*steps up to laptop*

*takes a quick gulp of water*

It's been a while people. Hmmm... everyone here seems to be "in the mood for love". Since every has posted something up about love, I'm going to continue the chain now. As an answer to Esther's post, I am one of those who is in love right now. It has been nothing short of an interesting ride so far. I have been missing that feeling for a very long time until recently (okay, not so recent). It's just that feeling of being loved, being cared for, to love someone, care for someone, do things for someone that you will otherwise never do for anyone. People who have been in love before but are no longer at the moment, no matter how much we resist it or no matter how happy we are with our current life, you just can't help but miss those times and those memories. At times you wish they would come back.

[...] we should learn not to have expectations in any situation, but rather to have preferences [...]

No matter how many experiences one has had, still when you are in love once again, it's a whole new experience. A new person, a new character, a new style and new problems. On a more positive note, new sweet memories which one will definitely remember. Okay, so now say that you are in love with someone (mutually), here's the new question. What's next? What are the both of you going to do?

In most cases, that's when you get together (you know, the boyfriend/girlfriend thingy). In some other cases, couples would wait a while before making a decision of what to do with their relationship. Perhaps testing to see if it would last, perhaps to see if everything that is happening is not just a crush and that it is all real. The latter decision would be more popular amongst couples who are less sure or more cautious, wanting to be sure the relationship lasts for a long long time.

Then a new question arises. In either cases, call yourselves whatever you want, "boyfriend/girlfriend", "still just friends" or any weird thing that you can come up with, it is a fact that you are no longer just normal friends. Things are not the same anymore. So how do you maintain this new relationship? That is a separate issue from getting together with the person. Now you have to deal with trust issues, the person's character or attitude, his or her likes and dislikes, how you show love to each other, how you communicate with each other, outbursts from the other party, disappointments, jealousy and insecurity just to name a few. There are too many things to consider before you can actually make your relationship work and last for a long time. Since there are SO many things to consider, why bother to do such a troublesome thing in the first place?

I guess that's the weird thing about love. You just love the other person so so so much that all these troublesome things just seem small enough to ignore for the moments you are with him or her. I guess if there was a sure-fire way to overcome problems in a relationship, the simplest way I can put it for you here is that we should learn not to have expectations in any situation, but rather to have preferences. If we expect our "other half" to do certain things or react in certain ways to us, more often than not we are going to end up disappointed. If we learn to just have preferences, we wouldn't really be disappointed that often. Well, I'm saying this because I know it works. I'm sure some can testify to that *grins*. I'm still learning to do that now, unfortunately I fail most of the time. But I'm trying hard, for the sake of working things out. Must remember that.

*yawns*

*tucks myself into bed*