KING SOLOMON, SUPPOSEDLY the wisest man ever, said, “I don’t understand … how a man loves a woman”1. To his credit, he did his best to solve this mystery by amassing 700 wives and 300 concubines, according to the Bible2.
I have had a lot less experience than Solomon. On my 13th birthday, on a class bus trip to Rotorua, all the girls lined up and gave me a kiss. What a wonderful way to give me a totally false indication of how my teenage love life was going to proceed. I did fall in love. Often. Deeply, romantically infatuated. But my strong passions were shackled to even stronger shyness, so the objects of my desire never realised I adored them. They may have noticed that I avoided them and, if I ever did speak to them, they probably wondered why I was unable to form a coherent sentence. They may have thought I was having a stroke, but I am sure they never dreamt I was in love with them.
For some girls, I was literally love-sick: a terrible emotional ache as I pined and lamented my unrequited love. Psychologists do not classify love-sickness as a mental illness, which just means psychologists have forgotten what it was like to be a teenager and know nothing about love. For me, the condition led to writing bad poetry and over-eating, but it never led to actual relationships.
Decades later, I bumped into a girl from my school at a railway station. We chatted, and I told her that I had had a crush on her. She said that she had had one on me. We blinked at each other for a couple of seconds as the magnitude of that tragedy sunk into our brains, and then we turned away and commuted out of each other’s lives again.
I might have been comforted by statistics that show over a half of 18-year-olds have yet to be on a date but my expectations were shaped by TV and movies, not statistics, so I passed my high school years feeling like Quasimodo, uniquely cursed to be unloved and forever solo.
At university and beyond, having obtained better aftershave and a little confidence, I did date a few girls. Back in the ,70s, Pizza Hut was still (just) classy enough for date, but not a first date when you were wanting to make a good impression. I discovered it was expensive to be romantic – I remember being broke and trying to pawn my camera gear to get enough money to take a girl out. Romance blossomed a few times, but the petals eventually fell from those blossoms. Back into lonely singlehood – but at least it gave me a chance to save money for my next foray. And then Naomi came along. There were the familiar sensations of romance and desire, but also something new: a growing sense of ‘This is it. She’s the one’. Nearly four decades later, that certainty persists.
The whole falling-in-love business is still totally mysterious to me. Maybe Dean Martin was right when he sang, “When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that’s amore”. I have no idea what he meant but, maybe, he is right.
Whatever the case – romance and being in love is wonderful, beautiful, even. But when Naomi came along, I realised it is not enough. Romance launched us into being a couple, but then it had to grow up to survive. Love had to grow up, and I had to grow up. The automatic romance had to be augmented with very deliberate communication, intentional kindness, and endlessly learning how to be a good husband. The result was comfortable easy intimacy, but it took a lot of energy to get that relaxed!
I actually feel a bit sorry for Solomon with his 1000 partners … and even sorrier for the women. When would he have had the time to hear their stories, to grow close to them, to have the type of ‘good’ fight with them that leaves you closer than ever? With 999 alternatives in his harem, would he have developed patience with each one’s faults and humility about his own? And imagine the rosters he’d have needed! His love-life must have been like my 13th birthday: a succession of lovely kisses but they meant nothing.
1. Proverbs 30:18-19.
2. 1 Kings 11:3.
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