Whether I would still be thinking this same way about marriage several years from now was another matter. What I did know was this: it didn’t work when your heart led your head. Which, in turn, meant…

What?

Maybe that we never get it right. We just muddle through. Which is perhaps one of the great reasons why love always disappoints. We enter hoping, it will make us whole—that it will shore up our foundations, end our sense of incompleteness, give us the stability we crave. Then we discover that, on the contrary, it is a deeply exposing experience. Because it is so charged with ambivalence. We seek certainty in another person.

From “The Pursuit of Happiness,” by Douglas Kennedy

Really? Is that what we search for? I hope no one gets married because he or she feels incomplete. If so, you are not ready to tie the knot.  Romantic love is imperfect and inconsistent. It has to do with physical and emotional attraction and the need for passionate love. We require a lot of fantasy because we create our own beloved. This is the disappointing type of love that most of us embrace, and Kenneth Douglas writes about. But there is another: the common sense love, which requires other ingredients:  trust and admiration for the beloved. Unfortunately, this advanced and logical affection belongs only to a few privileged minds.