As we become older, love becomes more complicated. It grows increasingly sophisticated, nuanced, and delicate. It’s tougher to fall in love. Letting go of old romances is much more difficult. Why is this happening? Why doesn’t love become easier every year? This would make more sense. And the truth appears odd — even backwards.
More wisdom and experience should make it simpler to discover love. And, believe it or not, falling in love is partially a choice. Love is not magical on its own; we make it such. With age, the charm disappears. Life’s magic fades, too. Of course, how much magic fades varies on the individual. And, because “true” magic (a la Harry Potter) does not exist, the magic we know occurs when you accept that the answer to life is not knowing the answer.
That is one of the reasons why love’s magical characteristics fade over time. There is less need to wonder as we become more intelligent. The greater your understanding of love and your involvement in it, the more difficult it will be to discover romance. Simultaneously, some of the world’s most intellectual people fall in love at the highest frequency.
So there has to be more to the issue. And there is. To fall in love, you must first experience the need for love. Because if you don’t believe you need or deserve love, you’ll reject it, either consciously or unconsciously. And what does it mean to want or need love? It suggests the somebody is looking for a mate to share life’s adventures with. This individual is, to put it frankly, lonely.
So, the more independent and clever you are, the tougher it will be to find love. Independence, more than intelligence, destroys our relationships.
Think about it. Why do people break up even when things seem to be going well? It’s because they seek independence. They do not wish to spend every day with their significant other. Even if they love each other, they need time to themselves. They need time alone.
When two people get into a relationship, they sacrifice some of their independence in order to form a loving and caring partnership. And it’s just wonderful. However, the more autonomous you are, the more likely you are to experience suffocation. People frequently feel stifled when their partner disagrees on the level of freedom “allowed” in the relationship.
When one individual is much more autonomous than the other, the relationship will become strained. The least independent person will do everything in his or her power to cling to the more independent person, whilst the independent person will do everything possible to gain some breathing distance. One feels harmed, while the other feels stifled.
The difficulty is to find someone who is equally autonomous. Though I’m afraid this doesn’t guarantee anything; your desire for independence will change with time, and there’s no way to forecast what you’ll need in the future. However, having similar requirements for independence increases the likelihood that you will be compatible. “Independence compatibility” is still insufficient. Your intelligence will make matters tough.
Romantic love, at least as we understand it today, is doomed. If you think about it, it’s amusing. We learned how to do mathematics. We have studied about science and literature. I recall learning how to balance a check in eighth grade. However, we were never taught how to love. There are no courses. There is no chapter in the textbook dedicated to it. We enter into love blindly.
And we are naive enough to believe that because love is a natural phenomena, we do not need to learn how to do it correctly. Do you know what else occurs naturally? Running. But we do have professional athletes and trainers. Speaking is natural, but we use expert speakers. Thinking is normal, and we have scholars and philosophers. Love may be instinctual, but there are clearly better and worse ways to love. There is enough to learn.
However, for some reason, we do not create a lesson plan on love. Loving is possibly the most important thing anyone can do in life, yet we don’t teach our children how to do it correctly. So, what happens when the most intelligent people on the globe fall in love? They question it. They want to better comprehend, investigate, and test it. When you are stuck on a math problem, it can be really frustrating. Getting stuck trying to figure out love will almost likely drive you insane.
Love has launched wars. It has taken lives. It has tortured, mutilated, and destroyed. And the more knowledgeable you are, the more bewildered you will be by how our society interprets and depicts love. Because love is based on feeling, it is difficult for an intelligent person to discover and maintain. Emotions will send this individual into a whirl of anxiety.
If you’re seeking for a theory on love, you only need to find one — or embrace the fact that you’re unwilling to face. Love is not amazing on its own. We make it magical. Everything is a mental construct.