Ten Degrees of Perspective - On Love

So the other day somebody was saying that love is forever, so if you ‘fall out of love’ with somebody then by definition, it was not love to begin with. Personally, I thought the idea was a bit too idealistic, because the implication was, it should be perfect or doesn’t exist.

Growing up I used to simplify the concept of romantic love as being something that encompasses “lust” from his side and “need for company” from her side. Add to that all the pop culture that tries to tell us what love is, for instance ”love is like the wind.. you can’t see it, but you can feel it,“and it becomes more undefined. Nowadays we can always blame endorphin (happiness), dopamines (reward system) and other hormones for what drives people to behave in ways others could call love. Someone simplified it better, love is just a series of chemical reactions.

So my new idea in the issue is the 10 degrees of perspective. Let’s take love and all his friends, crush, infatuation. Some are more intense than others. Then let’s look at a thirteen year old who just started having estrogen flow within her bloodstream. Her idea of love could be, “OMG !! I’m so in love with him because of I love his hair!” So whatever she loves about the person is only 0.1 degrees or less of his total being. (I mean, seriously?? She sees his hair and  decides she is in love with him – true story by the way).

Then as the person matures (hopefully), their experience with different people make them judge better as to how good or not a person is. But the thing is, unless the two get married and actually live together, their perspective of each other will always be limited to something really small like 10 degrees. So if someone claims, “I’m in love with him,” it’s really, “I’m in love with my perception of ten degrees of him,” (because sometimes one’s perception is different than the reality. Take an extreme case where a person is married to an abusive husband and justifies it as, “He hits me because he loves me” – that’s her perception of the matter, not necessarily the reality).

For instance, unmarried couples might see each other only at their best and not at their worst. That’s where the whole devil-orchestrated dating system crumbles. Also you know how they say, “Until you’re broken, you don’t know what you’re really made of.” And that’s you talking about yourself. You live in your skin 24/7/52 year in, year out. So imagine what sort of crises would be needed to know what the other person is made of.

So in the end, you can really decide if you love someone through their Mawaqif (As much as I hate the parking company, I can’t think of any other word to use here). I mean you learn if they’re good by the stance that they make when facing a certain situation, how they react during times of anger for instance, are they insecure, temperamental, do they go childish when they want something being done their way? The claws – from both sides – normally start appearing after marriage because they’re both sorta stuck. Some people I know who knew their spouses before marriage admit to that, saying the same thing I said before, “You think you know someone but then you get married and live with them, and that’s when you realize you never knew much about them to start with.”

That’s why it’s better for a person to pray to Allah (SWT) to get them what is best for them because He knows best, and no matter how much you think you know somebody you’ll be surprised. As for us selecting people for ourselves, we tend to be limited to ten degrees of perspective, and even if a selection is to be made, one needs to pray istikhara to be sure.

So what’s your insight on the topic?

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)