Parachutes

Feelings are tricky. Even deceptive. You can't control who you have strong affections for, and you could never be certain if that person you're pining for has the reciprocal equivalent of your heightened emotions. Liking someone -- and eventually developing lasting fondness for and attachment to them -- is like playing a game of Russian roulette: you never know if you're going to get shot in the head or live to see another day. . . preferably in the arms of your object of affection who turned out to feel the same way that you do.

Sadly, life doesn't always go the way we want.

SHOT TO THE HEART AND YOU'RE TO BLAME

I am no stranger to falling victim to 'falling in love'. I was a sucker for it. Having been exposed at an early age to the particular brand of romance that Hollywood so lavishly and abundantly produces, I became the boy who wore rose-colored glasses, who pined for that perfect 'someone' to come into my life one day, and who lived with his head floating somewhere in the clouds.

My first ever recollection of getting butterflies for someone of the opposite sex was in the second grade. She was a pretty little lady named Maureen, and I was heavily infatuated. . .  at seven years old! Of course nothing much came out of it: we were both just kids and didn't know any better about love and romance. . . but I had butterflies. Lots of them.

Later on in life, with years passing by quite quickly and the influence of 90's rom-coms welling up inside of me, I found myself 'falling' for a girl from the local church I was then attending. We sort of shared a similar liking for music and The Lion King. She was (at the time) mysterious and kind of hard to get, which made pursuing her even more challenging. I eventually asked her to be my girlfriend and, reluctantly I think, she said 'yes'. And no more than two weeks after that, she dumped me. My world was shattered.

I pined for this girl for quite a while; built up this sort of airbrushed version of her in my mind; savored the sweetness of her 'yes'; and now, it all came crashing down. It was not at all a beautiful letdown. It was the first time I ever shed tears for love. . . or at least I thought it was.

I fell for her. Hard. I fell even harder when I got dumped.

Looking back, I know I couldn't completely blame her for that whole romantic debacle. It always takes two to tango, after all. The shot I took to the chest was largely my fault: my imagination and my emotions ran wild, untethered, and unrefined.

No lessons on how to prevent a 'fall' were taught me back then. The school of hard knocks willingly educated me. . . thoroughly.

THE LONG FALL BACK TO HURT

Sometimes we become the master architects of our own emotional destruction: we fall headlong into a saturation of saccharine sensations without giving any of them the benefit of logic and time. Often involved in the mix is our propensity to read between lines, put meaning behind casual gestures, and draw conclusions from insufficient evidence.

In my case, I bought in (hook, line, and sinker) to the whole romantic package movies and television had to offer. When a spark of infatuation for an individual of the opposite sex was lit up in me, a fuse of crazy lovey-dovey ideas would begin to run amok: I would build a world -- my world -- around the object of my desires conceptualizing potential date nights, imagining time spent with this particular female, projecting the next ten years of our lives together -- marriage and kids included. All this without even any confirmation of reciprocal affection from the other person.

Scenarios like these aren't helped at all when our points of reference when it comes to all things amorous and affectionate are the hyper-idealized and uber-fantasized versions of relationships that media and entertainment so abundantly produces, the foolhardy advice of some self-proclaimed love/sex-guru, or the broken and twisted view of romance and marriage that is so pervasive in our world today.

If we do not get a better understanding of our emotions, of interpersonal relationship, and of the workings of 'true love', then we will always be subject to a one-sided falling in love, which eventually leads to a long fall back to the hurtful truth that we may have only created romantic world of illusions.

A CANOPY OF CAUTION

Sense and sensibility, in my opinion, will always trump pride and prejudice. As creatures with a built-in ability to make choices, each one of us has the capacity to decide different courses of actions to take in any given scenario in life. Pulling that back a little further though, we will realize that the choices we make will greatly be influenced by the amount of common sense, practical logic, and legit sensibility: something that every one of us has hopefully allowed to develop within us over the years.

Common sense is sadly and actually not common. But if one has it, it should be used to the full. Apply it in cases where infatuation and overwhelming emotions tend to run the show. Remember that feelings are quite fleeting and oftentimes flimsy. Instead of allowing these rose-colored perceptions of love and romance to overtake a potential relationship, tether it with the truth, reality, and sobriety. Evaluate existing thoughts and feelings for the other person. Are they based on fact, or are they anchored in fiction? Are we in love with who they truly are, or who we imagine them to be? We must be sensible even amidst the butterflies fluttering in our stomach.

Logic can pretty much be magic when it comes to estimating the viability of a potential coupling with the one who has captured our affections. This should include not just our own personal logic -- our judgments and assumptions -- but also the wisdom and perspectives of people surrounding us and our 'loved' one. Heck, it might even be wise to get a glimpse into the other person's own logic, and see if their kind and gentle gestures and way with words are exclusively displayed for you, or just something that is inherent to their nature -- call this one disaster prevention, if you will. We humans are so prone to drawing our own conclusions to suit our own wants and needs after all. Preconceived ideas and prejudices about 'him' or 'her' should be set aside for the real deal.

Sensibilities can be quite varied and wide-ranging. In the context of relationships of any kind, other people's sensibilities should and must be taken into account... not just our own because whenever we experience heightened emotions, our inclination most of the time is to get enraptured with our own sensibilities, while disregarding the other person's. Sometimes it can be a matter of pride, too, when we choose to abide only by our own feelings and thoughts, highlight our own fantasies and desires, and insist on achieving the kind of romantic entanglements we've envisioned and fabricated in our minds. Hey, a relationship is a two-way partnership that involves two hearts, two minds, two personalities, two distinct human beings. If we want it all to go exactly the way we want, perhaps we should just isolate ourselves and live as hermits on Mount Cook, or become inconsiderate tyrants in command of mindless robots and puppets. Wouldn't that be a sad existence?

SLOW DOWN, TAKE TIME

Having said all these, each one of us can choose to either of the following:

(a) 'fall' in love rushing in foolishly and run the risk of crashing and burning; disregard all logic and sensibility; let the wind (of emotions) take us wherever it may lead; assume, assume, assume; base every idea and decision on oftentimes unrealistic expectations

or

(b) exercise caution; walk with sobriety; put on wisdom as a parachute so that we don't actually 'fall' but descend at low-risk speeds, which will increase our chances of having a safe landing... regardless of having our affections reciprocated.

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Nobody taught me these things growing up. I've learned these lessons from personal life experiences, from other people's mistakes, and from being able to recognize wisdom from printed material. If I were to sum all of these up into a condensed maxim, it would be "Haste makes waste. Look before your leap. Make sure your parachute is working and strapped tightly to your body. Enjoy the ride!"