Of love or the lack thereof....

What is this love anyway? Merriam lists some nine definitions of the same, ranging from "strong affection arising from personal ties" to "unselfish and benevolent concern" to "attraction based on sexual desire" to "holding an opponent scoreless in tennis". This is my feeble attempt at demystifying the word for our times.....


Is your man texting you five times a day (at least)?
Is he your friend on Facebook and does he "like" all your status messages?
Does he call you a few times a day at least to check on you and/or tell you how special you are?
Does he buy you flowers on the day that you make "paruppu urundai moar kuzhambu"?
Does he inundate you with sweet little notes and/or expensive gifts?
Does he get along with all your friends?
Does he rub your toes and get you a warm blanket when you are stretched out in front of the TV after a long day?


These are sample questions that might be on a poll in a woman-centric magazine. This being a PG rated blog, let's not address the poll that might be in a men's magazine. By now, the astute reader would have guessed that I'm not talking about tennis (the rest of you will catch on eventually). As the world goes hi-tech, love, an already complex emotion, only gets more so. When you are in love, you tend to show-off.....a lot. "Look at what I have and look how he expresses love for me" seems to be the mantra today. We really don't need to use binoculars to spy on our neighbors a la Sowcar Janaki in "Bhama Vijayam". Our female neighbors (both real and virtual) are very forthcoming in this regard and no detail is spared. Sample status messages "Its a Tiffany and Hermes birthday. My husband is beyond..." or under a picture of a two dozen roses "I got roses today. Why? Because its a Tuesday, that's why! My boyfriend so rocks!!!" or even "I got engaged on Friday to the most amazing man and cannot stop looking at my x-carat ring, set in platinum. Sigh!" Chances of seeing similar updates on a man's page are pretty slim, even non-existent. How did we get from "Does your mate whack you on the head with his club and drag you by your hair into his cave? Hubba, hubba, you lucky devil!" to "Did your partner propose to you on a yacht, off the coast of a private island in the Carribean? You lucky diva!"? Some pretty clever marketing, that's how.


What is love to me? It is a man walking his children to school in a downpour, carrying a bright pink umbrella or another who quietly does the dishes every night after a hard day at work or a man who tends to his ailing wife without complaint for fifteen years. Maybe its just me, but these things sure seem to last a whole lot longer than many dozen red roses.