Love & Lust

Let’s talk about love. It’s our strongest emotion, stronger than fear or hunger, stronger than hate. But it’s a two-pronged beast made up of emotional love and physical lust, and too often people misunderstand one for the other. How many couples engage in sex and then assume that what they feel is love, feel it enough to spend the rest of their lives together, only to discover soon or late that lust wasn’t enough to bind them. Some live with it; some go separate ways. Otherwise, how can we explain that two out of three marriages end in divorce? That number would be even higher if we added in those who wanted to split but couldn’t, ether because of religion or moral upbringing. Lust is the physical drive to satisfy our sexual appetites. It feels so good at the time, but what follows may not be love or even affection. The simplest solution is to find a fuck buddy: momentary satisfaction, then separation. In marriage, after the sex tapers off or even disappears, we find two people who don’t really know each other or care for each other. They split or they stay together, unhappy. For a lifetime. Then there are extra-marital affairs, lust again. Real love doesn’t require sex. Sex may be part of it, but not necessarily. Real love involves affection for the person, with or without the sex. Real love can be between good friends, parents, siblings, or offspring. Real love can exist with many others, not just the one we live with. It’s important not to mistake lust for love.