Relationships, again

As if I haven't said enough on the subject in the last month. I can blame it on being at the wedding; that gave my singleness a sudden sense of mortality.

Anyway, driving down to the wedding, I got my dad to tell me my parents' full-length "story" for the first time. Strange that I'd never asked before, but I have to say they never tried to tell us either. But that began a conversation, quickly involving my sisters, about us getting into relationships. I won't try to give a play-by-play, but my father made a few somewhat profound points that deserve to be rendered in black and beige.

First, his explanation of falling in love made more sense than any I've ever heard. Perhaps it's because my mind works a lot like his. Anyway, he shocked my sisters by saying that as a young man he could have fallen in love with 80% of girls his age, and the same holds true of most people. In his conceptualization, love begins with a simple crush. And for him, more than one or two long conversations alone with a girl would be enough to escalate a crush seriously, and unless controlled quickly that would turn into "falling in love". His analogy was fire, and made the point that unless you want fire in a relationship, you shouldn't light one. Combustive behaviour would include physical contact and long, deep conversations, praying together, and spending a lot of time together. I can definitely identify a number of times in my life where that type of thing has needlessly started fires in my life. (This is where my friends are rolling on the floor laughing).

The second point my Dad made is related but I've really never heard it before. He said he wouldn't have a lot to say to a guy that wanted to marry one of my sisters. At that point, he said, "What could I do?" Love has already taken hold, and unless it's an egregiously bad choice (or if they were young), he couldn't stop it. Rather, he'd regulate things more closely when a guy firsts asks one of my sisters. (You takin' notes, boys?) He wouldn't let a guy date one of them whom he wouldn't want to be his son in law, and really the equivalent goes for me - perhaps doubly so. This philosophy is firmly grounded in the idea that you can fall in love with anyone, and empirically it seems that anyone can end up marrying anyone. So make sure that the basic elements of a marriage would work before giving your heart out.

Make sense?