Relationships: Is it Love or Lust?

In this dot.com era, the way we prefer to call it, true love seems to have become no more. I read a story with enthusiasm about a paralyzed woman who will be tying the knot with her fiancé a year after the accident that incapacitated her movements. This triggered a series of thoughts that led to the conclusion that true love maybe really exists. However, the question is, does true love still exist or does it lay hide and seek games, vanishing in thin air before re-appearing throughout the days of our lives. Just like the advancement in technology, there is also advancement in the technology of love. It is no longer about loving unconditionally. It‘s about who you are, where you are from and how deep your pockets are—these are all sub-sets of infatuation, or if I may call it lustful pleasure. A friend of mine once told me, “I cannot love a guy with financial leprosy because he may affect me: I need someone who will cure me from such epidemics.” I just stomached this statement because I was at a loss of words since I least expected it from her. True love exists no more, those who have it—I bet, there could be one in a million. People have lost that love that comes as a feeling, but rather have lust for pleasure and material gain and mistake it for love. True love is not conditional; it is patient, kind, gentle and knows no jealous. It is that feeling that cannot create any wall between those who poses it unlike lust. “I had to cancel my wedding when Sam, my fiancé was involved in a car accident and lost his limbs. I surely could not go on with a disabled guy,” said Clemantine, a shop attendant at Kimironko market. When asked whether she loved him, she smiled sarcastically and said, “Yes I did but I could not sacrifice myself to go on with a lame man-NO!” To love is to sacrifice, when you choose to love someone that means even when things do not go your way, you welcome the situation and handle it with love, at times you have to go an extra mile to realize the amazing beauty of unconditional love. At 26 years, Rose was preparing for her marriage to a young man, Bob who shocked her with a text message that never left her the same. He SMS’d saying, “My love for you has diminished.” After three years of dating and marriage arrangements, this did not make sense for Rose. The question is, when does a once love-stricken ecstatic couple, become excruciating toward each other. Man or woman, it doesn’t matter, remember you should do to others what you would like them to do to you! I have not known of anyone who does not love to be loved. So when you chose to love, love unconditionally because I guess you also want the same unless you seriously do not know what you want. Remember, lust is only for a moment but true love lasts forever! uweralyn@gmail.com