This was a conversation I saw in a chat room the other day. I wanted to hit Person B over the head with a large mallet. How would that have been stupid? What happens when you go overseas to see someone? You get to see the person (duh) and spend some time with them.

Apparently, according to Person B, spending money to go see a person you love and spend time with them is really stupid unless the relationship “works out”. I guess what he really means is that it’s a waste of time and money unless the two people end up living together. But even if they don’t end up living together, they still got to see each other. They still have the experience of that, and the memories, and they got to know each other a bit better.

I can only conclude that Person B was not talking about unconditional love, and has probably never experienced it. The sad thing is that this kind of thinking is quite common, and generally encouraged. People think it’s “smart” to focus on what they can “get out of” a relationship, and if they aren’t “getting enough” then it’s a waste of time.

Don’t ever fall for this “logic”. It will do more to prevent you from experiencing unconditional love than it will ever do to help you find more of it.

This doesn’t mean you should never give people advice or tell them what you think, though. By all means, do so. But don’t become “obsessed” with it, or nag them about it or keep bringing it up every other day. That will just make them even less likely to want to listen to you. If you really feel a need to get a point across to someone, the best way to do it is by example. Practice what you preach. Mention it every now and then if you must. But most importantly, give them a REASON to listen to you. And respect their decisions.

Unconditional love makes marriage look primitive and restrictive in comparison. If the people getting married really loved each other that much, there’d be no need whatsoever to promise to stay together. They just would – because they want to. What more do you need?

Something along the lines of polyamory is a more ideal situation, even if you don’t find more than one person to be with. It’s the thought that counts – letting people be free, and not thinking you have some kind of right to demand that they not look at, talk to, hang out with or go out with anyone else.

If people get married and then years later realize they’re miserable together… there’s no point whatsoever in staying together anyway just ’cause they promised they would. I don’t think that’s “noble” or “courageous”… it’s cowardly. And mean. ‘Cause they’d probably both be happier and better off if they split up.

So, my conclusion is that marriage is unnecessary, but I am not totally opposed to the idea as a concept. It’s just been about as badly abused as the word “love” has. There is nothing wrong with two (or more!) people promising each other that they’re gonna stay together no matter what, as long as they were going to do that anyway and are not using the promise to force themselves to keep at it if they fear that someday they may change their minds and not want to anymore.

On the other hand, there’s also quite a lot of thought involved in getting rid of society’s definitions of love which get ingrained in pretty much everyone’s minds from early childhood already, as well as your own insecurities and any unmet needs you may have. This is where the “trying” part comes in. So, it’s not really about trying to love unconditionally, it’s more about trying to solve your internal issues so that you become more capable of unconditional love. Everyone has some issues, so you’ll never be perfect at it, but I think humans can actually get reasonably close.