It is only possible to love two people at the same time by intention.
Oh, come on. You know better.
Picture a corny, wholesome family of four. Two parents and two children. The parents love each other enough to die for each other. But they love the children, too. They would die for the children.
If they have more children they will love them, too. Enough to die for them. And this, without diminishing one bit the love they already feel for each other.
Conclusion: it's possible to love more than one person. We do it all the time.
And--if you really peel the folds of the heart back and take a look--you'll find they love more people than that. There's that old college friend. There's that friend at the office.
They might not even think of their feelings for these people as love. They will likely have some safer word for it. After all, they have contracts to keep, things to protect. Love is a powerful force. Elemental. Potentially dangerous. There are times to let it gush as it will and wash you away in the flood. But there are times to dig channels for it--try to tame the element and steer its course and use it to irrigate worthwhile projects. Let it nourish things rather than flood the landscape and destroy something already worth protecting.
So they will give these other loves some kind of structure. Some category. But the truth--hidden away so far even they don't see it--is that they feel something powerful. They would still take a bullet, if need be, for that college friend. They would take the hand of that friend at the office, if need be, and leap together from a burning skyscraper.
Love is a cake, true, but a special one. Most cakes require you to cut thinner slices as you bring more guests to the table. Love expands. The cake feeds everyone, yet there's always more for new people who come to the party.
I question whether anyone who knows how to love can
only love one person.
We're all polygamists at heart, you know.
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Edited by Archer Opterix, : HTML.
Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo repair.
Archer
All species are transitional.