Tell me now, I need to know. Do you even believe in love?
“No,” she replied. “I do not."
"Love does not exist in this world, I have seen too much hate. Rather, I have seen indifference toward the very idea of hate and love. There is only self-interest.”
How do you know? Under what right can you, only a young girl, declare that the world is absent of such a thing? Do you do so lightly?
“No,” she said. “I do not do so lightly. It has been concluded under much scrutiny that I have decided this. The world I live in, you see, I have found no joy. All happiness’s come to me as lies hidden behind smiling teeth.
The way we are to each other is only a method, a façade to please ourselves; whether it be through company, appearance, sex, money, whatever it is we are wanting in. This I understand as love, but the love you believe in I cannot.”
I see. You have seen the truth in people. You have not been fooled by manipulations. It’s a good trait to have. You acknowledge when someone is boundless of character, and forming only to a favorable situation. You will surely benefit from this acute judge of character, and the lacking of it.
However, I do have a quarrel with the context on which you base your decision. You say that you do not believe in love because you see through it, you see the love as the simple placeholder of self-interest. Yet it seems as though you misjudge what love is entirely.
Love is not a feeling, my dear. Love is something you must do. Happiness is a feeling, anger is a feeling, but love… love you must do. Unlike love, you cannot do happiness, you can only feel it inside, it is completely personal. Unlike love, you cannot do anger, you can only feel it inside, it too is entirely personal.
But love, love is different, love requires another that you must behave a certain way towards.
“Can you not be happy, or be angry?” She asked. “Can I not act out on those things as I would with love? And are you saying that I cannot then feel love for another, as I have already concluded?”
Yes, you may be angry, but to act on it would be violence, and that is something different altogether. To do violence does not require anger at all, anger is merely a motivating factor to it. You may do violence out of many different compulsions.
But love, that is definite. One cannot love well or poorly, one can only love. Love you see, is paired. Just as two lovers of a greater whole, love is a characteristic defined by mutual feeling and behavior.
To behave lovingly but feel nothing towards someone is not love. And to feel great needs and longing for someone without it giving you the courage to show it is neither love. To give charity because it looks righteous, yet feel no sympathy for the suffering is not love. And to feel love for your wife, yet sleep with another is not love. Love must always be the two; if not, it is a lie hidden behind smiling teeth.
“You speak as if you know it well. But I know you. Like the liar, you smile at me through those teeth of yours. You have never known love.
Perhaps you do not lie to take something from me, but perhaps you lie to yourself. You cannot bear the reality that I know, you cry out in the night longing for that which will fill your spirit.
Have I not been kind to you? Do I not feel attraction toward you? I have not shown you any ill will. Yet what we have is not love, you must admit so yourself!”
Once again, you are right. But maybe, just maybe, you are afraid. I know you too, pretty girl. I know your hurt, your loss, and your suffering. I know your distrust and I know how you needed someone desperately to love you. I beg of you. Do not now reject love in your life because it has never come before, from me or anyone else willing to give it?
“Please understand me,” she said. “Perhaps my melodrama tells you I’m distressed, but I assure you I’m fine. I just cannot, no matter how pleasing it would be, believe in something I cannot see.
If I saw but one act of true love prevail unblemished in a world so rejecting of it, then I could believe—I know you are saddened by my truth, but to me, I am as indifferent to love as the sun is to the cloud that covers my world.
Perhaps you can see the sun. And I’m happy you have something in the sky to warm your skin, but just as you may be blessed with wealth and security, more go hungry and must scavenge for their next meal than you are aware of. So too are many without the safety and luxury of love.”
Blind are the unwilling, dear girl. If you endure cloud cover then you should take charge of your position and leave behind you any land blanketed in darkness, making hast toward the sunlight.
To any man, woman, or child, that should make his home in the company of darkness, and furthermore tolerate those whom take no charge of their well-being or pursuant of love will surely never find joy or fulfillment. All those that make a willing decision to not believe are abandoners of hope, and a hindrance to the happiness of anyone they come in contact with.
For any mission or purpose not grounded in love is in pursuit of taking from those that need. How sad and cowardly are the unbelieving. If there is no love, and you cannot behave lovingly, then what value do you hold to anyone?
“Leave me then,” she said. “If I am intolerable, then go! Leave me to be alone just as all the others do… It makes no difference to me.”
Forgive me. But I can’t settle for indifference of the heart. Without love, all I do for you is as replaceable as the dresses you wear. I don’t want to be a dress for you to wear, I want to be the difference between clothed and naked.
I make no difference to you.
That is why I will leave, and that is why I must search for those that can have faith, hope, and belief in love.
