Looking for Love

As I was reading a conversation about the merits of emo bands on one of the various music message boards I check, I came across an interesting post that seems to really have a lot of truth behind it, even if it was only meant to be a quick, off-the-cuff, witty remark

People who search for happiness in their life from love always have the most problems.

I thought about it for a bit, and I can’t really come up with a more difficult thing to achieve than to be loved, and to be happy because you are loved.  Love seems to be one of the few “big” things that people strive for in life, with some of the others being success, money, fame, spiritual enlightenment, and personal well being.

Any of those things, with dedication and a little bit of luck, can probably be achieved by someone in their lifetime, assuming they’d give it their all.  It is my belief that anyone can be successful at something if they put everything they have into it.  The main problem with that is people want success without having to try.  I’m easily guilty of that, so that’s why it is doable, it just takes the extra bit of effort that most people won’t put in.

Money you can get by working for it.  Again, if you invest yourself completely into making money and finding ways to maximize how you can make money, you’ll be rich. I like money.  Who doesn’t?  I wouldn’t mind having a lot of it, but it really isn’t something that I want to dedicate myself to getting a boatload of.  Sure, I always say I’d like more money, but again, who wouldn’t want more?  I’m just not willing to dedicate myself to getting it.

The other things are also easily achievable… well, by easily I mean with a whole heck of a lot of effort, but they are attainable and can be done by you without any help from the outside.  Love, on the other hand, depends upon other people, or maybe just one person in particular.

No matter how hard you try, and no matter how much effort you put forward, you can’t make someone love you.  Unfortunately, I’ve managed to find that out through experience as I am one of those poor souls who looks for happiness in life through love.  I’ve been in relationships and friendships where I’ve given it my all, done everything I could for the other person, made it completely apparent how I felt, and yet it didn’t work out.  

It sucks when you realize that everything you put in to the relationship basically didn’t amount to anything more than a handful of bittersweet memories.  Even now, it’s a bitter pill that I swallow every time that I think back upon some of those failed friendships and relationships.  What can I do, though?  Love is the source of my happiness and I just can’t give up on trying to be happy, now can I?  The quote is more right than any of us know.  Love is so hard to find, and when you do finally find it, even harder to hold on to, or at least that’s the way it’s been for me.