Is Love Truly Blind?

Well...! What do you think?

"Love is blind and love can be foolish – Our heart doesn’t always love the right people at the right time. Sometimes we hurt the ones that love us the most and sometimes we love the ones that don’t deserve our love at all."

       Anonymous

“Love is not blind. Loves sees but does not mind. In fact, love sees more. Love enables you to see your partner in a way that nobody else can. Love sees everything; the good, the bad, the strengths and the flaws yet chooses to love.” 
                        Anonymous

I've really been thinking a lot about this concept of 'love is blind' and my curiosity led me to asking a number of young adult for their thoughts on the matter. 

One person said, "Yes, I think love is blind because you are so in love with the guy that you do not actually think about anything else but spending some time with him. Sometimes, it's so bad that even when you think he's lying to you about something, you easily overlook it because you don't want the feeling you get when you are with him to end." And in conclusion, she said, "So,I think love is blind."

Another one reported the following: "I knew that my ex was a cheat, but he tells me he loves me. He buys me stuff and makes me feel like a real woman whenever I'm with him. When I'm feeling like that, I tend to forget what he has done, because I think he truly loves me. I don't know for sure if love is blind but I can only go by the way I feel when I am with him."

After a short debate, one of the guys in the group spoke up for the boys, I guess! "When you love someone, you kind of overlook some of their annoying habits and imperfections. I guess that’s why people say that love is blind. But it’s not because you cannot see these annoying habits, you do see them but you decide to not be bothered by them because of the love you have for the person."

Dr Aron Ben-Zeev said, “Lovers are often blind to the beloved's negative traits and tend to create an idealized image of the beloved.” This means that there is a process of conscious reasoning that makes lovers to substitute idealism for reality. Indeed, the picture of a fairy-tale life is forever an appealing sensation to many people, and some would confess to not ever wanting to wake up to reality, and would rather remain in that moment – for as long as it lasts. Thus, the willpower helplessly becomes subservient to the passions of love. Hence, love appears to be blind.

I like what Bertrand Russell, the British logician and mathematician said about love. He said, “The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.”

The feeling of love towards a person should be an incentive to want to be with them, but the knowledge of the person they are (substance and integrity) must guide our decision whether to remain with them or not. This I think is more concrete and a better safeguard from broken heartedness. 

Ricardo Montalban lived 89 long years and his marriage to Georgiana Young lasted six decades and 3 years. You could liken him to the George Clooney of his generation. He said, 

“True love doesn't happen right away; it's an ever-growing process. It develops after you've gone through many ups and downs, when you've suffered together, cried together, laughed together.”

There’s a word that is used synonymously for love. That word is ‘infatuation’. It usually implies a sense of obsession with something; a craze for or a fixation with… But it is by no means love. It is always almost short lived and if anything, is a shadow of what love is. Wherever you find it, you see a complete and utter loss of cognition in the mind of the infatuated person. 

Could this be what people mean when they quip ‘Love is blind’? Perhaps!

I think the greatest paragraph ever written about love can be found in one of the books of Paul, which he wrote to the Corinthian church. 

Here’s how he described love,

Love is patient; love is kind, it isn’t jealous,

it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, it isn’t rude,

it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable,

it doesn’t keep a record of complaints,  

it isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy with the truth. Love puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things. 
Love never fails…

                                               

I Corinthians 13:4-6a (CEB)

It doesn’t get any clearer than this, I don’t think! This kind of love cannot be blind, but it is real. It is not a shadowy infatuation that tends to cause regrets and heartbreaks to so many people. It is inspiring, intentional and indisputable.

To me! Love isn’t blind. People may be blinded by infatuation, but love is definitely not blind. Loves sees but doesn’t mind. In fact, everything is within its full glare; the good, the bad, the strengths and the flaws yet it chooses to keep on loving.

The Marriage Workshop