I flip flop about this one. I’ve been in that situation before. When I was younger, though equally as head strong as I am now, I fell, totally and completely, for a man 15 years older than I. After we dated for just three months, I sublet my totally amazing, really hard to find, apartment, moved in with him and started window shopping the engagement rings.
What happened next was the stuff of nightmares not romantic dreams. He attacked me. Though I’m kind of glib about it now, at the time I felt like my world had fallen apart. Not only was I loveless, I was homeless. And on top of all that, I’d started to doubt my own abilities about feelings and instincts. It happened so suddenly and so intensely it was as though I was watching myself in a movie.
Should I have been more discerning about what could possibly lie ahead? Perhaps. But seeing as how I did make it out alive, I’m not sure if I would do things any differently if I could go back. Sometimes putting a buffer on happenstances of the heart like this also puts a buffer on the amount of emotion you get to experience.
I think that’s the way a lot of leap before you look lovers look at things. Whatever may come, they risk taking the good with the bad. They never sacrifice the good to same themselves from potential bad. Without taking a chance on anything, the reason, you’ll just end up an old sad bundle of middle ground. Life is simply too short not to chance an occasional extreme.
Having said that there are two sides to this coin. I’m all about following your heart to unexpected places. You’ll have some amazing adventures. But, and it’s a big but, there’s a big difference between being someone who habitually falls deeply in and out of love and changes his or her whole life around on a whim, and being someone who drops everything for one once in a lifetime whirlwind romance.
People like this most certainly exist. I call them “love-bleweeds”. They make a life out of tumbling around, building up one relationship and life, only to completely uproot and reconfigure when the next one comes along. After you’ve done this for long enough, it’s very possible to forget how to be calm, comfortable and exercise any follow through.
If people are actually happy like this, then more power to them. But there are casualties that surround someone who lives like this. Their friends, their coworkers, their neighbors, and perhaps even family and lovers are left in the wake when they drop everything at the sight of their next “soulmate”. Those left behind will have their own baggage to deal with.
When love does come along quickly and intensely it’s just too good a thing to pass up. If you’ve been around the block a time or two, and add a dollop of good luck, you just might have learned how to protect your life, without having to sacrifice any of the amazing feelings that go along with it.
This article was written by the staff of the Datepad.com internet dating company where you can read thousands of professional dating articles.
