Can you be in Love with more than One Person at a time?

If asked this question in 1987....
(When I was precisely 10 years in age)
My response: Huh? Love...what’s that? Of course I love my mum, pa, grandpa, bro...And the list would have gone on...tch, tch...the Mother Teresa view of love!

If asked in 1995...
(I am all of 18 now...a coy bud waiting to bloom...legally an adult and already having carved my mush sequence in the dream realm)
Me: Hmmm...Love...wow...what happens to the hero n heroine in the movies n they dance around the trees, right? My friends are doing it as a daily ritual....Let me fall soon and tell....

Ask me this in 2000...
(More grown up now...relatively...n stupid cupid has finally stricken)
Me again: Love only happens once...and no way can you love another person when you are hopelessly in love with some ONE...What a sinful bigamous thought! Ram! Ram!

And now...I am all of 32...
Older (I don’t like that word so much...let’s make it more mature, shall we?), wiser, more practical and also kinda been-there-done-that....

The glasses with which love was perceived seem to have changed or maybe the number has increased coz the earlier vision is getting hazier or rather broader!

No more is love about running around trees...holding hands and walking in the moonlight...love is not about fancy gifts or chocolates or roses (ok...it partly still is)
Like a dear friend used to remark...love is not a bloody Yash-Raj flick!
Love is not falling for the cutest girl around or the dude who’s pumped it all into his muscles...love hungers for a beautiful mind!
It is less visible now and more inherent!
I just don’t feel love now...I try to understand it!

Love is less fanatic, less conquering and more settled...less hitting like a bullet and more gradually scattering into the system even without professing...
Love is not staying together constantly; it’s about being connected even outside each other’s radar...
Love is not just a frenzied adrenalin rush (ok again...sometimes it still is)...it is more about the gentle, milder mingling of like minds and bodies may or may not follow....

I know I am still sounding dreamy about it all, right?
But then there is a sense of reality even in the dream here...
Fact to fiction...
Existence to fantasy...

Gawsh I am not making much sense here...
Let me start from where I began...the title...
Can you be in love with more than one person at a time?



Although when I began to understand the term love...I would have flatly and austerely said “no”...being in rank with the moral police who seem to have pre-decided bloody every move and attitude on this planet!
Now...when I am faced with it in ‘real’ life and relate to it...I may say here...why not?

A dear friend of mine had asked me this question and my delay had made me realize the implications of love....
Love is not Heer-Ranjha or Laila-Majnu or Romeo-Juliet...
Love is far beyond what the love stories in books and cinema disseminate....

There’s no ‘someone somewhere’ who’s made for you...
There’s no knight in shining armour who would gallop upon his horse and pick you with an outstretched hand and then trot away to live happily ever after...or a fairy like vision walking down the steps of heaven towards you...
Love is not giving your tan, man n dhan to one and expecting the same from him or her...for life!

Then what is love?
Why think love is only when your body and mind signal that you can’t live without a person?
Hellooooooooo...no one is anyways indispensible...
Even those in the zaniest of love clutches have managed to survive the pangs of separation...

Besides, why do we always have sexual connotation with love?
Who’s to say that if I am sexually attracted to a person is it love or until then it is not love at all?
So if I am very fond of a friend outside the realms of my commitment...I may or may not be physically drawn to him...how can I be so bloody certain that it is or is not love when I feel concerned for him or eager to hear his voice every day?

There are no alarms ringing anywhere that help you decide that you have officially fallen in love!
There would be no palpitation of heartbeats once you get in the comfort zone...heck no mush dreams either...
Then, then, then....

Love is ever changing...
In today’s world more than ever....love happens when two minds click...
And there’s no mandate on clicking just once or copyright issued when once the clicking’s been done...

My dear friend says...you can love one girl for her beauty...another one for her suave manners...a third someone with a sparkling wit may strike you...while a go-getter ambitious hottie may turn you on beyond control...You can’t manipulate your feelings...then why deny them even to or just yourself?
How do you know your deep admiration for a girl who’s devoted to community service and tags you along every time on her marathon is not so deep rooted to term it as affection...since you can’t refuse to go with her even when you really don’t want to?

How would you categorize these feelings?
Which one would you say is love and if that is not...then how’s that different from which you feel for that special someone...throwing aside all the soul mate crap that we’ve been duped to believe in!

In today’s scenario...it’s natural to have loads of friends of the opposite sex...
You love spending time with each one of them...they are all strong forces of attraction...yet not strong enough it seems to compel you from not straying from the orbit....You remain open to the idea of having more friends...and yet take out time for the previous ones!
You can’t become an island...you would meet personalities that repel or interest you...minds that may captivate you because they think similar or completely different!
And yet neither can you feel for them all!
Some associations get that twinge of speciality more than the others...It’s time that we opened our minds to acceptance!

Alrite then...another important aspect here that needs mentioning....
Being in love with more than a person at a time...
Does that mean we can do justice to each relation? Can we possibly be more or less in love with one than the other?
We can...
We do...
We love our parents don’t we?
Do we love our mother more than our father or less than our spouse and that too in all the situations and at all times?
How much easier it would have been if we had a love gauging machine!
But since there is none...we are answerable only to ourselves...thankfully!

Commitment level can certainly not be ascertained on the yard sticks of how many people there are with whom you are sharing your feelings!
You may be loving all souls around you with the spark that makes them wait for your sunshine and also be loving just one who feels that you are not giving enough!
All a matter of relativity then!

More questions for you here my dear friend...
If you say ‘I love you’ to your girlfriend (I am assuming you are a gal reader or else kindly apply it suitably to your gender) you are deemed to be teeming with love and such a nice soul...
But you would be socially constrained to say the same to a guy friend or run the risk to be termed slutty or with slippery virtues.
Who the bloody f@#$ has demarcated these lines?
And why the bloody f@#$ do we follow them blindly?

I don’t know if I have managed to state something worthwhile here or raised moral questions against my own sensibilities...
Just want to conclude...
Love is fun...So enjoy it however you can...for nothing calms our wandering souls more than the gentle sweeps of love!
Love is not serious...let’s not take it too seriously!
Have a LOVEly life, my friends!

P.S. A friend recently commented...The phrase ‘I love you’ is overused and overrated...maybe ‘you’ll do’ is better!
;)Just a thought!