Here we go I told my friend why do you love your girl? Emmm!!! She is marvellous at bed. Is that all I queried? She is a fantastic girl and beautiful he said. Is that all I insisted and he mumbled well I don’t know but I guess am sure I do love her. In my discussion with numerous others I realised that most people do not really know why the love a woman (vice versa) neither do they know the meaning of love. Some people believe that they can only love once while others believe that they can love to love again and again and again. In my observation I realised that when a car passes by we manifest our appreciation meaning that we love the car. It could be a pair of shoes suits or what have you. Otherwise how do we make our choices when we go to the market? Again I remember that my mother got married to my father without really knowing each other, but the loved each other and lived happily ever (probably yours). But, when I said this in most of my discussion of this topic I have come across people who said, that was in the past and it can not happen in this modern age. Yet I do know too well that love is a feeling and can not be modernised. It will be intellectual dishonesty to believe the contrary because it is the heart that loves and not the brain.

I have hard most people say that love is blind. Yet I have never seen anybody preferring to love an insane or a social outcast. All the days of my life I’ve seen people running after their choice of person. This does not mean that we don not have different perception or choice but that people have different vision of what the like. I also have hard several times that love is in the eye of the beholder. Even this is not true. Sometimes people tend to get contented with what the have. Suffice it to say that if you can’t get what you want you must alternatively want what you get. That in itself does not mean that your choice is the worst option but it is what you can afford. The conviction of this writer is that there is a different between caring for a girl, wanting a girl or even loving a girl. This will help us in the separation of sex from love. This is because to most people loving a girl means going to bed with the girl. I shall leave the former for my next article and concentrate on the later.

Acceptance is the first step towards wanting, caring and loving a girl and vice versa. As I have concluded in my previous article ‘who is a woman’ a man can not live with the woman and can not without her either (you can read at www.paulokoye.com). From that conclusion we draw the fact that a man can not live with a woman and can not live without her because love is a feeling to be learned. Love is anxiety and contentment, it is deep yearning and hostility, it is pleasure and pain. There can’t be one without the other. Happiness is only a part of love and this is what has to be learned. Suffering belongs to love also and this is the mystery of love, its beauty and burden. Even this has to be learned to reduce the pain of suffering lover’s grief. Now, follow me a little and you will understand the point I am trying to make.

I have a little friend called Sofia. All the days of her life she said that she had a clear picture of who his boyfriend will be. She imagined a tall handsome man. He should be slim, athletic, intelligent, witty, a university graduate and a few years older than her. She knows what she wanted, a lover of music possibly a professor or at least a well paid job. Sofia imagined a man who will bring her gorgeous ‘roses’ as a declaration of his love. Let’s set one point straight at this juncture; no matter how outspoken a girl is she must wait until approached by a man. The irony them is, that all those that approach her may not be those she had dreamed. Again we will leave this for future article. Our Sofia had a clear vision but when Charles came he was a sharp contrast of all that Sofia wanted in a man. He was not exciting. Sofia had no interest in technical things but that was all Charles discussed. Charles was a technical engineer. Sofia prayed endlessly that he will not propose. Suddenly Charles did. He brought no roses but books. When she asks for music or tender word Charles will offer her kisses. Charles just showed up and there he is. He was down to earth. He was distressing and disgusting always talking about sports or studies. Sofia was living under frustration and wondered why man can’t be like woman at least to understand what the woman wants. Sometimes the woman in her came out to make him understand in a thorny way that moonlight do not bring out her desire for closeness as that was all he cared for.

However Sofia did not reject Charles probably she felt she will do that later. One day she began to understand that a man who sent her books could be more serious that a man that sent her roses. She began to appreciate him. She turned over to the book and realised that the book is saying that he wants to understand her. She discovered that Charles was saying he wants to offer her the most important part of his life. The book said I want to share something with you, something that moves my heart. I want to know what you think. To her greatest astonishment one day Sofia stopped loving a slim tall man. For the first time she saw the beauty of Charles. She began to appreciate him. The next day she stood and saw that the steel beams for a skyscraper were hoisted upwards and she thought she should show this to him. Being understood was no longer the problem rather Sofia had begun to understand. Finally Sofia had learnt the first lesson of love which is to let go of ones imagination and not to allow them stand in the way of ones happiness. She had leant to accept the stark realities of human existence and stopped living under vain imagination.

Love is a special feeling. A feeling to be learned. Love means a deep tender feeling. An intense feeling of deep affection. Love is different from infatuation. Love happens but infatuation does not. Infatuation is a follow up of love. Love happens at first instance. If you can not love by the first sight and the first touch you can’t love again. It is the heart that loves but infatuation is of the brain. Love is different from sex although both are synonymous where the special feeling of love is not learned. In that case sex and love become interchangeable. I love a girl then means I went to bed with her. Either may not live without the other. Sex has a beginning and end but love does not. Sex leads to a momentary exhilaration but love does not. Although sex belongs to the romance of love it has to be separated (I hope to find time to write on this go in between in a couple of days). Our figurative ‘Sofia’ was already in love but was living under vain imagination. She was living under her protracted dream until her eyes opened to the reality of her existence. This irony of our existence is that we have always ended up loving those that approached us. This is the confirmation that my mother, our parents got it right because they knew that love will definitely happen when there is touch.

I’ve always hard people say that true love counts no error. I disagree with this statement and prefer to say that the errors are absolved by love. This is where jealousy and possessiveness comes in. the fear of the unknown. How many times have we seen something or somebody we like but until we get into the possession of that person we’ll never care of what happens to the person or the object. When we enter into possession of that person we suffer pain for loosing him, her or the object. Anybody who has ever been in love knows how it pains to suffer lover’s grief. The pain comes from the fear of the unknown. The unknown comes because of our possessiveness and the possessiveness because of the relationship. There is a direct correlation between love and jealousy but that too has to be separated from love. This is because jealousy belongs to the fear of the unknown which is the product of infatuation.

People tend to consider marriage as a consequence of love. But that too is wrong and intellectual dishonesty. Marriage is a contract of agreement and understanding. Although love can foster marriage but the first thing is to understand the purpose of marriage. Marriage has a vision but love is visionless. This vision has to be defined and accepted buy the contracting parties. If this vision of marriage is not defined marriage becomes purposeless and therefore a failed investment. Marriage has a price but love does not. Love is free; it is freedom, caring, peace, soothing, selfless and vanity. Wanting does not belong to love. Love is a special deep tender feeling and has to be learned. Only those who love knows.

Good time

Paul Okoye

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