“Are you gonna stay with the one who loves you
Or are you goin' back to the one you love?
Someone's gonna cry when they know they've lost you
Someone's gonna thank the stars above”
Or are you goin' back to the one you love?
Someone's gonna cry when they know they've lost you
Someone's gonna thank the stars above”
-Glenn Frey (The One You Love)
This song brings back memories of late nights, snuggled under blankets with my earphones plugged in during my adolescent years. Even back then the dilemma in the song captured my imagination. How does one decide who will make a better partner- someone you love or someone who loves you?
Everywhere I looked, whether in my own life or in my friends’ lives, the need to be loved seemed to outweigh the need to love. At the same time it seemed impossible to be with a person who loved you without loving him back. But what if such a situation arose?
My mother always says that no relationship can ever be completely equal. The balance of power or need will always be heavier on one side even if by a small margin. In such a scenario would I rather be with someone I am crazy about even if I need him more than he needs me? Or would I rather choose someone who loves me much more than I love him? The questions never seemed to get easier as I grew up.
Robert Frost has rightly said “Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” Our need for love stems from the deep seated desire to have someone who cares for us beyond boundaries. Unfortunately I have found that such people are few and far in-between! Usually the people we fall in love with are the ones, where we end up being the needy party.
Age has a way of putting a lot of things into perspective. What love meant at 15 is far different from what it means at 30! Violins and bells; moonlight and magic; passion and flowers; these things become secondary. What one ends up longing for is the simplicity of an emotion that can be accepted and returned.
And if the choice happens to be between someone I love and someone who loves me-then with all the wisdom that age has bestowed upon me, I would choose the person who loves me. For you can learn to love someone, but you can never teach someone to love you…
