I wish to preface this article. This one’s for the grown – ups, for the over 18’s amongst us. No children allowed.

We hate love.  You’re probably wondering why I have made such a bold statement and yes I am aware of how sombre that statement sounded( blame it on my emo past, yes I used to be very dark actually I think sometimes my work on my other blog www.iamcroe.tumblr.com  reflects that darkness)   but really we, i.e our generation, hate love.  I’ve come to this conclusion by listening to conversations about love, conversations about marriage and then conversations about our prospects, our dreams, ambitions and career aspirations and I’ve always observed the way our eyes light up when we speak about our dreams and the way they grow dim quite suddenly when we speak about relationships.  I’ve heard everything from “ I just want to get my career first and then find love later” to “I want to be settled in my career” and I’ve always jokingly responded with “your career won’t keep you warm at night” to this one of my friends replied “but a Lamborghini could.” Although this friend of mine has a point , love shouldn’t really have to compete with  everything else on your bucket list.

Now that the gist behind my earlier sombre statement has been made clear, I wish to go deeper into my  “we hate love” thesis which ultimately rests on the fact that we are quick to relegate love for the sake of other things like money, career  moves and the like. On the other hand there is the argument that we don’t hate love, we simply prefer our careers and I suppose delayed love is better than no love at all.  However, I maintain the argument that we hate love, unless why else would we choose to intentionally neglect it  for a time when we are “settled”?

I remember as children love used to make us giddy, we even sang songs in its honour. I remember singing this one playground rhyme called K-I-S-S-I-N-G which reads,

[Name] and [Name]
sitting in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
First comes love,
then comes marriage,
then comes baby
in a baby carriage!

When we were young our worlds revolved around finding love or receiving love and now that we are older (note the fact that I used the word older and not old because you are as young as you believe you are) our worlds revolve around finding ourselves with regards to our career paths and receiving a fat pay check for our troubles.  Yes this song was sung with the intention to mock and embarrass our friends who had fallen in love but we still thought love to be one of the greatest things to acquire. We wanted it so badly and although our juvenile selves had not fully appreciated the depths of love, we still loved love.  Hence the reason why we sang out little hearts out whenever we sang the chorus.

[Name] and [Name]
sitting in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
First comes love,
then comes marriage,
then comes baby
in a baby carriage!

Fast forward a few years and those same children who used to sing that chorus are now professionals with many achievements to their names, making loads of money but without love.

We hate love because we do everything to repel it. We would rather pursue everything and anything and put love on hold because we think love can wait. We want to live our lives sequentially and so place love at the bottom of our priorities and then say we don’t hate love but our actions suggest otherwise.

I’m a woman (hopefully that is obvious by now) and I’m also career driven, meaning I too have uttered the statement “ I just want to find my career and then find love later” . However, I’ve come to realise that what I am really saying is “ love will just take up too much of my time and it won’t allow me to be the person I want to be  and so it can wait until I become the person I am trying to become.” I’ve also come to realise that this is a nonsensical notion to have firstly because  the idea that life can be lived sequentially is utter foolery (I’ve been using this word so much lately, I wonder where I heard it), life will never happen in a particular order, as you get older you simply learn to juggle your priorities. Secondly, it is somewhat negative to see love as obstructing life when love is probably the only thing that enhances life. Up until that moment of clarity I was repelling love until a more convenient time and that was wrong of me.

We live in a “get your dreams and then find love” kind of society but surely we can attain both things simultaneously. We are advanced enough.

I’d hate for us to chase wealth and qualifications and relegate love because we believe love to get in the way life. Love does not do this unless of course you want it to.  We can pursue love and life because what is life without love?

I’m not in any way suggesting that you shouldn’t aspire to be great  just so you can “fall” in love (I actually hate that phrase but I felt it was the only thing that would make sense in this sentence) I’m just saying that we should stop subscribing to this notion that life will happen sequentially and love will only hinder that order.  Life does not happen sequentially and as you get older you will only become busier, so to putting love on hold may be erroneous. Love will not get in the way of “life”. Let’s stop seeing it as the final thing on our bucket list.

 

The kids who used to sing that playground rhyme believed in it with their whole hearts and it’s rather ironic they grew up to be love-less.

Let’s stop hating love.

Love Cris x

P.S I wonder if the playground rhyme was composed in 2014 if it would still have “first comes love”.