Random Thoughts #10- Love or Imaginary Butterflies?

I have to admit, I am in love with love.  Just the idea of it makes me blush.  I'm a sucker for mushy love movies, the idea of  'happily ever after' and 'love at first sight' and cornball talking during courtships.

Being in love with love has its benefits.  I stay optimistic!  Through it all--all the failed courtships and relationships--I keep the high hopes that Mr. Right is just around the corner, within my reach, I just haven't met him yet.  Or--maybe I have some things to work on with me and that's why I haven't met him yet.

But, being in love with love has its downfalls as well.  In society today, we have to face the reality that love isn't so close in your reach as you might think.  You have to kiss a few trolls to find your prince or princess.  In saying that, you have to be very cautious that you aren't placing unwarranted optimism on losers.  Some people present that illusion--that idea that they are 'the one' and just because you want it so badly, you run with that.  You ignore the red flags for the sake of potential love.  You make exceptions for the potential of love.  A wonderful quote I read recently from Iyanla Vanzant is, "A mistake we make in relationships very often is we draw a line, and then when somebody crosses it, rather than enact a consequence, we back up and draw another line."  Profound, isn't it?!  I can attest to this quote.  There have been too many times during courtships where I've ignored a red flag--where they've crossed a boundary-- and, because of the potential of love, I don't address it.  

Then, there's that biological clock issue.  As the days pass, I'm constantly counting down.  I don't have children yet.  I don't have potential love yet.  I can recall writing in my high school Senior Book, mapping out my life.  It said that I'd be married by the time I was 25 and have two children by the time I was 30.  Now, at 34, I reflect back to that and laugh.  Sometimes, life just doesn't pan out the way you plan it.  And, I think, when we get into our 30's we stop being so concerned about the fun and start focusing on the future.  And the biological clock starts ticking because--who wants to be a lonely old lady with a slew of cats or a lonely old man with pockets full of change, making inappropriate comments to perky young women?  I know I don't want that!  I want the fairytale. And, despite popular opinion, I still believe that it exists.  

But, the main point is, considering all of the downfalls of being a love-starved person, you run the risk of being considered needy or thirsty or desperate and THAT is unattractive, sending you right back to square one.  It's okay to want love, to be in love with the idea of love, but it's not okay to want it so bad that the naturalness of courtship disappears. 

Love is a tricky thing.  It's easy to mistake whether it's infatuation (imaginary butterflies) or the real thing, especially when you've never experienced love or haven't experienced it in a while.  But, there are ways to differentiate between the two.  Love is the feeling that you get when all the guards are down, you're fully relaxed, you no longer sugarcoat stories or present a representative, you've had a disagreement, you've experienced something that you don't like about a person and made the decision to keep them around anyway.  Love is a connection, not a forced one, not a sexual one, it's an imaginary energy that draws you to a person that seems to be magnetic in the presence of one another.  It's undeniable and both parties can feel it.  It's a place where you can converse without words.  It's the intoxicating feeling that you get after a kiss or a simple touch when you haven't had a drop of liquor to drink.  It's those moments when you say the same thing at the same time or you pick up your cell phone to text them and it buzzes with a text from them.  

Imaginary butterflies is similar.  It has the intoxicating feeling too, the flightiness, the non-stopped thinking about a person.  These feelings are usually at their strongest when you are NOT in the presence of that person.  Usually infatuated people battle with the thought of whether to tell the person how they feel because they fear rejection.  Love, on the other hand, is free-flowing--there's no apprehension about sharing your feelings.  Usually infatuated people rationalize their feelings.  They have to tell everyone--mostly to convince themselves that it's real.  And, most of the time, in rationalizing the infatuation, they have either knowingly or unknowingly ignored a red flag.  A good way to test whether you are a victim of the imaginary butterflies is to speak every detail of your courtship aloud excluding nothing--even the missed calls, the cancelled dates, the odd comments, the resistance.  If you find any holes, anything questionable or fishy or out of the norm, then you, my friend, are infatuated.  

Now, I don't claim to be the love guru.  However, I speak from experience.  I'm a lover of love. I've experienced those imaginary butterflies on too many occasions.  I haven't experienced love in almost 6 years; I almost forgot what it felt like until now.  I just realized the difference and had to share my thoughts with the world.