Falling in Love with Love

A recent conversation prompted me to wonder: When did we start to hate love? I mean, we all want love for ourselves, but at what point did an affectionate, happy couple stop evoking "aw"s and start evoking "ugh"s? And when did the announcement of an engagement stop being cause for joy and start being cause for whispers about how long it will last. I mean, I suppose it started when we saw which people were getting engaged right out of college and noticed that a fair percentage of them were passionate but fickle people who shouldn't be putting a down payment on an apartment, much less getting hitched. Not all of them...but a fair percentage. I remember, when I was young, I used to watch romantic comedies where the woman eventually had to choose between love and career. And I always thought, "Just go for love; that's what will make you happy!" And in the end, she always did. Now I'd think, "If you have a great career opportunity, for god's sake, take it!" If the guy's good for you, he'll urge you to make the same choice.

Maybe young people have always been cynical about love. Really, it's usually little kids and old people who smile at happy couples. Maybe they have a better perspective on life and know what's really important. Or maybe it's just that most little kids I see have married parents and most old people I see found a life partner. So not only do they not have anything to be jealous of, they may have forgotten how frequently love spectacularly flops. Or not-so-spectacularly flops.

Something about Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach rings pretty true. Twenty-somethings, to say nothing of teenagers, can be insecure and fucked up. Sure, there are some great couples out there. I'm proud to say I know a few. I'm less thrilled to say they're disproportionately religious Christians. Doesn't bode well for me and most of my friends.

But enough with the moping: All but one of the UU apps are in, and that's exciting. I had lunch with Brad and his UU school buddy Nick today. Nick was talking about a case going on somewhere he works (worked? I don't remember). Even though it was in an area of UU I'm not too into, it was pretty spectacular. The evolution of the UU has left some crazy-ass loopholes, and people in the know are far better at exploiting them than your average feller. So average fellers get screwed. With so much emphasis on companies and people who are tacitly evil, it's sometimes easy to forget how many companies and people are explicitly evil. During those times, I like to think of my old landlord. Ah, me.

Back to work post-vacation tomorrow. It was nice to spend time at Slave again.

I Like Mic