THE REAL LOVE HISTORY CLUB

Is love ever real? Is love always real?

After having consumed a few too many drinks last night, I called a friend who had likewise just arrived home from the bar. At one point the conversation turned to the confusion of love. I spoke a few posts back about a guy who had attempted suicide because his wife left him to pursue another man she had been having an affair with for several years. The suicidee decided life wasn't worth living without her love, that he would never feel so strongly for another. Three months later, after a failed attempt to end his life, he has fallen madly (maybe too correct a term) and deeply in love with a woman he dated ten years ago.

I think we've probably all been in a failed relationship at some point and seriously contemplated the odds of ever finding a connection with someone as "deep" and "real" as the prior union. Only weeks, months or years later we've met someone who elicits feelings as strong, if not stronger, than what we had previously experienced. But here is where is gets a bit confusing; when we hear from the first "love" our heart STILL skips a beat. The emotions we once poured forth for the individual stirs once again. And it always will, never fading away...maybe just fading slightly due to a dusting of cobwebs. Then we experience another failed relationship and move on to another person who simply MUST be "the one" and so we have just added a further member to our "real love" history club.

Are all of these "real" loves? Does "real" love exist at all? I think we would all agree there are levels of love. Which is that powerful "real" love?

I have no doubt that the guy who attempted suicide felt as deep a love as he could for his cheating spouse. And I don't doubt that at an earlier point in his life, prior to meeting his wife, he felt just as deeply for this woman he is currently sharing a reunion with. What I do question is this - when he was in the prime love state within his marriage, was he still thinking of the previous woman as his "real" love? No, he was in a marriage with his "real" love. So then that ended. And now he's transferred that "real" love back to a place where it originally resided. And if it doesn't work out for the two this time around, he'll either attempt to kill himself for a falsely(?)-unique desire now crippled, or transfer the "real" love to the next giddy receiver.

If the emotions are so strong for someone that you would rather die than live without them by your side...and then you replicate those thunderous emotions for someone else, it MUST be love - for what other word do we have? But is it the kind of love we all seek? Is it that love where you question anyone could possibly understand? Is it special? Was it ever?

WHO FLIPPED THE SWITCH?

I've been watching the news the past two days about this Virginia Tech massacre. The whole thing seems surreal but the craziest part to me is the randomness of the violence. It seems like the gunman had made up his mind that he was going to take out as many people as he could (whether he knew them or not) before he turned the gun on himself.

When did the idea of a massacre take the place of an ol' fashioned suicide? When I was in high school and college and someone was depressed or felt the world offered nothing beneficial to them anymore they killed themselves. The thought of taking out random individuals first...well, it wasn't a thought...I don't think...

What happened? When did the world get to the point where it is filled with so much desperation, anger and resentment that you not only want to kill yourself but you want to hurt people you don't even know on your way out? What could have happened to this kid?

It's all very sad. I hope this isn't an indication of a substantial loss of respect for life and people by society as a whole that would bring this on, but instead the actions of an ignored psychopath.