What is love?

I have a sinking feeling that what I’ve been looking for all along, in my search for true love, is not real love at all.

Like any good girl who grew up in the 80s, I lived on a diet of John Hughes rom-coms like Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink. I clearly remember falling “in love” with Jake Ryan, the tall, dark and handsome Senior in Sixteen Candles. Dorky Sophomore Samantha, played by Molly Ringwald, crushes on him and they end up together in the end. Jake actually ditches his popular prom-queen girlfriend for the awkward redhead and their love is consummated with a kiss over the glowing candles of her birthday cake.

To me, that was true love.

But in reality, this never would have happened. Samantha would have ended up with the over-eager Anthony Michael Hall and Jake would have continued dating cheerleaders.

My romantic vision of love has always been something like this: the handsome, cool guy who I fawn over but doesn’t give me much in return, finally realizes how much he loves me, how important I am in his life and how he can’t live without me. He proposes, we get married, have three beautiful children and Bob’s your uncle.

But the scenario usually goes a bit more like this: the handsome, cool guy who I fawn over continues to be cool towards me and the relationship, I end up heartbroken and he quickly moves on to the next girl in line.

I’ve turned down the Duckys and the Anthony Michael Halls in favour of the one who keeps me at arms length and who, in my fantasies, eventually shows up on my doorstep with a sparkly ring and a declaration of his undying love.

I’m old enough to know better yet I still get sucked in to this fantasy.

An article in the the Star today by Oakland Ross delves into the meaning of the word “love” as well as the meaning of love itself.

Ross points out that what we think of as “romantic love” is usually something more akin to infatuation. Love, says Toronto psychotherapist Lesli Musicar, is something that “evolves.”

“Rarely do we fall in love at the beginning,” Musicar says. “We don’t know the other person that well.”

Love is something that grows over time and is based on a level of commitment and intimacy.

Ross goes on to tell a story about a woman, who after being dumped by her boyfriend, moves to a new part of town to mend her heartbreak.

Her new neighbour asks her on a date, and although she’s not so interested, she agrees to go and continues to date him even though she’s not “in love” with him; she figures she’s got nothing better to do while she’s waiting for The One to come along.

They eventually move in together, years pass and one morning she wakes up early, stretches and looks over at her former neighbour lying in the bed next to her. For the first time, it dawns on her that he is actually The One that she’s been waiting for all along.

“Love doesn’t happen so much as it emerges,” Ross concludes in the article.

Point taken.

I think it’s time for this old broad to re-evaluate my idea of love and stop waiting for Jake Ryan to come along. He was pretty cute and had a cool car, but if the movie had continued I bet he would have dumped Samantha after the kissing-over-the-cake scene only to return to his lush-of-a-prom-queen girlfriend or the next flavour of the week.

Maybe what I’ve been hoping for and hanging on to all along, is not really love at all; maybe it’s time to kick my John Hughes fantasies to the curb for once and for all.

(No disrespect to the late director intended; I’ll always love those flicks and it’s probably good to awaken a dash of fantasy now and again!)