Heartening...

A Heartening article written and published on of all days my birthday in ST, http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_177789.html.

...Just as friendship between platonic friends can outlive itself, so, too, can long-term romantic love.

I used to think that no matter how much a person disappoints you, it can be overcome if you just focus on the love and relationship.

But I've found that love can and does die, although die may be too melodramatic a word. It's more a case of love fading, like the ink from the pages of an old diary, or the image in an aged photo.

It disappears for a variety of reasons.

The cause can be sensational such as when a partner does something that hurts and deceives you.

More often though, the reasons are prosaic, like over-familiarity, boredom and benign neglect. And with the first-stage lust long gone, the love is quickly spent and you just aren't into each other anymore.

Still, to have loved and lost - lost in the sense of losing that love you once held so dear in your heart, and lost as in losing your loved one to someone or something else - must surely be better than to have never loved at all.