Can love be casual?
Mr Right. The average woman will kiss 15 men, enjoy two long-term relationships and have her heartbroken twice before she meets ‘The One’, a study commissioned to mark the paperback release of The Rosie Project, novel. PHOTO | SHUTTERSTOCK
In the fast paced world of technology, social media and communication we are met with copious amounts of free flowing information. I am no exception to that and very recently, while discussing my return to writing with a friend and what genres I was tasked with, he recommended one of the best pieces he had read and subsequently forwarded it to me.
It was a blog entry by Carsie Blanton called Casual love and she explored the different versions of love today. I will not break down her article word for word but I have shared the title and author. So use google, it is your friend.
It inspired me and I come to you today to explore lessons I learned from that read, share some thoughts and leave you with a few questions to ask yourselves.
I use the term ‘I Love You’ very freely with my friends and family. It is not a statement I have ever shied away from and it is not one that I am particularly scared of or grossed out by.
However, when this term is used with someone you are romantically or sexually involved with, it takes up new shape. I have never questioned why or how? But have simply gone along with it like all other ways and norms we found etched in the societies we were born into.
Now, we can all agree without argument that sex, especially in the millennial generation has become very casual and I’m not here to have a discussion about whether that is right or wrong but I will tell you I am okay with that and believe people should use their bodies as they see fit.
I use that example as a gateway to my question, can love also be casual? Can we give it away and share it with anyone we meet and get involved with? How does one make love casual?
I am just as perplexed by those questions as you are, but I will share a few personal anecdotes with you.
I have had conversations over the years with friends and acquaintances about how eerie it is to hear the words I love you come from someone you are seeing casually or someone you are getting to know but are not at that level of feeling just yet.
We joked about it and have had several laughs about it too, I thought I was immune to it and this was a just a struggle I will only ever hear about.
Based on my choices of who to date and get involved with (which by the way have been very questionable, but story for another day) I thought I was exempt to hearing this statement uttered in the younger stages of courtship.
Cut to not many years ago (or was it months, I really can not remember?!) I was getting to know someone and we had probably been on one date. Yes you read that right ONE at which point in time this individual thought it best to tell me they loved me at the end of a phone conversation.
To say I was disgusted would be an understatement. I feel like all desire was lost any progress made was cast to the wind and I moved on. But reading this blog entry got me thinking what if what that person was feeling was indeed love, who am I to dismiss it on the basis of we have not known each other long enough?
Would it have been wrong of me to let them carry on telling me they love me and I not reciprocate it? What is so wrong with continuing to get to know someone even if they already love you and you do not feel the same?
I am still at a point of reflection and still very much confused about casual love as an ideal, but the recent times have definitely got me thinking that loving casually could be what works for some people.
You may be in love with someone and not looking to be in the throes of a committed relationship but you love them and I feel like it is very okay to let that other person know without having it affect your current arrangement.
Love takes many forms and none of us experience it the same way and it might be time for us as a society to accept people to love as they please even if it may be casually.
