2002-06-18 - 4:06 p.m.

Dear Cary,

I gotta ask. Do you think all of this talk about love in your column is for real? I have to be honest and say that I think it's not, and reading your column

often fills me with bittersweet humor with stories of what people are willing to do for what they call love.

Does anybody really think about this stuff? What is love anyways? I don't care so much what the answer is, but about

whether or not you have thought about it. Is the swimming head feeling of early romance just hormones, or is it some force of nature? What happens when it goes away?

It seems to me that love is something that you do, and not something that happens to you. It also seems irresponsible to not fill in your teeming millions to this fact. I know you would probably be out of a job if you thought love didn't exist, but come on. What do you really think?

Probing Thinker

P.S. Love the column. I think you do great work.

Dear Probing Thinker,

Don't probe too hard. You might break something. Wow. What questions. What do I think? Oh, sheesh. I am not cynical. I am a believer in miracles, happiness and true love. But I am not living in the 12th century. I know that the medium through which the miraculous occurs is a machine of flesh, blood and bone controlled by chemically triggered electrical impulses. I know that experiences the organism has can be imprinted in its memory banks and

reactivated by stimuli, despite whatever the organism "thinks" it "wants." I

know that we are a lot like dogs. I know there's money to be made telling

people what they want to hear, triggering pleasant but trivial electrical impulses in the meatbags of consumers. But I also know that people seek out the truth like medicine because they know it can stop the pain. It stings at first but it takes the ache away.

Perhaps what you are saying is that most people don't think too hard. I have

noticed that, too. But I don't hold it against them. Thinking hurts, and if you

don't have to do it, why would you? Some of us of course, for whatever reason, can't have any ice cream until we've thought it through. I'm not sure it

makes the ice cream taste any better, but it's the way we are. At least we

eventually get the ice cream.

As to love, gee, I think the "swimming head feeling of early romance" is a good

indicator that a happy relationship is a possibility, but it's certainly not

infallible, and it's certainly not love. I like your term better; it's the swimming head feeling.

And I agree that love is an action, but love is also a brand. In the marketplace

of emotions, it is a very high-quality brand indeed, up there with the Ferrari

and the Gibson guitar, whose imitators are legion. There are so many knockoffs, in fact, that it has become impossible to determine with certainty what is genuine love and what is a knockoff. And since there is no central manufacturer of love, it is impossible to control the process. I think you will know only when you feel the genuine leather seats and hear the rich, warm sustain.

-bsg-

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