Love is so inconsiderate.

I mean, imagine this: one finally reaches a mild level of self-satisfaction — or content — with keeping themselves company, and in the click of a Facebook minute, your status changes.

We’ve all gone through the motions. Stuffing your bitter mouth with popcorn — during the previews of a Gone Girl premiere — keeping score of the tonsil hockey game taking place a row in front of you, and convincing yourself that you’d rather spend six more dollars on Sour Straws than to ever feel that way about a person again. Nonetheless, it’s a lie, and we know it.

At some point, spending New Year’s Eve — alone — fighting off shrinking 9-pound eyelids, two hours before the ball drops, becomes a bit banal; and it’s at that moment you arrive at the realization that you’re ready to dedicate those “Thinking Out Loud” lyrics to something other than your bowl of Ramen.

Even so, we still go through the senseless woe is me! cycle of ‘forever alone’, persuading ourselves to believe that no person will ever – again – make us as “happy” as we are when we’re saying “table for one,” at the sushi bar on Main Street. And just when we’ve convinced ourselves that living life by our lonesome, at 60, won’t be too dreadful, some pesky little nuisance with hazelnut pupils and mesmerizing chitchat, favorites our tweet, and before you know it you’re four names deep on your “Future Children” list in your iPhone’s Notes app.

I’ve heard this from a friend.

At some point during the infatuation process, you come to a crossroads in deciding if this is a project you’re willing to invest in. Quite frankly, the answer should almost always be yes. “Concentrate the mind on the present moment,” the old Buddha adage states; as one cannot let the trials of the past serve as a detriment to the triumphs of the present.

Love is a triumph. And in most cases, love is a reoccurrence. But love can only be a reoccurrence when the pessimistic mind allows the pardoning heart to succeed in the present, even though it has failed in the past.

One’s life begins as an inquisitive solo, that is inevitably intended to become a duet. And ultimately, a lifetime of duets are intended to become a medley: a songbook of experiences shared with an individual responsible for showing you that for every yin, there’s a yang.

Signed,

Sirelle