𝐈𝐒 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐑 𝐒𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐘 𝐀𝐍 𝐄𝐗𝐂𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐖𝐈𝐒𝐄?

“Love is blind” is an ageless and timeless line in the romantic relationship world. Some people even use it as a yardstick for how much love exists in their relationship. They’ll be like “if it’s not blind, then it’s not love” or “the best and truest kind of love is blind”. It’s either that or you’re being played.

Most of us who grew up in this culture have used the statement on people and it has in turn been used on us as well. The anomalies we experience when we “fall in love” are credited to the blind Nature of Love. Most times we’re not aware and even when we are, we of course play blind to those changes that occurred as a result of bonding to another person.

In my experience we have normalized the blindness of Love and it’s even a cute thing. The joy of being so self-absorbed into someone we Don’t see past our nostrils. The pride in being able to be so madly in love everything just seems okay. A nice warm bubble where all is well, and we’re consumed in the flames of Love. Burning bright for each other and the world to see while living in a world of our own. Ahhh La vida Loca!

Blind Love forgives and forgets, blind Love has a soft spot for that one person, an open cheque of chances if our partner messes up, a rope to draw for eternity no matter how far apart we may drift, an unconditional tolerance for any and all excesses and the simple assumption that Love makes all things beautiful.

So, you’d see people being betrayed to extents where little human beings come into the picture and ohhh love is blind. Some would lose huge amounts of money and ohh love is blind. Others would abandon everything because love is blind and apart from the love, they see nothing else.

But then is love truly blind or better still does love make us blind to all things going wrong? I cannot offer a definition of Love other than the fact that it’s an emotion fueled by desire and cemented by attachment. I’m still looking for the part where it blinds us and it’s out of our control.

Agreed, emotions are super powerful especially when fueled by desire and they can have their way before we even realize it. Still, does this mean we’re powerless in the face of the situation and therefore have no choice?

Do we choose to be blind despite knowing better because we have an excuse to our participation in things that will otherwise be done only by people with malfunctioning mental processes?

What sense does it make that we normalize and even sugar coat practicing blind tendencies? Are we simply undermining the importance of vision? I mean walking a blind folded path most times is a lost and catastrophic experience. Why would we decide to look the other way then? Sometimes we say that intelligence is a gift only for the privileged few without realizing our role in fostering our own unintelligence.

Apparently, we didn’t evolve to bear responsibility and so we avoid it whenever we get the slightest opportunity. Won’t anybody choose simply to be considered blind to love than to face the abnormalities and deal with them? Rather than bear responsibility for our bad choices we hind behind the blind nature of love.

Even harder is our ability to bear and navigate pain. Nobody consciously chooses pure undiluted pain. Unfortunately, some situations in Relationships are nothing but a highway to excruciating disappointment and pain. It’s easier to simply evade it by walking the blind path of Love. We might argue it involves pain, but we all pick that of lesser intensity.

While most humans are control freaks, it’s usually enticing only when we’re in control of everything else but ourselves. Taking control of our life sometimes proves to be an uphill task and in Relationships it isn’t any easier. Anything to avoid taking that control and yet all together acting like we’re not evading it is definitely a gift. Let’s just say love is blind than reign in our emotions and withdraw from an unhealthy union.

Life is all about choices, fortunately to every choice there is a consequence.

-Wandji Winifred