Not to be mistaken for l-o-v-e, minus the quotation marks, which is a totally different subject altogether. I’m talking about “love,” love’s obnoxious, awkward, half-retarded cousin; the product of extensive inbreeding in the already frivolous world of feelings and emotions. Granted, there are some who honestly can testify to having the privilege of experiencing love in all of its mentally-retarding splendor, but let’s be honest here. Most of our generation doesn’t know the meaning of “being in love”. They simply emulate and imitate, and pretend to be doing what all of the other kids are doing. Kind of like cigarettes and Christianity. But can we blame them? In a society where ignorance is bliss, government approved “education” is mandatory, and our schools supply us with falsified, outdated textbooks that teach us to glorify rapists, murderers, and common thieves? From birth, we are brainwashed into modeling ourselves after the archetype of the white picket fence American whose only real purpose for living is to get married and procreate, maintaining the survival of our species. The top percentile of political ass-kissers are then chosen to manipulate the rest of the country like pawns in a chess game, as so eloquently demonstrated by the thousands of Americans lying dead in Iraqi soil, yet to find a single weapon of mass destruction. But I suppose that’s a story for another day.
Right-wing enthusiasts are infuriated by the mockery homosexuals are making of the “institution of marriage.” I, on the other hand, am infuriated by the mockery the “institution of marriage” makes of love. Around HALF of all American marriages end in divorce, you’ve got wackos like Mary Winkler shooting her preacher husband in the back and taking “’til death do us part” to a completely new level, but yet, the institution of marriage is absolutely sacred and inviolable, and must not be defiled by “fags?” Nor by blacks or Jews for that matter, but because laws have been passed against racial discrimination and it’s been frowned upon in society lately, I guess it’ll have to slide? Fuck you. I’m sorry to break it to you, conservative America, but it’s not homosexuals making a mockery of married couples, it’s married couples that are making a mockery of themselves. I find it of questionable ethic that two completely committed people of the same sex shouldn’t be able to get legally married in the same country that’s home to drive-thru chapels.
However, it’s not just marriage that’s being fundamentally raped, but LOVE itself. It’s saddening that we, as the next wave of total idiots, don’t know love from mild nausea. It’s just the idea that kids are ready to sound the wedding bells once they feel butterflies, when Pepto Bismol would be just as effective, that makes me slightly concerned. I guess it’s a step up from the olden days when Papa would sign you off to old peg-leg Joe down the street once you started riding the cotton pony, but honestly kids, let’s not overdo it. There’s puppy love, a.k.a. hormones, and there’s honest-to-goodness love.
Now I’ve got this friend, and in the interest of privacy, I’ll leave his name out. But anywho, I’ve got a friend, and he’s got love written all over his face. Not that long ago, we sat down and had a little chat about life and love, and he told me his story. Met a girl a few years back, fell head over heels for her. She pulled knives on him, tried to have him killed, threatened him, caused him bodily harm on countless occasions, cheated on him every time he blinked, ultimately ended up having him arrested. At this point, my eyes were starting to roll by themselves, because this kid obviously couldn’t have known the meaning of love so much as the meaning of a low budget PG-13 thriller. But I kept listening, and I really started to understand what he was saying. She certainly wasn’t perfect by anyone’s account… except for his. He stuck by her side through thick and thin, come hell or high water. He loved her fiercely, and refused to leave her even when she begged him to, and he never regretted a thing. She even sicked the pigs on him, but you know what? His response wasn’t anger, as any normal man’s reaction would reasonably be. It wasn’t bitterness. It wasn’t fear, or spite, or hatred. As they cuffed him and started to drag him away, he didn’t stop yelling “I love you” until she was out of sight.
They went their separate ways, as most young couples do. It was too much for her to handle, and he respected that. He’s since moved here to Hell, and found the occasional one night stand, a brief interaction here or there. But to this day, I’ve never known another girl to take her place. When he speaks about her, it’s as if his mind is travelling some faraway land, he’s so distant. Life goes on, but true love lasts forever, in the sense that you can never seem to wash off the scent.
To me, THAT is the epitome of love. It may not be everyone’s fairy tale, and there certainly aren’t any white horses, and I’ve never seen a pumpkin turn into a carriage while sober. My depiction of love doesn’t involve flowers and hearts, white weddings, or even perfect little cookie-cutter relationships. True love is that which can withstand the test of fire, and that frenzied, all-encompassing desire to be with and be there for another- through good times and bad.
