The Logic of Love

I heard once that all romance stories consist of one of three plotlines:


A. Girl likes boy. Boy doesn't like girl. By the end of the movie, boy likes girl.
B. Boy likes girl. Girl doesn't like boy. By the end of the movie, girl likes boy.
C. Boy #1 likes Girl #1. Boy #2 likes Girl #2. By the end of the movie, Boy #1 likes Girl #2. How did that happen??? No one knows.


Who knew that talking about romance could actually feel logical? Of course its logical, I often think to myself. Romance is totally logical. A leads to B leads to C leads to... and so on and so forth.


In our little heads, romance isn't complicated at all. It's all about the feelings. "They were meant to be together all along," we think to ourselves. We justify the broken engagements, the altering of personalities, because in our heads, having 'feelings' for someone means its going to work out. And we'll all live happily ever after. The end. Totally logical.


Not really. If anything, romance is like one of those algebra problems (math haters, plug your ears aka shield your eyes) where you solve an equation for x and come up with ZERO answer other than "X= y squared plus the cube root of (z plus 3) times 2i all divided by .23j plus k. Yeah. Read it again. If someone can take that equation and make it equal a nice tidy number, give me a call. I would like to meet with you and give you a psychological examination.


My point is, romance stories often don't portray the entirety of relationships. The plotline doesn't follow the fiancé whose partner of seven years just broke up with him because the girl bumped into another guy in the grocery store. Like its easy to leave someone you've been with for seven years. But no, she just bounces on to the next guy.


I watched a movie a few weeks ago with this same problem- The ENTIRE movie, this girl is trying to get her high school boyfriend to fall in love with her again. She succeeds. But then realizes, this other guy is actually the guy she wants. So she dumps the first guy. All of this happens within a span of..... ONE night. She kissed TWO guys in one night, with the same intensity, with the same feelings.


It makes me wonder if she's actually in love with either of them. Or perhaps, as we all may be, is she just in love with that feeling???


I think the reason why romance movies and novels sell is because deep down within every woman has this love for... love. We just love it. We love the thought of being romanced, kissed, held, chosen over another. We love the thought of dusty, robust cowboys or tall, dark, mysterious businessmen waltzing into our lives and saying, "YOU, my darling, are the one I want." Yet, is it that we truly become attached to that man as a person? Or do we become attached with the way he makes us feel?


My head is practically spinning. I think I'm confusing myself. Honestly, writing out that algebra problem made more sense to me than sorting out my feelings about romance. This is one of those moments when I am glad I am still single because if there were two of us trying to get into my head, there would be a problem.


On a personal level, I myself think  I am too attached to romance. I'll admit (don't you dare judge)- My heart flutters when I see Gil Blithe. Is it because I'm in love with him? No. Is it because I'm in love with romance... maybe...


I recently just read the book "The Help." I loved it. I loved it because it was about three women who dared to cross the lines, to put their lives in jeopardy, to come against the opposition of racial segregation. The book was engrossing and exciting. And it wasn't even a romance novel.


Sure, there was some romance in it. But it showed love for what it truly was. The guy she was with couldn't handle her. He couldn't support her. He didn't agree with her morals. And she accepted that and dealt with it. She didn't just hop from beau to beau. In the end, she didn't even end up with the slightest glimmer of hope for any relationship in the future (WHAT????) But she was happy. She did what was right. She didn't have family, friends, or arrays of men to support her. But she did the unthinkable.


That's what I want to do. But how am I going to do that if I spend all my single nights boo-hoo-ing in my bed cause I don't have no Mr. Darcy in my life to share his million-bajillion smackers a year? How am I going to make a difference if my butt is planted in front of the tv screen while I stuff my face with junk-food and lament at how Sandra Bullock always gets the good ones? If I can't peel my eyes off of John Travolta and his uber shnazzy dance moves for two seconds... yikes, I need to reevaluate my life.


I think its time for me to put down the spray cheese and Oreos and quit throwing myself a pity party by the fridge just because I don't have any guys to hop from so I can get my unrealistic romance needs fulfilled. I think its also time for me to stop using run on sentences, because my brain is running out of breath.


All in all, I think I need a new perspective on romance. I am not trying to belittle the wonder of love at all, I just think that our focus has become self-centered. Our commitments to one another are becoming less important and our feelings, more important. I'm not saying one should stick with somebody they don't have romantic feelings for. I just think that if you don't have romantic feelings for someone and you don't envision yourself spending the rest of your life with them, then you shouldn't be with them in the first place. If you have doubts about a relationship, instead of staying with them while keeping one eye open looking for someone new, then why waste his time and yours? I mean, its not going to kill you to be single for a while. Truly. I am not dead yet.


If there is one thing that you get out of this EXTREMELY long blog post (sorry, readers. When Dani gets on a roll, she can't stop), let it be that God has a more perfect romance planned out for you than you could ever, ever, ever imagine for yourself. For some of us, that romance will take place with our future spouse. Others, it may take the form of religious or single life. But no matter what our future vocations are, God wants to romance us, and he wants us to be romanced. There's a reason those longings are there. God put them there. God gave us the longing to be loved because He wants to love us.


So dear readers (if you've made it this far :) this Christmas season, if like me, you are tempted to indulge yourself in romantic Christmas comedies and listen to "Let it Snow" fifteen times in a row as you sulk underneath the mistletoe, remember that God is simply waiting to fill that need that you have in your heart for romance. And His love is a lot simpler than algebra.