I’ve been actively avoiding writing my views on love, passion, relationships, and marriage for some time now. The concept of happily ever after has been so thwarted in the midst of the divorce era we are in and tainted by the constant reminder of infidelity, that the hopeless romantic in me really needs to struggle to stay afloat, let alone stay alive. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in romance, the butterflies in the stomach, the heightened eager anxiety and fervor you feel when you see someone you desire and ‘can’t bear to live without’ – but does this last? Not without a lot of hard work and compromise, two words that do not necessarily correlate with the rose colored word love. I thought quotes would help me like it did with other subjects I felt ardent about, like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, “my bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite” – but we all know how that love story ended! I then went to the other extreme, Woody Allen, to get a witty, cynical, sarcastic point of view, “To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer.” Surprisingly enough, this New Yorkers opinion left me as depressed as the “pair of star-crossed lovers”! It was only after reading “Committed”, by Elizabeth Gilbert, another skeptic of marriage but advocator of love, that I was able to articulate more clearly how my feminist cynic could co-exist with my hopeless romantic side. Finding love, a real life partner, a soul mate was about finding someone you decided to continue your life journey with, remaining autonomous, and becoming a sum where 1+1=2 and never where 1+1=1. Elizabeth Gilbert explains “real, sane, mature love” to be based on affection and respect, and not on infatuation. Did you know the word “respect” comes from the Latin respicere (“to gaze at”), suggesting that you can actually see the person who is standing next to you? To wholly know, accept and understand the one you love, is to fully see them.