It’s a fact of life that people fall in love. The trouble with that proposition is that not many can actually describe what love is. I don’t mean describing it in a dictionary sense, but rather what actually constitutes that loving feeling inside of you. It certainly isn’t automatic, at least not in terms of a parent-child relationship.

Of course there are those who believe that a parent would automatically love their child, but in a world where children are being exploited, either sexually or emotionally, I find that concept hard to believe.

This means that love must be something that people work on, something that isn’t natural but rather induced by a myriad of factors including our own eccentricities, likes and dislikes. But that wouldn’t explain how someone could fall in love with their complete opposites, would it? If you like to read books, what makes you love someone who doesn’t?

Opposites attract, but why? And even then it’s not necessarily true. I even doubt that it could ever be measured in any physical sense. For example, a fat guy and a thin girl falls in love. Opposites attract, no? Or have they dismissed their one dissimilarity to find countless other common interests?

What about those who look exactly the same, have the same hobbies, and even talk the same way? Now the same people who say opposites attract would say that the couple was meant to be together because of their similarities. Or is it because they have found in each other different quirks that they find appealing? Could it be in a sea of similarities, it's the differences that actually tie these people together?

In fact, how do you know that you’re actually in love? A sense of responsibility can also be construed as love, as do pure physical attraction. I’ve met people who say that they’re in love, madly deeply in love, but quarrel every day. They admitted that it hurts when they quarrel. How can love, if interpreted to mean that warm fuzzy feeling, be equivalent to things which caused harm to your soul?

Or do some people really find that warm fuzzy feeling from verbal assault, or even more extreme, BDSM kind of fetish? Which leaves us back to square one, how do you define, or even identify love?

I am in love. But what people believe to constitute love – compassion, patience, honesty, monogamy and other virtues too long for me to mention – is sometimes missing in me, and I do believe it will in the future, only to resurface back again if I am patient enough to work on it. I guess that’s why some people (or most people in today’s world) choose the easy path and say that they’ve fallen out of love, because they equate the lack of one component to a total failure of the whole concept of love. Thankfully, I don’t, and neither does my partner.

Men are prone to saying that they are no longer in love with their partner, simply because they are no longer attracted to them, whether physical or not. But that is just one aspect of having a relationship, isn’t it? Love can still go on when you hate the look of you partner, right?

Or am I correct in saying that love is something like a car? To keep you moving and heading towards your destination, you need the various parts of the car to perform its function. Sometimes you lose parts like side view mirror, or the wiper, or the seat cushions are all torn up, but the car still moves along, right? But what if you were to lose a tire, or if the engine is broke…should you still stay in the car or find another one?

Some may find that looks are as important as those seat-belt warning chimes, and some may think that looks are the fuel to drive their car forward. It’s up to us to find out what equates to the windshield wiper, and what constitutes the engine, in our relationship. At this moment, I kind of think I'm in a BMW M5 – gorgeous (yes, we are quite vain as a couple) yet understated, extremely quick (I still think she's sexy, even after 6 years) yet comfortable just puttering around town, expensive (ah, but what if I don't have the money?) yet still affordable and most importantly, built to last. I'm honest enough to admit it might suddenly lose a tire, or the gearbox in the future (most likely because of me...I blame my genes!!!), but nobody said you can’t repair a car, right?

p/s: Sometimes I feel the need to drive cars like the Bugatti Veyron (why must you be soooo gataaaallll...)…but it’s way too expensive for me, isn’t it?

This one's for my lover...