falling in love (is hard on the knees)

So it's been a slow month at work, something I had never imagined I'd be saying in all my life at that place. So slow, in fact, that management has seen it fit to coerce us to take annual leave. So we don't bother them with it comes the next high cycle next month. Now I'm stuck in the house with nothing to do. And as if that were not enough, I flushed my cellphone down the toilet yesterday morning. Literally, it fell in, didn't see it, flushed, realized much later. I actually went limp around my knees when I discovered. It was like I'd just lost a piece of me. For two years that phone had been like my assistant, my personal diary, my datebook, and, of course, my communication device. You tend to develop a bond, when you hang out together that close for that long. Of course, for normal people, it's with other people. Not phones, like me. Oh, to be normal... {{{wistful sigh}}}

So anyways, I have a friend. Who has an interesting relationship with her boyfriend. They broke up coz ostensibly they couldn't stand each other, but continued doing everything they used to when they were dating. So it's "...just the title that wasn't there..." (her words). Anyway, they apparently got back together, but it gave me an interesting angle. I wouldn't know, but letting go must be a really hard thing to do since no one seems to be able to manage it. It's probably the reason all those women go back to those men who beat them up and/or cheat on them. Or why people say first loves never die. Or why men don't survive old age if their spouse dies before them. What I'm wondering is if there's such a thing as love at first sight, if love can be aroused that easily, then why can't it in turn be just as instantly extinguished. I have a different friend, who broke up with his girlfriend, but he wasn't as lucky as that one above - his continued strong feelings sorta went unrequitted. And even he acknowledged how low he'd sunk - calling everyday to see if anything has changed, grovelling - and how crappy it made him feel when he thought about it later, but he says he just couldn't stop himself. The urge to call was in the moment just too strong to resist, and try as he might, the feelings had refused to go away.

That it's called "falling" in love and not "getting" in love or "going into" love or something like that, would seem to indicate that it's something that happens to us despite our best efforts. No one makes themselves fall, falling is something that happens to us by accident - it's called dropping when you do it willfully. But is that so? Do we really have no control over with whom/when we fall in love. I don't think so. If we really had no control, would people have pictures in their minds of what an ideal partner should look like? or how he should act? Coz that means they won't "fall in love" with just anyone, right? And that whole wooing process, it encourages feelings, does it not? Probably even creates some where there might have been none. So we can influence who we love, and when we love, it seems. And if we can do that, we really oughta also be able to make ourselves stop. Of course, that's assuming someone actually wants to stop. Coz I suppose sometimes we're usually bringing it on ourselves. We put ourselves through that whole torture of single-sided love and then play Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You (Air Supply) over and over again and tell ourselves that we are not alone and that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. And then when he comes whispering those things we wanna hear, even though they sound so recited and we can probably tell he's doing exactly that - telling us what we want to hear - we go ahead and dupe ourselves into believing he means it and that he's really changed and it's never gonna happen again and blissfully resume where we left off.

I have a third friend. She met her boyfriend in uni, but they didn't "fall in love" right away. Waited four years to do that, and then went ahead and had a baby together (unplanned, but they moved on and reconciled themselves with the fact), and theirs must have been genuine, coz now they're living happily ever after. So I suppose it's not all bad. I'm not gonna presume that all those people who can't/won't make a clean break are douchebags who are weak. There must be things that draw them to the other person still. And those things must be good things. But regardless, if it's that difficult to end it, then falling in love must be pretty hard on the knees.

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