in parentheses

On the topic of sex, all that I was told by my mother was that there is a difference between having sex and making love, which, to her credit, turned out to be quite accurate. Others I know were confronted with statistics, Prevention Method B versus Prevention Method C, with Prevention Method A (“The Big A”) being the only guarantee. Others still haggled over appropriate timings, The Top Ten Ways to Know When You’re Ready, sometimes just explained by parental-types as Marriage. Whatever societal criticisms exist concerning the extensity of our sexual education, the fact remains that such a phrase exists — sexual education. The world of love, however, remains largely a world we are left to wander through alone, sometimes to our detriment.  When we ask where we are meant to go, when we ask for bearings, we are met with the simple response “you’ll know when you know”.

I have come to know that love exists before boobs and bras and daily deodorant application, and it certainly exists afterwards, after kissing practice on pillows and the successful implementation of such practice. Love even exists after we tell ourselves we will not allow it. There are as many kinds of loves as there are kinds of tears, a correlation that I am still trying to resolve.

The biggest myth about love, I believe, is that love is a behavior, that one acts as if they are in love. It would be most accurate to say one acts because of love, for love is not a behavior. Love is instead the causation behind an unknown number of behaviors. If looking to explain love and all its mutations in the most scientific manner, one must use fiction and metaphor, for love explained with logic is illogical.

… Then again, I’m just pulling this out of my ass. Which is probably the most lovely part of all.