Jess’ guide to love

Lately, as sad as it sounds, I've found my thoughts constantly drifting towards my blog, and thinking about things I can write about. Well, it's just occurred to me, as I spend some long overdue quality time with my iTunes, there's one thing that I haven't ever really wrote about. I've been writing my blog for over a year, and I've never really written about one of the very few things we all obsess over at some point. Love!

Now before you try to find the nearest bucket – don't worry, soppiness isn't really my style. The reason I've chose to write about this now – is because, being the biggest cliché' of a girl ever, I watched, and for about the millionth time, was left deeply saddened by The Notebook last night. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's an epic love story that's ruined by life's ugly ageing process. The film made me think about a lot – are there people that go through the whole of their lives without experiencing life changing, soul shattering love? And more importantly, are these people the lucky ones? Does one love influence the next? And is it all really worth it?

I know that a lot of people think you can't really experience love until you're older – but I beg to differ. When you're my age, love's just a bigger deal. It's not over-shadowed by the perils of life that only become apparent once we enter adulthood. When you're young and in love, you don't have life's ugly distractions and complications. You don't have the sexual connection muddling up all of the other connections that two people can have. I'm not particularly speaking from much experience, but like most things in life, love's a much happier prospect the younger you are. The older you get, the more your logic fights to take over your heart, and the more you think sensibly. When it comes to the great matters of the heart, in my opinion, the less it makes sense, the better. It seems that I'm now reaching the age where love has the potential to become more of a depressant than a necessity.

A few days ago, a good friend and I were discussing her relationship. The conversation went something like this.

"He loves you?"

"Yeah...he said he does"

"Do you love him?"

"Well, it hasn't really been that long, has it? I don't know if I do"

"Then, you don't"

"Yeah..."

Now I'm not normally so blunt, I assure you. But why do films, books and songs make love out to be such an enormous affair? So much so that we feel like under-achievers in comparison, unless our love lives involve nothing less than debilitating butterflies, breathtaking first meetings and running alongside moving trains.

From my own perception, I've seen that adults go about relationships with such practicality, such precision and logic. But the minute love becomes logical – what's the point? You can't control and categorise the one thing in life that isn't meant to have an explanation behind it. Adults 'stay together for the children', their relationships are invested with mortgages and they take it in turns to do chores, yuck. To me, love goes unscathed by life's insipid chores and responsibilities.

Just to throw some contradiction into the mix, on some levels, I think that the older you get, the wiser you get about relationships. I'm not referring to the ways in which couples communicate or negotiate, but the ways in which they deal with the heartbreak. I can already tell that I've become a little bit immune to feelings. Love stops becoming about catching the last bus home smiling, lying on the grass all night hoping to hold hands and five hour conversations about nothing. Love, in my eyes, becomes a malevolent force as soon as we allow it to. I guess I can summarise this by saying that some people believe fabricated love stories more than others. Which  can ruin romance in the real sense of the word – the car rides and arguments – not carriages and momentous, breath-taking love that takes all of the bad away.
I think sugar-coating is best left to the mini-eggs.