Is that what you call love?

Salam, many of you may not agree with my views here. But, again, I have made it clear in my first post that I am not out to make friends out here. Read on…

We come across hundreds of gorgeous women at different points in our daily life, some irresistibly attractive, some not so. Most men (whether they agree or not) cast a furtive glance or two on every passing beauty, but they don’t actually fall in love with all, because they can’t. Nobody can.
(I am excluding female sentiments of love out of this discussion for I am not privy to their emotions except for one.)
Love cannot be planned, neither can it be forced. Cupid strikes without a notice – sometimes at places you would least expect with people having least in common. Many a times you pass by a stunning beauty, nodding in admiration, but you don’t feel that magnetic pull, experience that adrenalin gush or find your hands sweating at the mere sight of a damsel. So you move on. But there are times – which don’t come more often – when even a most ordinary looking lady makes your heart skip a beat or two.
I might be sounding a bit old-fashioned here, but this is a fact that cannot be denied. I also know that a lot of people out there would be sniggering at my words and deriding me, but it is precisely for them I mustered courage to write this piece – to introduce them to the rarest of the rare jewels that only a handful get to embellish their lives with. However, those who have not been fortunate enough to experience this eternal bliss won’t understand what I mean.
Majority of today’s youngsters as well as elders have wrong notions of love. While one side takes their two-minute fling to be love, the other writes off the noble emotion altogether as one of those mindless passions of youth. Either of these notions is harmful for the growth and development of a balanced society, for a society can never nourish on either the misinterpretation of love or a total ignorance of those blissful emotions.
Along with Muslims, love is the most misunderstood thing on earth today. People either take infatuation for love or don’t love at all. Wanton lust has replaced the pristine passion, which has led many of its detractors to despise this one of the most repeated words – love.
Like all things in today’s world, human emotions have also been negatively influenced by excessive commercialism and love hasn’t been spared either. So much importance has been given to material beauty that according to a recent survey, Arab youth spend a third of their income or pocket money on materials that would enhance their looks. Obviously, this holds true with the youth of other nationalities as well.
If you believe the advertisers and the cosmetic giants of the world, the only thing that matters is looking good and attracting the opposite sex – which, according to the advertisers, should be the ultimate goal of every teenager.
Fairer sex, who have always been more concerned about matters of appearance, fall prey to the glitter and glamour of the beauty and fashion fads more often than their opposite numbers. However, modern gentlemen are not those to miss out on either. From fairness creams and hair gels to impeccable suits and shiny boots, generation X of male folks has given more importance to their looks than their predecessors. In some places men have gone so far into grooming themselves that the distinction between feminine and masculine appearances ceases to exist.
Historically though, women have always been by nature known to spend a lot of energy, time and resources in making themselves appear good, nah great, and that great never seems to satisfy them. Men, have always been able to use this tendency of women to their advantage, putting more and more pressure on the fairer sex.
However, modern men have mastered this weakness of women to such an extent that this pressure on them to look good has reached maniac levels today. In fact, modern women have been enslaved by this compulsion to look good and it seems they are even happy with this predicament. Most women would take anything – just anything – that would supposedly add to their beauty. You present to them any half-metre piece of cloth torn from here and sewn from there as fashion and they would adorn it gleefully to please their masters.
What women fail to realise is that even if they manage to attract a partner through their material looks, it’s only superficial and ephemeral. The moment the beauty fades, love weans away as well. The spiritual nature of love has nothing to do with the physical features of a person. For those who are looking for love in physical features or other material aspects of a partner, let me state it clearly: “your feelings are only skin deep, they don’t even reach the veins, forget about penetrating the heart.”
This is precisely why divorce rates and split-ups are so rampant these days. People make and break relationships by days, hours and minutes, just like any trivial matter. It’s become a kind of fad, with celebrities leading the way and fans gamely following. People show off their new partners, as they do their latest outfits, cars or gizmos; while long-standing relationships have become a matter of wonder and even at times derision.
Relationships these days are mainly built on individuals’ commercial standings, social status, political clout and in many cases pure good looks, all of which is transient and could change in no time. The real criteria that should matter – the character of a person which would stand tall come rain or shine – is sadly being ignored completely. There is not much care about who the person is or what his/her qualities are.
With growing number of singles, who only look for one thing in the opposite sex, and live-in couples, who are not sure enough about their love for each other to commit forever – which in other words means they don’t love each other – true love, which is the essence of a society, is fast becoming extinct.