Love and Lust are two words that have woven their way around mankind for a long time. Depending on what your take on both these words is, the premium you place on their existence in a relationship or just a regular session of leaching varies.
There are some scientists who have spent years, some of them devoting their entire lives to find out if love and lust is indeed the same thing, viewed and experienced differently, just like marriage.
Let’s begin by outlining what love really is. I mean at which point is it fair to say that you love someone who isn’t related to you? How does the whole process happen? Look at how we describe this feeling. “Dude, I think I’m falling in love”. First of all, why are you falling? Did you trip on something? Were you distracted or looking elsewhere? Of course you were. But wait, isn’t that the other “L” word? And if the beginning of this feeling is characterized by the process of falling, then what are you falling into? Most people say it is a trap, the rest, are divorced. Nobody knows when love happens. It just happens.
Lust on the other hand is the simpler of the two emotions. It is an instant reaction to a primal urge to propagate one’s genes, or as men refer to it as “being a man”. When you’re in love, your senses are numbed, and as you are free falling, your eyes are closed (obviously). But with lust, you need active participation of all your senses (sight, sound, touch and the ability to find a condom in the dark). Lust is driven by pure passion and raw desire. As far as a man is concerned there is complete clarity in terms of what he wants to do with this lust, and why he doesn’t want to call the woman back the next day. And that is where the two (love and lust) begin to merge and become one, and then become two again.
This is the problem with the concept of dating (marriage for the more adventurous folk). As much as they might want to deny it, women do not like honest men. A man can’t walk up to a woman and say, “I think you’re really hot, and I want to take you home with me”. No! He must “love” her. This is where most men get confused, because their quota of love has already been allotted to video games and sports. (Mind you the supply is finite. If a man tells a woman he loves her but also owns a PS3 and supports Manchester United, he is lying). Now, he must find a way to convince this woman that he “loves” her and what they are about to do is actually going to lead to something meaningful. At this point, he has begun to call that raw desire to be with this woman, love. And to prove his love for her, he has to do all sorts of things, like brush his teeth, wear matching socks and find a job.
This works the other way round too. It is not that only men feel lust. Women do too, but the hypocritical society that we live in forbids it for a woman to act on that lust. Hence, she must find a more suitable word to describe her own desire to jump a man’s bones. The irony of the whole fact is that this hypocritical mentality was created primarily by men and secondarily by women. Men, who were being rejected by pretty lasses, were calling them all sorts of names, women who weren’t as pretty as these lasses coincidentally called them the same names. So basically, the people who weren’t getting any action, created a system that made it difficult for the ones that did.
Lust was therefore just not good enough, it needed something more. What I also find very funny is how we judge other people’s relationships based on lust and love. If its two people getting together because they are just plain attracted to each other, “Oh it’s just lust! Nothing serious” On the other hand if a couple mildly displays their attraction towards each other but spend more time arguing and fighting over who they can and cannot talk to, what they should or should not wear and lose their minds if their respective halves don’t answer their phone in the first 10 seconds, then THAT is true love.
So the verdict is clear for all to see. Love is just a repackaged and supposedly more presentable version of lust. Lust is honest and true, incorruptible and safe from forgery. Love on the other hand, which is governed by emotions, feelings, conversations, hugs, tears, coffee and shopping is used to make it look like all the effort was worth it.
Somebody, please call those scientists and tell them the mystery has been solved.