Falling.

A recent FB friend of mine (Nandakishore Mridula) asks:
‘Can a person fall in love rationally? What is your opinion?’

Here’s my answer:
I am going to be the outlier here, because most of the responses I am seeing on this post are about how rational they are, about how composed and calm they are, about how they have checklists, how they are clear-eyed about what they want, and how they are all about practical stuff. I am afraid I am nothing of that sort. Or sorted.

Even after several stillborn relationships over 35-odd years, bad decisions, 2 solid (but eventually doomed) marriages, innumerable acts of betrayal, cheating, toxicity, backstabbing, and lying, and 50 years of life behind me, I continue to remain convinced that love cannot be planned rationally. I have realised that it is wishful thinking to believe that I could have had any say in anything in my love life till this point. And to be honest, if I had to do it all again, I’d do it without hesitation. Or regret.

You see, I cannot choose who I love. I cannot choose who I do not love. Love is an emotion for me that goes perfectly with the verb ‘falling’, with all the attendant loss of control (it is a feeling of being weightless, by the way…just like you’d experience when falling through the atmosphere). And oh, what sweet loss of control for someone who values control!!

So, ladies & gentlemen, I confess: I love women, I love love, and I love falling in love. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be rational about it. Also, in case this needs saying, I am a rather old-fashioned, stringent monogamist. So, I should add that I even love staying in love (perhaps even more than ‘falling’ in it).

Now, judge me for all I care. Call me juvenile, immature, ignorant, impractical, or even an idiot who refuses to learn. Tell me how you are the most rational person when it comes to this emotion. Mock me for being an emotional fool. But trust me: The feeling of loving and being loved by a beautiful woman, that feeling of falling, that loss of control, that ‘Oh shit! I am falling for her and there is zilch I can do about it; and I effing LOVE it!’, the feeling of ‘I think I am dying, but oh, what a lovely death!’, can rarely be topped. At least for me. Sorry. Not sorry.

P.S: I am not going to slip into the fallacy of claiming that if you have not loved irrationally, if you have not felt the sweet loss of control, if you have not ‘fallen’ (in every sense of that word) in love yet, you haven’t experienced ‘true’ love at all (whatever that means), or do not know what it is. But I will say one thing: If you have, and it has hurt you to the point that you now never want to again, you have my deepest sympathies. You deserve better. If I could hug you, I would. But I have known no better feeling than falling in love. Without any a priori rationality about who, when, where, or how much of it I will fall for or in. Of course, as with all of us, I speak solely for myself. YMMV.

Clarification: I am not in love at the moment, lest the more imaginative of my friends jump (fall?) to conclusions. But I am open. And as I said, I can’t plan it or schedule it or make it happen. Love. Just. Happens. And it will.