love people fall into the trap of trying to alter love to suit personal fantasies of what it should be. Frequently spending their time convincing themselves of what they can change about the other, instead of how they can work to accept them. "I was one of those women whose fate is to take a war out of a man, or at least imagine she is doing so." (pg.4) Clearly Mary was setting herself up for failure but did nothing to stop the negative outcome. The first step in finding love is acceptance of oneself, then learning how to accept someone else. Trying to force this process is an inevitable sign of disaster. Rushing a process that is as delicate as love is not meant to be. There must be a real foundation in a relationship for it to proceed to the next level. Sometimes, if a relationship is rushed it could be extremely overwhelming and so it cannot make the people in it happy. Flaws are overlooked because people are in love with the idea of being in love, the idea that another would change for the sake of the relationship. Similarly, one attribute could overshadow many faults that mold the other person into something that they are not, as in the case of Mary. Overlooking many small imperfections may be the cause of a relationship's failure, because one quality cannot make it work. It is this illusion that makes someone think that they are in control of their relationship, when in reality they are not.Love is abused because of humans' desire to control what is not given to them to control. Many say it is better have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. This may have been the way Mary regarded her relationship with Jos Lus. Thinking through my life and my experiences with love or the lack thereof causes many unanswerable questions to arise. Love is an enigma that causes many individuals heartache, but for those very few it completes their lives. I myself have not found "love", and truthfully the search for it has a...
