What is Love?? Baby don’t hurt me.. don’t hurt me no more..”

– Original by artist Haddaway, immortalized by Jim Carrey, Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell

The Roxbury Guys bobbing their heads to the tune of “What is Love”, while driving up to bars, nightclubs and even proms have had us in splits since time immemorial. Besides the head-dance, their unfortunate and socially-awkward attempts at wooing, impressing or gyrating women of all ages, was the key to this strikingly weird but funny video. And we all might have had sumptuous laughs over this, multiple times, but we have also seen our friends, colleagues, batchmates do this over and over again. I do recollect finding myself in a group of 3 or 4 friends on some nights with the same drive like the Roxbury Guys, except the head-dance maybe. Depending on the intensity of impropriety exercised on such nights, we have swayed between casual laughs in some cases to bitter experiences in certain extreme situations.

Having aged up, I guess, and settled in life, when I look back on those nights, I feel a sense of ignorance-ridden guilt for certain actions or comments or any form of misdemeanors I might have committed. What I realize is that what we all lacked was a suitable answer to the question ‘What is Love’ and instead of looking for that answer, we were building our own versions or assumptions and experimenting with it. More often than not, most of us sane people settled for a basic premise of this answer –> Love is Mutual Attraction –> with out own frills and laces around it. Well, there always was an insane group which chose to ignore the word “Mutual” altogether and went ahead with their destructive premise, harming themselves and others in the process.

Till a greater part of my youth, I too believed in the sane premise of Mutual Attraction like most others. But the universe had other plans for me, because it wanted me to find the right answer. Through unbelievable twists and turns, from the depths of depression and despair I found myself saved by my one True Love, and that is when I found the holy grail. True Love is not Mutual Attraction but Mutual Admiration. The feeling of love borne out of respect and admiration of another individual is far, far more powerful than any human emotion. And I am sure this isn’t rocket-science, since most happy couples in their 30s or above already know this. It’s just that we don’t see it or realize it when it matters.

So all you young folks out there, Find someone You are in Awe of, find someone you Respect or Appreciate for something, and you would know That is Love!