feeling, it’s an interest in the happiness and well-being of others with no regard to one’s self. This is the most basic, general principle of love. There is no denying any part of it. What really confuses people is love for a life partner, or more specifically love in relationship to sex.
Like Freud always said, the thing flooding our subconcious most of the time is sex, the great obscuring factor to love… it’s very hard to tell sometimes if it’s love or lust you feel. Those who think they are in love because they’re overcome with emotion, blinded by love, et cetera, I do not believe are really in love. Love is not the overwhelming feeling that movies dress it up to be. In fact, one who really understands love has probably never had a clearer, more focused mind. You can’t ignore lust, though. It’s an important, basic, human drive that we all have to fulfill. It is the yin to love’s yang. Sex is the fulfillment of our primal desire for self-preservation and reproduction, whereas love is the fulfillment of our woes and insecurities developed by our intelligent, human minds, giving us a purpose. Part of finding a life partner is the promise of love, understanding and, yes, sex. But if love is simple, and sex is, of course, simple, what is it about the combination that makes it so hard to find happiness? The problem is that all too often, people desire one and not the other (most commonly sex and not love), and it’s hard to find someone to trust… like the yin yang, one without the other can swiftly result in ruin.
The way to really find the right person with whom to share love and sex is to understand what abstinence is all about, why marriage is supposed to be the most sacred of unions. People ask where the lines are between sex and marriage, but they should be one and the same. If you practice abstinence, you’re saying “I’ve denied myself the greatest possible physical pleasure I can experience with another human being until I can find someone who I love more than anyone else, someone who I trust loves me too, someone who will support me as I support them, the two of us together forever. In choosing you as my partner in sex, the ultimate high I’ve reserved for someone I want to spend the rest of my life with, I’m saying that I’m yours forever if you will also be mine.” There couldn’t be a more loving message. If you can say this about a person, doesn’t that mean you could marry them, too? That’s what abstinence is all about.
With a vow like this, it’s important to choose your romantic pursuits carefully. Don’t take the plunge until you know the person very well. You need to be sure that there isn’t something you didn’t know that you just couldn’t level with; y’know, be understanding and accepting of their flaws, but maybe he or she was a racist nazi underneath that outward charm. Even if you think you understand them perfectly, engage them further and find out more! You may find you love them even more, or that there was something that just wouldn’t make it work. You also need to know that they’ll love you back… marriage isn’t just being with the person you love, it’s being with someone you love who loves you just the same, something that’ll last you your whole life. Open your mind to them, because you don’t want them finding out they couldn’t handle too late. Don’t let this scare you away from just innocent dating, though, 'cause that’s how you get to know them in the first place… just be careful about sex.
I don’t know what else to say. Perhaps I am only seventeen, and maybe I’ve never found that perfect person, but… that’s what I think about love.[/color]