This one's for the girls...

I like you. Do you like me?

[ ] yes [ ] no

and so begins our affair with love...

pick me...
choose me...
me...
me...
me...

With Ludicris proclaiming...

...i'm only gonna break your heart and shatter and splatter it all into little bitty pieces. Whether or not you get it all together, then it's finders keepers and losers weepers...

Rhianna pleads...

...want you to make me feel like I'm the only girl in the world. like I'm the only one that you'll ever love. like I'm the only one that knows your heart...

When you take a heart that wants to be the only one that you'll ever love and mix it with a motive to only break your heart...

you end up with pieces of your soul torn away...

and you listen and believe...

and Adele plaintively rolls around with you and you think it's not crazy to want someone else like him.

you know.

him.

the one currently responsible

for the condition of your heart....

and Tammy Wynette, from the distant past, tells you, 'he's just a man.'

and Kelly Clarkson reminds you, '' he don't know nothing bout you.''

When the truth is, he does. He does know. He knows your soul.

But it's far easier to bellow angsty, woman power lyrics than it is to acknowledge the pain.

and it gets confused, this thing we learn to call love...

But love, as defined by The Great Love is this:

it doesn't flit around, because it is patient...

it doesn't deliberately cause pain, because it is kind...

it doesn't test the waters...see what else is out there...or volley between people, because it does not dishonor others and isn't self seeking...

it doesn't get snarky and manipulative and retaliate, because it is not easily angered...

it doesn't remind you of your past, because it doesn't keep score...

it doesn't find any measure of pay off in telling lies, because it rejoices in truth...

it doesn't hurt, because it protects.

it doesn't misled, because it trusts.

it doesn't give up, because it always hopes.

and

it doesn't walk away, because it preservers.

Love is worth fighting for but it is not something for which you are always fighting...

Love is not optional.

...