What is Love? (part 2)

What is love?

It’s a question I haven’t answered just yet, but I’ve been getting a better idea of it lately.

I gave up dating. Yeah, it sounds kind of funny for a sophomore in college to be saying something so dramatic, and, to be honest, a little unrealistic. It isn’t, though, is it? I’m not doing it to be a dramatic teenager who’s gone through one too many bad relationships. That’s not it at all. So let me give you the background behind this.

In middle school, I decided I wouldn’t date until college. It wasn’t my father’s rule—his limit was 16. No, it was my own rule. Why did I do it? Because it was perfectly sensible. I didn’t want to date until I was prepared to marry.

Of course, by the time I reached 11th grade and was allowed to enter the world of available singles, I had changed my mind. I dated a young fellow named Trevor and didn’t mind having a “boyfriend,” but honestly, I knew it wasn’t love. In the back of my mind, every time I said “I love you,” it was followed by a feeling that the words were incomplete. They ought to have been followed by words like, “but I know I’d never marry you,” or “but I can’t even see us getting through this summer.” I knew it was incomplete, but I continued in it anyway. I had never had a boyfriend—what did I know? What if this is how it was supposed to be?

When that relationship ended, I vowed, once again, not to date until college. This time, I kept my vow. I refused more than one boy who asked for my affection, and I did not feel guilty doing it. I knew I was doing the right thing.

Once I was in college, I fell quickly into a relationship with a cute, friendly young man. It didn’t last long, but it was enough to get me seriously thinking about whether or not I wanted to be dating. Essentially, I knew I did not love him, and it bothered me that I would want to be with someone who I knew I did not love and who did not love me.

So I did some thinking. Hah, some—I did a LOT of thinking. I felt like, subconsciously, I was listening to all the stories of my friends, peers, teachers, and elders, and I was coming up with a very curious answer. After considerable thought, I concluded that I would not date.

Again, I’m not just being dramatic because I had been broken up with twice—I genuinely have no desire to date unless it is what God has for me. God’s revealed to me a little bit, a tiny bit about love. Let’s see if I can explain my revelation.

When a person loves another person, it’s not necessarily a romantic love. For example, I love my friend Holt. He is a kind young man, sensible, and strengthened by God, and I admire many of his traits. He inspires me to be better, and I him. It is a mutual relationship in which we both inspire the best of each other. He knows I will love him no matter what he does, but he also knows that I can see his potential.

But he is not someone I will date or marry. I love him, but he is not right for me. Trust me, it’s something you can tell.

So what is love, then? What is it that brings people together in holy matrimony? What is it that makes people stay together for the rest of their lives?

My father had many wise things to say on the topic when I told him I was pulling myself out of the dating populace. I had decided that the love of my life was simply something to leave up to God, which, of course, is not wrong. That has not changed. The inspiration was hearing the stories of my teachers. In several cases, the teachers I know who are very much in love with each other were drawn together by God. It was sort of like “love at first sight,” except so much deeper than what those words imply. It was God-given knowledge that when they met, one of them thought, “That’s the person I’m going to marry.” Even when their mind denied such a thought, the thought remained there, and on their wedding day, I wonder what a holy moment it was when they admitted to each other that it was God that drew them together.

That was my inspiration, that someone would see me one day, and think, “That’s the girl I’m going to marry.” I fear it will take a lot to convince me, though, which is why only someone sent by God would be able to get me to marry him.

As I said, my father had some interesting things to say to widen my perspective.

There are many people in this world with whom one can make a marriage work. Putting the love part aside, marriage is not just joining two people in love—it’s a commitment. It is a promise to make things work for as long as they both shall live. It is a contract. It has nothing at all to do with love. Love can even come after marriage.

Take an arranged marriage. It is possible to marry someone and learn to love him or her. It is not impossible, and it is only an unwillingness to make it work that will make a marriage fall apart. When two hearts are in agreement, what can stop them? Only each other.

In our society, we don’t have arranged marriages anymore, which is just fine. We have the opportunity and freedom to refuse someone simply because we do not love them. We have the liberty to choose our own partners, and, unfortunately, the liberty to tear apart that partnership and start another one. That is why it is so important that love be a part of the marriage.

There are levels, my father explained. There are levels of compatibility between people. He labeled them: attractiveness, financial position, morals, and values. When two people are compatible in all these levels, it causes much less strain on a relationship. That isn’t to say it’s the magic formula for every relationship to work. It is saying that It is simply easier to make this kind of relationship work. It is possible, too, to make relationships work outside of the levels of compatibility—love’s funny that way. Or at least, what we all think love is, that inexplicable word.

I want to add a fifth component to those four levels. I’ll call it the God-factor, for lack of a better term. To be honest, I could love someone who is perfectly compatible for me, but if God doesn’t give me the OK, I will not marry him. I don’t know how He will make it known to me, but He will.

And so, I have given up dating. I will not further embellish it, but let’s just say it’s a test of sorts, and only one who has God’s blessing will have the endurance and courage to pursue me until I say, “yes.” And if that means I’m single for the rest of my life, I’m okay with that.

So, what is love?

I have no idea.