You Will Only Have Three Great Loves in Your Lifetime

Love is a universal language. A language that deaf can hear and a mute can speak. It is a language that even a newborn child can understand. It can be spoken without uttering a word and heard in the noisiest of the places. 

You know all that. The question that brought you here is how do we know if we are in love? Maybe you are here because it is your first time and you still have doubts. Well, if you have been thinking about someone more than usual, you can’t wait to meet them, you have butterflies in your tummy whenever you think of them, your heart rate increases on the mere sight of that someone and you see a future with them, believe it or not, you are falling in love. These are the first signs of love. How long does it take for these signs to appear? The answer to this question can vary from person to person.

Some may experience “love at first sight” and will know in an instant that it is cupid at work while for some others it may take a few months or years to realize they are in love. The feeling of being in love is entirely different from lust and infatuation and it is also different from the feeling that results from long term relationships.

One does not plan to fall in love. It happens without you even knowing about it. It takes you by surprise and leaves you spellbound. Who do we usually fall in love with has no definite answer. It all comes down to the chemistry between the two persons involved. It can happen in the very first meeting or it can take a few months but once you feel the connection; that’s the moment when you fall in love. It can be a physical feature or a personality trait that you fall for. The person does not need to be physically beautiful or attractive because beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder; the lover in this case. 

According to Plato, we fall in love with our soul mate. Before coming to this world of flesh and bones, our souls lived together in the soul world. In the soul world we lived as androgynous; partly male and partly female in appearance which Zeus, the Greek king of Gods decided to cut into two. We come to this world as individual souls and our soul keeps looking for its perfect mate. It is the other half of our soul that we fall in love with. About love, Aristophanes says:

“Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature. Each of us, then, is a ‘matching half’ of a human whole…and each of us is always seeking the half that matches him.” 

Whether you believe in this Greek myth or not, falling in love is natural and who you fall in love with is a mystery that unfolds by itself. Be ready, because it could be just around the corner. 

The idealistic love exists in novels and movies only. It calls for perfection. The perfect timing, the perfect place, in a perfect way with the perfect someone; the idealistic love is divine and nearly impossible.

Most of us grow up reading fairytales and watching romantic movies. We develop a belief that a knight in shining armor will free us from the witch and will take us to a fairyland where we will live happily ever after or a beautiful princess is sleeping somewhere waiting to be woken up a true love’s first kiss. These stories and movies create an idealistic view of love and marriage in young minds. We start believing in love at first sight, true love’s first kiss, and happily ever after.

Those who believe in idealistic love often face disappointments and heartbreak. The idealistic lovers are novices. They live in a dream world where there is no place for conflicts and disagreements. The idealists often end up in the room of a marriage counselor or a therapist when their bubble of perfect romance pops, the reality unfolds and hits hard.

The second great love is hard love which is the exact opposite of idealistic love. It comes to the harder way and lives through hard times. It revolves around real people and for real reasons. It sees ups and downs and goes through difficult life situations. It sees opposition and conflicts but is strong enough to survive. 

Hard love is when you fall in love with someone you were never supposed to and try to be with them against all the odds. You exchange vows and live a life that real people do. You live a life that begins after “the happily ever after” of the movies and novels. The life that is real but is never shown in any movie; the life which involves having kids, doing grocery, falling sick, having arguments but still loving each other. The hard love stays by your side “till death do us apart”. It is the love experienced by our grandparents and many of us can experience if we work hard enough because hard love demands dedication.  

Easy love is unreal and is definitely not authentic. Real love isn’t easy and easy love isn’t real. Easy love stays at the surface and doesn’t go deep enough. It is more lust than love.

The love that comes easy does not look beyond worldly beauty. Easy love can happen anywhere with anyone and for no obvious reason. Where real love requires effort and hard work, easy love comes easy. It can take a lifetime to find real love; you can fall in “easy love” several times even in a day. As easier it is to fall in; even easier it is to fall out of the easy love. 

If you are looking for a long term relationship, easy love isn’t your thing. Easy love does not want to see hardships and struggles; it never wants to be in a conflicting situation or difficult phases of life. It is the bookish kind of love that is too good to be true.   

Love is a gift and every one of us experiences it at least once in our life. The experience can vary but the basic feeling is universal. No matter how easy it may sound, love can be tricky to handle. You can go through unexpected phases and difficult circumstances where you have to make hard decisions. The road is bumpy but the journey is worthwhile. 

There is nothing you need to know about love except for one thing; be honest and genuine. Artificial or easy love doesn’t live long. It is a hard love that sees real beauty and miracles. 

Falling in love is easy; it is difficult to stay in love. True love asks for compromises and sacrifices. It demands loyalty, honesty, and dedication. It requires forgiving and forgetting. No matter how easy it may sound, true love is tricky to handle. Sometimes you have to experience it more than once to get it right. Not everyone is lucky enough to find their soul mate in the first attempt. 

After going through these three types of love, it might be easier for you to figure out which kind of love you are you experiencing and it will help you decide whether it is right for you or not. In love, you have to take a leap of faith.

When you are in love, everything looks and feels amazing. You feel as if the whole world is revolving around you. If you two are together, nothing else matters. Life seems like a fairytale; but is it enough? This out-of-a-novel romance is just the tip of the iceberg. Love isn’t about everything perfect. True love is neither easy nor idealistic; it is something that comes hard and stays for a longer period of time.

The real love is about caring for the partner, be on their side in times of difficulty and sickness, it is knowing their flaws and accepting them, and moving ahead with all the differences. Real love requires efforts on a daily basis. It starts where Cinderella ends. For those who are looking for easy love, will never find it because easy love doesn’t exist.