Love, the most lied about subject on Earth...Without further ado, let me dispel for you:

The Nine Biggest Myths About Love

"Love is blind": This sounds great but in practice it just isn't true. People tend to go for the best-looking partner they can tolerate/get and that's usually someone "in their league". When the beauty balance is out, we can be fairly sure other factors are coming into play. If I see some incredibly pretty bloke with a minging fat bird on his arm I don't think "love is blind", I usually think "I bet she fucks like a whore". Love can also appear to be blind when, in fact, one person's view of their ugly partner is merely being obscured by huge piles of that partner's money.

"Love conquers all": No it doesn't. I hate that evil "romantic" notion that if we love someone ENOUGH, they won't die. That if we can just let our tears fall on the fur of an injured pet it will spring up and run about, cured. You see it all the time in (often children's) films and it is a LIE. Bad things happen, full stop. If anything, love makes us feel the pain caused by bad things more acutely.

"Sex is better if you are with someone you love": Oh dear, if only it were so. Sex is better when you are with someone who is good at sex, or at least very sexually compatible with you. If love = great sex the World would be full of couples celebrating their "Golden Anniversary" and hundreds of women's magazines would go out of business.

"You can't really love someone else unless you love yourself first": This is the sort of nonsense that Americans eat up and British people shudder at. I can see how Americans would believe it, with their perfect smiles, big cars and loud-ass egos. If this myth about love was true though, Britain would be a nation of childless hermits, waiting to become extinct.

"If you really loved me you'd trust me": One of the two "Check Your Brain In At The Door" myths about love. I'm sure lots of people who are worthy of trust are instead enduring the paranoia of partners too wrapped up in their own power and jealousy issues to be truly in "love". But then again, it is perfectly possible to love someone who can't be trusted, hence the idea of a "loveable rogue", or the vast success enjoyed at women's expense by men who are utter bastards. And vice versa.

"When you love someone they complete you": Oh god, I think I'm going to be sick. Jigsaws get completed. Lego models get completed. My tax form (finally) got completed. I AM A PERSON, I will know I am complete when I croak my last breath. The idea that anyone can regard themselves as "complete", before they've lived every moment possible, horrifies me. The idea that someone can be "completed" by the addition of someone else's love (like some sort of emotional Frankenstein) is even less appealing.

"Love is unconditional": Only if you are the baby Jesus. The second "Check Your Brain In At The Door" myth about love.

"Love is never having to say you are sorry": I don't know who came up with this idea but I'm pretty sure they have never been in a romantic relationship. Maybe it's just me but love seems to mean that you are saying sorry about six times a day on average, sometimes about things where you really have no idea what it is you are supposed to have done.

"The One": The most twisted, cruel and untrue myth of all. The idea that we all have just ONE person out there that we are MEANT to be with causes more undue stress and misery than all of my yearly tax forms rolled into one. I'm not saying "anyone will do" but I think most people will meet plenty of potential "love" possibilities in their lives, as long as they are out there and open to the idea. The idea of a "Soul Mate" is supposed to be beautiful but to me it smells of complacency and lack of passion. If you are lonely and haven't met "The One" your best bet might be to look at yourself and try to see why you can't connect with people, rather than to curse the stars and sit waiting for Mr. (or Miss) Right.


Thoughts, as ever are welcome.