Commentary: What’s romantic love all about?

By David Magallanes / Guest contributor

As it turns out, I use this column not just to inspire and inform, but also to put myself through inexpensive therapy. Just as in “real” therapy, which is well worth the cost as far as I’m concerned, I often come up with my own answers as I allow myself to express thoughts and ideas, though at times I have to let them incubate for a period of time before I “see the light.”

And now with Valentine’s Day approaching more quickly than Cupid’s incoming arrow, it would behoove many of us to contemplate this thing called “romantic love.” What is it all about? Do we really know? Is it what the chocolate and jewelry ads tell us it is? Is it what the churches tell us? Is it what our parents and teachers told us? Did they actually know? Should we rely on our friends? God help us.

In our culture, the primary sources of information on this vitally important topic seem to be TV, movies and pop music.  Take for example the words to the popular song that was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David in 1965, while I was still in high school, and sung by such illustrious vocalists as Cher, Dionne Warwick and Cilla Black:

I believe in love, Alfie.

Without true love we just exist, Alfie.

Until you find the love you’ve missed you’re nothing, Alfie.

When you walk let your heart lead the way and you’ll find love any day, Alfie, Alfie.

So there you have it.  Until you find the love you’ve missed … you’re NOTHING.  As in … good God! … worthless? An abject failure? A “zero”?

Such is the implication of countless messages in pop culture. Don’t even get me started on the messages in Mexican novelas and romantic songs on stations like KLUV, a Los Angeles Mexican FM radio station dedicated exclusively to romantic songs that feed the popular myths.

Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely LOVE (whatever that is!) many of these songs. They make me want to go out and ask the first pretty lady I find out on the street to be my “novia” (girlfriend).

But it’s the subtle messages inextricably woven into the Mexican and American cultures that can lead us astray into the land of dangerous beliefs and assumptions if we’re not careful.

If more of us understood what romantic love really is, we wouldn’t have the high divorce rates and even higher rates of general unhappiness and even misery in marriages and relationships in general in this country and throughout the world. And yet, when a couple finds itself in this state of sorrow, they are often advised to put up with each other, either for the children’s sake if there are any, or, in the case of marriage, to adhere to their “vows” — their happiness be damned.

Dr. Harville Hendrix wrote the bestseller “Getting the Love You Want,” and then the sequel, just in case we didn’t know what to do once we “got it,” “Keeping the Love You Find.”

But what if the love we find has other ideas after a while? What if the love we find does indeed love us, but his or her soul is directing our lover to grow in a different direction after all? Or what if the love we find simply doesn’t love us anymore and wishes to pursue another direction in life? Do we attempt to deny that soul its destiny? Do we, in other words, attempt to chain it down — and padlock it while we’re at it — just because we’re not about to give up what we worked so hard to find? Isn’t there a guarantee somewhere? Shall we…threaten the other person? Lots of insecure people do just that. How could there be an expiration date for something that’s supposed to last forever — or so we’re told.

In his classic work, “Soul Mates,” Thomas Moore warns us quite directly:

Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth painfully at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames. Some couples are graced with a lifelong ‘illusion’ of love, living out their marriage with eyes at least partially blinded to the ‘realistic’ nature of their partner. We may well wonder whether these illusions are a necessary part of life, or whether we should try to avoid them in the future. 1  [p. 143]

I was needing more answers when I read James Hollis’ “The Eden Project.” I wanted to throw my hands up in despair when I read, “Consider the obvious, then, that we can hardly have a conscious, efficacious relationship  with the Other when we have a deeply wounded relationship with ourselves. Consider, then, how difficult it is to have any relationship at all.” 2  [p. 30]

He goes on to drive the point home, sticking the metaphorical knife in and twisting it: “We say we love, yet we know not what it is.” 

So after all the chocolate and jewelry ads and the churches and our parents and teachers and songs and friends telling us what love is … we still don’t know? Well then just how the hell…

Forgive me. I’m getting carried away. There’s nothing easy about this topic, laced with pleasures, explosive mines, surprises and at times excruciating pain. Love can blind and exasperate us.

Both in Mexican and American cultures, we’re very aware of “Cupid,” the god of desire, affection and erotic love in Roman mythology. In case we’re wondering where the word “erotic” comes from, the Greek version of Cupid was Eros.

Since our youth, we may have been made very aware of Cupid and his mischievous arrows, though possibly not his divine origins. But why were we in the Mexican culture never taught about Xochiquetzal, the young and alluring Aztec goddess who represented desire, pleasure and excess. Not to mention that she was considered the patroness of prostitutes. Xochiquetzal rocks. Makes Cupid sound tame. We never see images of Xochi, attired in flowers and vegetation, blessing a couple “in love” — or about to arrive there. I can just see a whole genre of romantic cards and gifts associated with Xochiquetzal in the shop of an enterprising Latina.

Finally, I turn to one of my most revered philosophers, Kahil Gibran. I turn to the pages about love in “The Prophet.” I settle down, looking for the answers that will blow the clouds asunder and let the sunshine of clear wisdom shine upon the landscape of my understanding:

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. 3

In other words, “love ain’t easy.”  I get it.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

1. Moore, Thomas.  Soul Mates. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994.
2. Hollis, James.  The Eden Project.  Ontario, Canada: Inner City Books, 1998.
3. Gibran, Kahlil.  The Prophet.  New York: Alfred Knopf, Inc., 1973 (91st printing).

— David Magallanes is about to embark on a speaking and writing career whose purpose is to promote and facilitate the attainment of the American Dream.  As an optimistic American of Mexican descent and an educator in college mathematics, he brings a unique perspective to issues of our day.  He may be contacted for speaking requests or for commentary at adelantos@msn.com