My Kind of Love

A wise man once said, "There are only two kinds of love: the wrong kind and the right one." I beg to differ. Love is too colorful and too multi-dimensional to be reduced into these categories. As a matter of fact, I would go as far and say that I don't think such dichotomy exists in love. Sure, there's a love that works and a love that breaks. There's a love that lasts and a love that ends. But there's no wrong or right love. The heart wants what the heart wants. And the heart feels what the heart feels. We can't judge that.

But if I were to classify love, this is how I'd do it:

First Love: Experiencing anything for the first time is exhilarating. It's scary and special all at the same time: First kiss, first touch, first I love you. Because everything is so new, every sense is heightened. Every emotion is magnified. Joy becomes ecstasy. Pain becomes torture. We will probably never believe in the innocence and magic of love as the first time we fell for it. This is probably why this is the love we always remember and the love we always try to recapture.

Peter Pan Love: The love that never quite grew up. Peter Pan love carries with it all the youthful exuberance of first love but it's petty and immature. Peter Pan love refuses to acknowledge the more serious aspect of love like responsibility, compromise and patience - stuff that makes love work and last.

Summer Love: Summer is a season for play with nothing but sun, sweat and skin. This is what summer love is all about. It's sensual. It's fun. It's careless. We leave everything behind and throw ourselves into the moment. We do what we want to do, all consequences be damned. But just like the season, summer love is fleeting. Sooner or later, we have to go back to the real world. But as temporary as it is, summer love is the kind of love that never fails to make us smile.

Friday Love: Friday love is brimming with possibilities. The excitement comes not from love itself but from the anticipation of it. There's mystique in Friday love. What's next? Where are we off to? It doesn't matter if the actual result is underwhelming, the thought of everything that could have happened is enough to last us through another week

Mirage Love: It looks like love. It tastes like love. It even feels like love. Only it isn't. It's funny how we mistake every intense emotion to be love. We misconstrue infatuation as love. We interchange lust with love. Sometimes we even think hate is love. Until one day we realize that we are not in love. We never were.

Drug Love: It's explosive. It's intoxicating. And it's a disaster waiting to happen. This is the kind of love we feel when we fall for someone who's the right kind of wrong. This love is so dysfunctional, it leaves everyone wondering if we'll even make it alive. When it's good, it's pure bliss. When it's bad, it's utter hell. We bring out the best in each other. The only problem is, more often than not, we bring out the worst.

The love that sticks: It's not perfect. It may not even be the love you dream of. But for some reason it works. It makes you smile. It makes you cry. It makes you mad. But more importantly, it makes you want to  keep it working.

See? Love is many things. But it's never wrong or right.