If Love Was A Gun
I watched something the other night, a documentary infact. I’m reluctant to tell which one. Just because I think what I got from it and what the average viewer will get from it are probably two very different things. I’m sure I am probably missing the point entirely. But it’s something I think about from time to time and it really struck me seeing an example of it portrayed on screen in front of me.
Essentially this man had lost his one chance at true love. Perhaps he didn’t realise that’s what it was in the moment that it happened, but in the hindsight of old age it seemed manifestly obvious. His lover was his only experience of love. Removed from his parents as a child and brought up by others, strangers, in a clinical unaffectionate way, he maintained he’d never been taught how to love another person or indeed himself.
I find it interesting that so many fishing analogies lend themselves to the language with which we address ideas relating to romantic love. We talk in terms of “the one that got away” (perhaps exaggerating the traits of the lover in the same way we might the traits of the fish), while reassuring ourselves that there are “plenty of fish in the sea.” And I think in some ways that is true – there are certainly a lot of people in the world. But that metaphor doesn’t really speak to the quality of the ‘fish’ and I wonder on some level if you can have many encounters with other people without finding a sincere connection.
And if that is true… what do we take from it? I know people who look upon dating as just another process. They might liken it to getting a job. You cast your net wide (erm, more fishing?) and see what happens. There’s a part of me that really thinks this is a terrible, deeply cynical idea, but other people swear by it. To them it’s a practical reality. And frankly how do you meet anyone without putting yourself out there in social situations?
I’m sure my thinking has been conditioned by a slew of romantic ballads, movies and television shows. Those romances that seem to surpass everything. It doesn’t seem to matter that those ballads are often sung by singers whose personal life is one grandiose (and highly publicised) trainwreck after another. It doesn’t seem to matter that the writers of many of those ballads were motivated more by their potential royalty cheque than adoration for any existing human being. Romeo and Juliet might be the greatest love story ever told for no better reason than the romance didn’t last long enough to meet the inevitable conflicts that occur in any relationship.
Leave a Reply