Run away! It's Love and it's on a rampage!

I've been thinking about the way our culture talks about "love". We "fall in love" as if love were some big inescapable pit. "See I was just walking along minding my own business when WHOA I fell in love." I guess we could have statements that start with, "Love is like a pothole...."

Also, I was interested to see that the advertising campaign for "Brokeback Mountain" (the story of two cowboys that pretty much without meaning it "fall in love" and then "have some sex") that they use the phrase "Love is a force of nature." Again we have this emphasis on something unavoidable, unstoppable and possibly unwanted.

Which of course brings us to the end of love. When we fall, we get up again. "Forces of nature" (yes, even hurricanes) abate in time. So love may pull our strings for a while but in time sanity returns and we have no obligation to keep going.

It seems like such a capricious force. "I never meant to cheat on my spouse, but, well, I fell in love with someone else." What a tremendous steaming pile of crap. Excuse me. Love made me say that.

And of course I have to believe that at some level what we are talking about is physical attraction. One of the reviewers of "Brokeback Mountain" referred to the human sex drive as one of the core motivators of human beings. Right. Maybe in a liscentious and hedonistic society that is incapable of teaching human beings to desire righteousness and self control. Oh, wait. I forgot I lived in America.

I'm not sure what we're talking about but it sure ain't love.

Some new suggestions:

"I got steamrolled by love"
"love knocked me out"
"love mugged me"
"love blinded me" (oops we already say that)
"love kicked me in the head" (I like that one)
"love bit me in the nose" (nice!)
"love gave me an excuse to have sex with whomever" (good one!)
"love casued me to be committed even though times were hard" (whaaaaaat?)
"Love taught me to be faithful to my spouse"

And so on.

What does this show us? Well. Maybe that too many of us have never been loved. Or loved someone else. That's just a guess. Add some sayings of your own!