Among them: “Hey girls! You need a bodyguard?” or aggressive as “You want to sleep with me? I know it”, even our waiters at one of the bars wanted to make out. I can’t possibly conceive how much action these guys get living in a resort/party town like Cabo. For someone like me, hoping this girls’ trip will lead to conversations on men and dating, I was beginning to lose hope for inspiration.
The one person we didn’t plan on encountering was a young man named Frenando, who was running a bus tours booth. Fernando ran up to us and asked a simple question “What is love?” My two girlfriends and I were taken somewhat aback. Here was one Cabo resident NOT trying to get in our pants, but rather offering a philosophical question with a seemingly universal answer.
Each of us gave him our thoughts on what love was to us, in some cases struggling to put emotions into words, but Fernando had the shortest and sweetest answer: love is friendship with heat.
While walking away, the three of us began to unravel Fernando’s answer, as women do. Everyone has a different definition of love, but his was so concise it was hard to ignore. The topic kept us in conversation all the way back to the hotel.
Mystics, skeptics and philosophers have contemplated and argued the idea of love for centuries. A basic definition says that love is “a deep feeling of sexual desire and attraction, or to be enamored with someone”. St. Thomas Aquinas takes a more selfless view, “to will the good of another”. Scientists equate it all to a chemical process that classifies as a feeling of addiction, and that it is born purely out of the need to procreate.
For those of us who aren’t scientists or scholars, love is an intangible, something felt but not seen. It’s hard to put into words and comes in many forms. Everyone shows their love for one another in different ways, through hugs, words or even gifts or acts of kindness.
Ask most women about love and they will more than likely use words like connection, chemistry, intimacy and laughter; men will mention physical attraction, chemistry and then maybe laughter. Still others believe in the fairy tale love at first sight, the un-definable mysterious attraction. Others equate it to a mathematical equation of finding someone with all the traits they’re looking for, but no substance.
While a majority of people believe in love and life partners, most fear the heartbreak so much that they prefer to put their “love resources” into friends, families, pets or volunteer work rather than a relationship. So now love, in terms of a personal relationship, morphs into fear.
However, Fernando had no fear of love and had every desire to share his thoughts with three complete strangers. I felt that it was my muse enlightening me and reminding me why I chose to write a dating column; to spread love and deliver some insight in to dating. After all, life is all about love; friends, family, the hope of love, its trials, challenges, dating horrors and thrills in feeling and finding it.
And even though the purpose of dating is largely to find a life partner, how often do we sit down and define love for ourselves? What we’re looking for in our “friend” outside of physical attraction and sexual compatibility?
Although I have gone through the exercise in the past (you know the one where you write down all the qualities and traits you would like in a life partner?), I’ve never really focused on my personal definition of love. The truth is that you will never get everything you’re looking for specifically because no one is perfect, so we have to open ourselves to love the imperfections as we do with friends and family, and this is where love comes to play; love becomes human and friendship, respect and relationship equality spring to life.
How you define love may just explain why you are single. Hard to hear, I know, but if you define love by physical beauty than you are not finding a lasting friendship but you’re led by lust. Those who date people they like as friends but have no fire or connection with ultimately find themselves in an endless circle that they can’t get out of.
I believe that if we can all take a moment of our time to define love, what we’re looking for, who we are and how we want to love, not only will our potential of finding a life partner of substance increase, but we might just make the world a better place.
• "Dating Games" appears the 1st and 15th of every month, exclusively in Lumino Magazine. E-mail Jennifer at jenfort@hotmail.com.
