The Three Loves

A few months ago I was waiting at Tegel Airport before I could board my flight home to Chicago. I sat near a television screen that was flashing various headlines, but one particular report caught my eye. According to n-tv (the German equivalent of CNN), we only fall in love three times in our lives, which I loosely interpreted to mean that we have three major loves during our life. 

Here are the three purported loves:

#1: The first love is our "childhood love" - or to be redundant, the very first love of our life. Childhood love sounds like you were fourteen when it happened. I was not a child, however, I was twenty.  

#2: The second love is our "difficult love." This was all of my mid to late 20s and a few months after my 30th birthday.

#3: The third love is the "unexpected one." This love began for me at the age of 30.



I have had plenty of time to ponder the claim, which one might immediately discredit. Three loves? No! I fell in love plenty of times as a young person! What about all my childhood crushes? Or it could go the other way. I've only fallen in love once! I married my childhood sweetheart! 

While no rule is absolute, with my more loose interpretation, I think it still works.

I have certainly experienced both #1 and #3, and they strangely enough were in Germany.

Everything else in between, #2, was difficult. More than I ever thought could be possible. I might have thought I was in love and even told myself - or the partner - that I loved them, but it simply wasn't right. I cried, I screamed, I begged, I even ran away from one. But nothing fixed the problems or righted the wrongs along the way. I tried to make a square peg fit in the round hole, but in the end, it just ain't gonna work, no matter how hard you try. This was also a difficult phase for me and I ripped through a lot of dudes, which I think prepared me for what was to come: the unexpected love, accompanied by a newfound maturity and willingness to work things out. 

This is not to say the unexpected love, my current (and I'm sure as hell hoping my last) love, is perfect. I don't believe in perfection - see my last post about that - but in another post I certainly wrote he is THE ONE. I believe it. I feel it. I know it. He is my best friend, my shoulder to cry on, my warm embrace, my partner and my grounding force. Even just today I said how happy and lucky I am to have him in my life and to know that is was Tinder that brought us together! It boggles the mind, but it certainly was unexpected, and somehow all the better for it. 

I wonder if you agree that your love life has progressed similarly or not. Please feel free to leave a comment if you like! 

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