The Bow in the Snow

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Okay, I didn't even know there was a video to this tune, which was always one of my favorite Queen tunes. The psycho-sexual subtext of this video makes it particularly amusing these days, since there are the obligatory video babes in it, whereas we know that Freddie Mercury could give a rat's ass about those babes, but the demands of the time required those dancing pretty boys to be off on the margins, instead of right next to Mercury. It would've been far more amusing and subversive had they actually done that, and put the video babes on the fringes, but the times required that to be all under the radar. So, the leather daddy rockabilly vibe of this video is just damned funny, making it a worthwhile addition to the love videos...

Unrequited

So, what does one do if they're in love with someone who doesn't love them equivalently? I don't really have an answer for it. What're the options?

1. Heartbreak, suffer for it
2. Be used and abused, put up with it
3. Wallow in limerence
4. Move on, find someone else

I guess that's it. And, really, the second and third options aren't really options at all; they're just how one can react to an asymmetrical love. But people find themselves in those situations, anyway, which is why I'd even write about it. And it also matters because one can be in a situation where they don't love someone as much as they are, in turn, loved. There could be any number of reasons how this comes about -- maybe Person A has self-esteem issues and is plagued by self-hatred and can't recognize a good love when they see it; or maybe Person A finds insufficient chemistry with Person B to really be moved to that higher love (it's surely the "Let's Just Be Friends" school of love, which is really a soft-pedaling of "You just don't do it for me."

So, if somebody's so fucked up emotionally as to not recognize what a good thing you offer, then lose'em, move on. That's the safest, most logical route to go, if you want to protect your heart. But we know that love is seldom logical, which is why people get into trouble.

If you love someone not as much as they love you, then it's perhaps stickier, because you can recognize the good thing they offer, and still find yourself not transported to those nicer places. I've been on a "courtesy date" or two in my day, where the woman in question most definitely is into me, and I'm not into her, and I'm in the position of not making any sudden movements, lest they be misinterpreted. Because a person can read into whatever they like -- there've been many times when a friend has asked me "What does this mean? Why would they do that?" and I'll offer my opinion on it, and you can see the person reading into it, trying to find the meaning, there. Hope is a wonderful thing, but hope can all too easily become delusion, when love is involved. I remember lovestruck friends mooning over and pining over loves who clearly didn't give two shits about the person in love with them.

If you find you have to justify yourself to someone else, or laundry list your good qualities, or bend over backwards to make someone (fleetingly) happy, odds are you have an asymmetrical relationship, and you're just going to be hurt.

Someone in love with you accepts you fully for who you are, appreciates you completely for who you are, admires you for who you are, treasures any moment they have with you, respects you for who you are. If you're not getting that kind of feedback from someone else, then lose'em, fast, or else you're just going to suffer needlessly and endlessly.

If you're on the receiving end of that kind of asymmetrical love, then it's perhaps harder -- because you might love the person well enough, and genuinely not want to hurt their feelings, and maybe "try" to love them more. But in a Zen kind of cruelty, if you have to "try" to love someone, then you don't love them very much, after all (for whatever reason), and you're in the position of just using that person, or humoring them, which deprives you of the fuller pleasures and agonies of love.

It's like when some of my friends had grimly talked about finding "Mr. Good Enough" because they'd given up on finding "Mr. Right." Of course, those people were themselves rather unsuccessful at ever finding a good relationship (big shock, that), but I found it surprising that "settling" for someone even came into anybody's mix.

Who wants "good enough?" Meatloaf is never going to be steak. Ever. So why tell yourself otherwise? Seems like a recipe for dissatisfaction and woe to me.