Guest Blog #3: I Love You Forever (Or at Least Until It's No Longer Convenient)

Happy Wednesday, loyal speak.™ readers. Hope your day is going well. The next edition this week is from the MySpace world. MySpace is like a drug I can't kick and I always feel compelled to check for new messages, friends, blogs, etc. I've seen some pretty interesting things and met some very interesting people... especially one particular subscriber. Her name is Kornika - and folks, she is definitely entertaining. No doubt about it, her works are definitely one of a kind. You can check Kornika out on Myspace and be on the lookout for her new website, launching this summer. Help me welcome the one, the only, Kornika!

Leave it to me to deviate from the sexually charged blogs that the wonderful guest bloggers before have me posted. Nonetheless, I'd like to take this time to blog about an issue that I've been meaning to blog about for quite some time now-- for two reasons mainly. The first of which being the collapse of my marriage and the second reason was because my friend Marcus's blog inspired me. Both reasons can now hereby be summarily condensed in this here blog.

First and foremost, for those of you that don't know, I still am in possession of a piece of paper that says I'm married. However, that's all it is - a piece of paper. Once upon a time it was more than that. It was tangible evidence of my "unconditional love." And I say "unconditional love" with the quotes because I really am now in doubt that such a thing exists. And Marcus's blog discussed this way back when in January. I won't share the blog here because I don't know that he'd be comfortable with it. So instead, I'll excerpt it to keep his identity concealed (unless he wants to reveal himself).

In Marcus's blog, he states:

Love can never be truly unconditional. We fall in and out of love on a constant basis. Dedication, however can, and must be [unconditional] if a relationship is to survive the innate conditionality of love. I think when people say that they love someone unconditionally, [what] they really mean [is] they are unconditionally dedicating themselves to loving that person. Then, if at any time, a person feels their heart or mind wandering or that love fading, the intense dedication should kick in and should force the straying person to get back on track. Without that dedication, we would just be at the whims of our desires.

The kicker comes when you realize that the other person does not have that same unconditional dedication to you that you have to them... whether it be because they cheated, or have just stopped doing the things you do when you are completely focused on a person and their needs. It would be unfair to yourself to stay in that relationship knowing that there won't be any change in that level of dedication...

But to NOT stay, to absolve yourself of that vow of unconditional dedication because the other person broke theirs...well, that's not very unconditional, is it?

To me, however, that's an acceptable condition for unconditional-ity.

Now, I don't know if Marcus knows this, but this blog was the kick in the ass that I needed to finally move on from my marriage. Well, this blog and the comments to follow in the blog.

There were a lot of differing opinions as to whether or not love is/can be unconditional. There were some dissenting and some concurring. I, obviously, do not believe that love can be unconditional. Let me explain...

In my response to Marcus's blog, I wrote, "I believe in unconditional love with conditions. I didn't used to. I would have been there through it all. No matter what. But when it starts to drag one down, to the point of not being able to function. When it becomes unhealthy for you and everyone else involved ... well, that's the 'acceptable condition for unconditional-ity.'" And I still believe this wholeheartedly.

I am now a stout believer in unconditional love with conditions. And true, that is a contradiction in and of itself; but it is the simple state of matters. That is not to say that I don't believe in loving someone forever. I am firmly of the opinion that love is forever but the distinction needs to be made that forever does not mean unconditionally. Follow me here...

One of the blog commenters, we'll call her "MyMySpaceSoulmate" or MMSS for short, said she believes unconditional love DOES exist. Her argument is:

When you TRULY love someone ... with all your heart, inside and out, backwards and forwards, you will always love them. I think we can all recall at least one person to whom that rule applies. It's that person whom, if you saw on the street on the way back from [the grocery store], you would have to at least acknowledge with a head bob even if they dissected your heart with a rusty knife. It's that person with whom, no other person existed prior. It's that person that is always in the back of your mind, and [whose] happiness with which you are always curious.

And here is where I think careful consideration needs to me made in regards to the distinction between loving someone indefinitely and loving them unconditionally. Sure, you may acknowledge the person when passing them by in the streets, but at that point, your love, no matter how enduring, is now conditional. It is marked by pain, by disappointment, by lessons learned ... sure, you love 'em still but be with them? Hell naw! Take 'em back? Fuck no. Wait for their maturity? Negative. You grow and you learn. You always love. But you're different for it, because of it.

MMSS uses an analogy to illustrate the unconditional-ity of love saying, "Sheesh... fungus loves warm, dark, wet places UNCONDITIONALLY."

But Marcus has a GREAT rebuttal for this saying, "The fact is that fungi only love warm, dark, wet places with the VERY SPECIFIC condition that they REMAIN warm, dark, and wet." Now that's not very unconditional, is it?

After this retort, MMSS was able to dissent from her original stance and agree that perhaps unconditional love doesn't, in fact, exist. But really, we were the only persons in this discussion. I'd like to pose the question to a much larger audience and ask; does unconditional love exist? Is there a distinction between the indefinitely of love and the unconditionally of love? Is anything in life unconditional?