I was recently listening to some songs by a soft-rock band named Bread; they were in their heyday in the early 1970s, at a time when I was about to transition to teenage-hood. Some of you reading this probably also grew up listening to them. Their songs are almost all about romantic love in one form or another, but there are two particularly striking ones that I didn’t understand at the time. One of them is called “Diary,” about a guy who discovers a diary written by a girl. He thinks the words of love are about him, but then he finds out they’re about another guy. Here are the striking words at the end:
“I will wish for her, his wife
All the sweet things she can find
All the sweet things they can find”
Another song by Bread in a somewhat similar vein is “It Don’t Matter to Me.” Here are a few striking lines:
“It don’t matter to me
If you take up with someone who’s better than me
‘Cause your happiness is all I want”
Admittedly, not all of Bread’s music is about this kind of incredibly unselfish love that wants the happiness of the other person, even if it’s not with the songwriter. Here are a few lines from “Aubrey,” for example:
“And Aubrey was her name
I never knew her, but I loved her just the same
I loved the name”
That song is clearly about infatuation, not love. However, it was the unfathomable love of “Diary” and “It Don’t Matter to Me” that I continued to come back to in my heart and mind, still not understanding it. A few years later, I started college, and about halfway through my Bachelor’s degree, I became a Christian. I also came across a transformative book around that time called Sex, Love, or Infatuation: How Can I Really Know? (I still have it.) Being a hormonal 20-year-old, I truly wanted to understand the difference between love and infatuation. Ray Short, who was a Methodist minister and professor of sociology, laid out 14 key clues in the form of questions to distinguish love from infatuation. Here they are:
- What is your main interest? What attracts you most?
- How many things attract you?
- How did the romance start?
- How consistent is your level of interest?
- What effect does the romance have on your personality?
- How does it end? [if it does]
- How do you view each other?
- How do others view you two? What’s the attitude of friends and parents?
- What does distance (long separation) do to the relationship?
- How do quarrels affect the romance?
- How do you feel about and refer to your relationship?
- What’s your ego response to the other?
- What’s your overall attitude toward the other?
- What is the effect of jealousy?
A few years later, I met a beautiful, godly young woman who I enjoyed getting to know. Among other things, we shared the desire to teach in the same Third World country–and in fact, we eventually did, albeit in different parts of that country. After 2+ years of friendship, our relationship changed into something different. I didn’t have Short’s book with me at the time, but a couple of “clues” in particular jumped out in my mind and heart: #3 (how our relationship started) and #9 (the effect of long distance/separation–and I do mean long!). When she came back to the U.S. a year before I did, we continued to write each other letters (yeah, those things people used to write with pen and paper) that took ten days to reach each other; that meant I had to wait three weeks until I got her response to a given letter. We also sent each other cassette tapes (remember those?) with our voices on them, speaking to each other in monologue. As we continued to correspond, it was obvious to me that what we had was love, not infatuation. (My intended agreed!) I proposed as soon as I got back to the U.S.; we got married six months later; and eight months after that, we returned to that Third World country as newlyweds. 35+ years later, we’re still happily married (in the U.S.).
Returning to Short’s book: he gives this summary clue that is a real stunner: In real love, you love the person so much that you want him or her to be happy–even if you aren’t the one who gets to share that happiness. Does this remind you of those first two Bread songs I quoted at the outset?! Short says if this kind of love is mutual: “There aren’t many loves like that around.” I would agree! He goes on to say, “In most cases, of course, such love need not be denied. The couple will spend their lives together [married], devoted to the joy of making each other happy.”
I can’t say that my wife and I had that kind of remarkably selfless love before we got married; in fact, I still have a hard time wrapping my mind and heart around it. Regardless, Short’s book was transformative in helping me distinguish between love and infatuation at an important time in my life. I know that a number of you that I’ve been getting to know in the blogosphere over the past four years are somewhere in or close to my age range, so this post may not be as directly applicable to you as it could be to your kids or grandkids. (Feel free to share, as always.) However, I know that I also have some younger readers. Speaking of reading: thankfully, Short’s book is still available on used-book sites like thriftbooks.com.
I should add, as well, that I can see how someone who’s married might twist Short’s (and David Gates’s) words into something like this: “My husband or wife would really be happier without me, so I think it’s better if I leave. After all, their happiness is all I want.” That would be a lie from Satan. What the person should do, instead, is learn how to love his or her spouse better. The Five Love Languages (by Gary Chapman) is a great place to start.
May those of us who are married continue to love our spouse increasingly selflessly. May those who are not married–but would like to be–find words of wisdom in Short’s book that will help in choosing the right person to spend the rest of your life with.