UNCONDITIONAL vrs CONDITIONAL

It isn’t easy to state with accurate precision what love is; I don’t think any one person has succeeded in exhausting love in a description because it is just that- indescribable. But that doesn’t mean people haven’t tried. Bernard Shaw said that love was the most misused and misunderstood word in our vocabulary. I agree. How would you define love? Here are a collection of love definitions from sources I cannot recollect at this time.

• -         Love is a state of perpetual anesthesia.
• -         Love is a grave mental disease.
• -         Love is a fiend, a fire, a heaven, a hell, where pleasure, pain and sad repentance dwell.
• -         Love is a folly of the mind, an unquenchable fire, a hunger without surfeit, a sweet delight, a pleasing madness, a labour without repose and repose without labour.
• -         Love is a feeling you feel when you feel you are going to get a feeling you never felt before.
• -         To love someone is not just a strong feeling- it is a decision, a judgment, a promise.
• -         Love is what makes you smile when you are tired.
• -         Love is an unconditional commitment to an imperfect person.

My personal favourite is the last. You may disagree with all of these, which is fine. Or maybe you don’t believe in love at all, cool. I just want us to discuss if the term ‘unconditional’ can be used in the description of love and if love ends.

Maybe there was a time in your life once when you felt so strongly about someone (in a good way) that you thought it was never going to change. Maybe you still do. Or you are the kind that believes that feelings are based on circumstances and you are open to whatever the wind blows your way for as long as it stays in your way; and when it moves on so do you, in search of the next best thing.

I know from all that I have read myself and all I have been told that God loves all of us limitlessly, unconditionally. And when I look at that I am tempted to apply it to humans; if God loves us unconditionally then we should be able to love each other same. Well, I spoke to a few people and some are of the opinion that unconditional love exists only between parents and their children and between siblings (even that is questionable) and never between any romantic involvements.

So to some, the love between a guy and a girl not related by blood happens because of a point of attraction. We usually have an idea of the kind of person that we want to be with and when we meet someone that satisfies those things we want to see, that person becomes our automatic choice. And so when the people change, in that we do not see what we used to or what we want then the feeling goes away.

For instance, you want a dark guy, tall enough to be taller than you, not too heavily built, easy on the eyes and the nose(here I mean body odour). And the specifics that go beyond the physical like their temperament, relations with people especially you and all of that. Now, you are in love with the idea of this fictional person. So when you meet someone who fits, he becomes the guy of your dreams and you are drawn to him. When whatever it was that drew you to him changes, so does the way you feel. And you embrace the next person that comes who seems to have everything you want, or close to everything.

And just like that the love you felt for someone fades away or dies or disappears, however you wanna put it. But it doesn’t stay forever; it goes at some point or at best, diminishes. What about those who get married, then? Does this mean that they settle for mediocrity just for the sake of settling down? Because then it isn’t fair to either of them if one’s feelings change. 

Lemme give you a vivid example. I was listening to radio one night and this guy was looking for some advice. He’d been courting this lady for a year and they were making plans for marriage. Now, this guy was keen on ass and his lady had plenty; it influenced his choice and she knew it. So she comes over to spend the night one time and he discovers that her ass is fake! It was one those undies or something… According to the letter, he love he felt for her just disappeared. Imagine that! So his question was whether to leave the lady or ignore the butt and go on with the wedding. What advice would you give this guy, please tell me.

I’ll call this superficial love because per the Oxford dictionary’s definition of the word superficial is something “appearing to be true, real or important until you look at it more carefully”.  Because you love someone because of something and when that thing changes (aside cheating, I’m told it is the most common misdemeanor in relationships) so does how you feel.

But some are of the view that how is it even possible that love fades or disappears or diminishes? Because if it does then it wasn’t love in the first place. Next, we’ll talk about this other love. The unconditional one.