Love Stories

I pointed out The Bridges of Madison County to my friend at the bookshop.

Friend: "What's it about?"

Me: "It's a love story."

Friend: "Why bother?"

Me: "It's a love story that doesn't work out."

Friend: "Why bother?"

He didn't say it because he didn't care. He said it because he did bother, that too, too much. I remembered vividly the sense of helplessness and melancholy that the book had left me with.

Why bother, really.

One can perhaps answer  the question in a hundred different ways. But my favourite is one that I had read long back, written by a woman whose wisdom I've come to appreciate fully as I have grown up.

Because to write a love story requires a special kind of bravery. At least to write one that is any good. You make two people meet, you make them love each other, then you make them laugh or cry, depending upon how your mood is. And it all get read by people, who can, with exceptions, be categorized into two groups.

One are those who have, or have had, their own love stories. You embellish your story, make the couple go through everything from disapproving parents to an alien attack and let them live happily ever after. Or you make a grocery list of all the ways they are perfect for each other, and then let last year's stock markets keep them apart till the next lifetime comes around.
But whatever you do, nothing impresses these people. For them, it is always their own that was the most beautiful. It's no use arguing. When you see their faces when they tell you their story, you know that they are right too, yours is no match. Every single time.

The other group, the polar opposite, are the ones who haven't had their own stories yet. And guess what, you can't impress them either. No matter how mundane, how "life-like" or how "based on a true story" you make it, even the simplest descriptions will look over-dramatic to them.
Again, it's no use arguing. You ask them to tell them the biggest thing that has happened to them. Then, if you have a love story, compare that theirs. You'll see that they are right too, yours is too dramatic. And from their view point, too dramatic to be true. Love always is. Every single time.

Perhaps that is why we bother to read a love story, specially those of us who fall in the first group. Because we know the pitfalls of one. Because it lets us validate our own. Because one can never write a love story. One can only live it, for a day or a lifetime.