Trust, Passion and Love

On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy and Spike find they are pulled together by love. They don’t want to love each other at first, but they can’t contain their feelings and are drawn to each other. Buffy, of course, fights her feelings every step of the way. She resists her own feelings of love in this little bit of dialogue:

BUFFY: I'm not saying I don't have feelings for you. I do. But it's not love. I could never trust you enough for it to become that.

SPIKE: Trust is for old marrieds, Buffy. Great love is wild and passionate and dangerous. It burns and consumes.

BUFFY: Until there's nothing left. That kind of love doesn't last.

And in fiction that kind of love ends tragically. Perhaps it is also true in life.

Tough love.

Can we ever begin to really understand love?

The ancient Greeks had four different words that meant love.

"Eros" was one of those words. It refers to erotic, sexual love.

"Storge" refers to family love, like the love between a parent and child, or perhaps between a husband or wife.

"Philia" is the third word for love. It speaks of a brotherly affection that one might have while in a deep friendship or partnership.

"Agape" is a love that loves without changing. It is a self-giving love that gives without expecting repayment. It is a love so great that it can be given to the undesirable. It is love that loves even when rejected. Agape love gives because it wants to.

So perhaps, when it comes to our so called soul mate, we will love them in all four of these ways. And if we don't, then maybe they are not our soul mate.

Ms. Jones

Why was "Bridget Jones's Diary" such a popular movie? Because it is true to life for a lot of women. They are worried about their weight, yet they can't curb their eating. A few extra pounds and looking for love - because there is nothing worse than spending your life alone.

As Bridget Jones says so well:

"I suddenly realized that unless some thing changed soon, I was going to live a life where my major relationship was with a bottle of wine and I'd finally die fat and alone and be found three weeks later, half-eaten by wild dogs."

Like Bridget, many women picture their wedding to a guy as soon as he expresses an interest.

If men want to understand the unspoken thoughts of many women, watch Bridget Jones's Diary. You might not like it, but it's true. A lot of women are secretly that neurotic, if only in their heads.

Meaning?

"All is fair in love and war."

Is it? For the most part, people can do whatever they want. Nothing is stopping them. Yeah, sure they might have to deal with the consequences later.

But what is fair to you might not be fair to the other person.

Is it fair to have an affair? Well maybe to you. Maybe you needed a break from the everyday as your wife was struggling with the grief of her dead mother. But was it fair of you to turn your back on her?

You can be persistent when it comes to winning a person's heart. It is only fair that you exercise your freedom of speech regarding how you feel. But it is not fair to the other person, when you don't respect their right to say no.

So do you worry about fairness for yourself or the other person?

Love is work.

Why do movies give us false hope that we will find true love?

Maybe love exists, but it is not like the movies.

Real love takes work, sacrifice, compromise. It is living with and putting up with someone who is not quite perfect, sometimes annoying, but lovable nonetheless.

There is no such thing as the perfect man or woman. Do we lower our standards to find love?

Happy endings are endings that haven't really ended yet.

Disappointment

"What do you get when you fall in love? A guy with a pin to burst your bubble. That's what you get for all your trouble. I'll never fall in love again."-Burt Bacharach and Hal David