Love is Never Wasted

I'd like to start off by saying that I apologize if anyone who reads this is hurt by it. I am not upset - that's not the reason I am writing this.

Living in Provo can be fun, but it also has its downsides. One of those is that everyone wants to know everything about your dating life. I'm not immune from it either - no one really is. It's a cultural thing. And facebook has somehow played into all that. People see your status message, or your relationship status, or whatever, and assume that you want everyone to comment on it. Technically, we all know that all our friends can see it, but sometimes, maybe we only put it up for one person to read. We couldn't care less if anyone else saw it, and would prefer they just ignore it. That's happened to me, and I'm sure I've been guilty doing it to others in many instances.

And no matter where you go in Provo, people ask you how your love life is. But you know what? If anything exciting happened, like you got married or engaged, that'd probably be one of the things that would naturally come up in a conversation. You don't have to force things like that. And if s/he just went through a breakup or something, do you really want to bring that up? Probably best for everyone to just ask how things are going.

Point is, I said goodbye today to my girlfriend of about a year and a half. She's going home for the rest of the summer, and we don't know what's going to happen from here. That's all. Normally I wouldn't say anything about this - I like to play things close to the vest - but I'd rather not have people constantly asking me about it.

Anyway, I was talking to a friend today online. A girl I haven't really talked to in a long time - we were in a play together almost two years ago. She's only 16 years old, but she was the best person I could have talked to today. She, like everyone around here, asked me about my girlfriend. But for some reason, I was completely open with her about my whole situation. She made it easy, because she didn't judge me or offer me any counsel or advice, and she didn't offer her own commentary on the situation. She just listened. And it was exactly what I needed. In the course of our conversation, she said something to me that amazed me that it came from someone her age.

She said, "I think it is so cute that you love her [my girlfriend] so much. You LOVE her... I think love is unselfish. You don't love someone to get love back...you love them because you care about them so much you love who they are. You love THEM."

Then she asked if that was cheesy. And I can honestly say it's not. It's a true statement, because love is selfless. A wise man once said this statement, after which I will make an end of my writings. He said:

"Love is never wasted, for its value does not rest on reciprocity."