Falling in Like.

(I will write this vision through the lens of the single person, for at present, I have none other lens to view through. I am well certain that counter statements to this text abound.)

There is a perpetual state in the life of singledom; this state personifies the idea of the rolling stone failing to gather moss. The concept of ‘love at first sight’ is a farce, we will do well to have that out and go forward understanding that it is a thought propagated by the same people that would never tell a dear friend the truth for fear of hurting them. Love, real Love (or as close as we can approach on so fallen a spinning ball), as has been clearly delineated by thinkers far greater than I, is not physically capable of growing within the few parsecs that birth an emotion. Walk with me: a fellow is riding his bicycle down the street, he happens upon a girl at the crosswalk. They make eye contact and a feeling emerges that each reader knows exactly. This feeling says, ‘She is perfect, she is beautiful, I need her or my life will not be ruined.’ Oddly enough, when the light turns green and he peddles off in one direction, she in another; the world continues spinning, gravity continues to operate, and all is well. ‘Falling in like’ is the state that the vast majority of the world around us confuses for Falling in Love; it manifests itself in a myriad of ways, most commonly in the state overestimating one’s attachment to another, a regular changing of the be’liked’ or in the more difficult cases, there is little change with be’liked’ yet they are not a viable candidate.

The great philosopher Ferris Bueller, once stated, “Life moves pretty fast…” If one honestly looks at the face before them in the mirror, whilst repeating the day’s date, this statement will become inevitably, inexplicable real. When high on the natural amphetamine of time, ‘like’ becomes a deranged, tormented, globual of energy. ‘Like’ hopped up on speed will take a casual, passing glance and grow it into a 50-year marriage if not well protected, if not chaste. There is an innate need engrained into the human psyche. There is this need for a woman in a man, and a woman in a man. (Call me a close minded bigot, you will not be the first, nor the last if I guess correctly.) I take the Law to be truth, and therefore I take the word of the Law relative to the creation of women out of the rib of a man to mean completely literal things. Moreover, the master teacher, the master metaphor architect is not of flesh and blood but of spirit that holds the entire universe in perfect balance…if that spirit deemed that women should come from man and they should be united, I am not so bold as to disagree…but by all means, be my guest if…I am certain that each of us will have the opportunity to stand before this Creator and air out if our beefs…if we have the legs to…but I digress. This manifestation of the ‘falling in like’ malady is one of Alice falling down the rabbit hole, there is a blink and it is past; the like has already happened. Giving of ‘the like’ over in one’s mind is akin to saying a word, once it has escaped the lips, there is not way for it to return.

This affliction becomes more apparent when the afflicted begins to monitor the regularity with which it cycles. The process of ‘FiL’, in the general public, is derived from reading and properly following the directions on shampoo. “Rinse and Repeat” There are only two ways by which the mountain of scar tissue amassed on the average human’s heart can be explained. Either the like and loss on a scale of the holocaust, or a myriad of likes and losses sequentially. The ladder is the model of society.

Yet, not all who participate in this idolatry flippantly jump from one temple to another. There are those that become devout followers of one, these poor souls are the most pathetic, saddest lot, not surprisingly they also form the majority. They ‘Fall deep in like.’ As a rule, the verb of falling in deep like is brilliant. Error occurs when one party falls in deep like with another party that does not even know they exist. If we take our fellow again we can learn another lesson from his troubles. He rides the train to work each day. The train leaves his stop at 7.47a. He sits in the second car everyday. She sits in the second car of the 7.47a train everyday as well. Over the past 10 months he has ’fallen in deep like’ with her 30 glorious minutes at a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, yet never more than a few glances have been exchanged. This fellow does not know her name, her faith, her family, her background --- she is an utter stranger, yet just by the proximity his mind has constructed, he feels a relationship that is also as much a construct as the moon landing. (had to) The hard truth of this model is this, on a specific Friday our boy happens upon the be’liked’ at a local pub, she is celebrating her recent engagement. He is crushed…yet who is there to blame for the state? Precisely.

__ personal note I had this editorial note in a draft (she doesn’t see him) and do not recall what it means…yet maybe it is poking at this concept ___