Love, Actually

One half of me is yours, the other half yours--

Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,

And so all yours.

~ Merchant of Venice

We say 'lou' when we mock it, 'lurve' when we mean it, even 'luv' if we're being all Govinda-Govinda, but we tread oh-so-softly around 'love' because 'love' takes away the buffers and puts it all right there in the open. 'Love' means there's no hiding behind decoys ranging from the cutesy to the cheesy. Love's sending your crippled dog of a heart out onto a main road during peak traffic hours and trusting it'll get to the other side. I read a piece by Louis Caroll the other day; well, not a piece, a love letter; only it was so crafted, it felt like a piece. An amusing, intriguing, quirkily sweet piece, but a piece nonetheless.

Now, I've no problem with pieces. I adore filmy declarations just as much as the next girl brought up on a healthy diet of Bollywood drama interspersed with M&B's (if you just turned up your nose and scoffed, honey, you've no idea what entertainment potential you're missing.) That's the thing though. At the end of the day, this stuff is just that - entertainment.

Long division about whose anatomy belongs in what proportion to whom, while aww-inducing, is about as relevant as a property settlement when there is no property. Or you know, a GMAT sum. (And that's the second - and third - metaphor I've used in about as many paragraphs so I suggest you shoot me now, as I'm clearly growing old.) Sometimes, all a girl wants to hear is what you perversely refuse to tell her in so many words, despite your MANY superfluous words otherwise.

And, sometimes, try as you may to clam your mouth and do your bit towards promoting the urband legend of the straight male species being an insensitive self-absorbed bunch of coots who'd rather watch cricket while intently scratching their crotches than acting their age or agreeing emotions aren't necessarily drunken hallucinations or excuses for sex, you unclam against your will and end up saying it all even if you're saying nothing at all.