The Lover.

This current proliferation of ads for dating agencies is really getting on my nerves. I just cannot, cannot comprehend the concept of lover as commodity – to be plucked from the floor of a showroom, to be sampled, test driven and evaluated for compatibility.

In my world, the lover is not about compatibility, but about connection at a higher level. Compatibility comes from the language of the modern world – that dull, grey, lifeless place coated with a thin veneer of many colours to fool the gullible into being little more than career consumers. It comes from the same stable as growth forecasts, evaluation of useful outcomes, and achievement-to-target ratios. It belongs in a grey suit along with most of the people who are running society, and is eminently sweepable down the nearest drain.

The lover doesn’t come from that world. You don’t go looking for a lover; she comes blown on a wind of magic and mystery, a rarefied breeze far beyond the comprehension of businessmen, accountants and scientists, a breeze so sublime that it wrests the reins of ultimate control from you. That’s why she is worth waiting for, and why she is welcomed as the greatest gift from a place unknown to those denizens of the dense places who would have us blind and believing in the power of plastic.

My days of welcoming the magic might be over, but life goes on.