Do You Agree to the Terms and Conditions?

Picture this:

Two people come together and verbally agree to fall in love, creating a contract filled with expectations, guidelines, boundaries, and limitations. All of these conditions, to turn “temporary” into a “forever” it could never be.

That is what makes relationships a business; their terms, their conditions. We place conditions on our relationships — therefore making the love conditional. Conditional love is given and received with expectations, usually of a commitment.

The commitment being forever.

Love Doesn’t Need To Be Conditioned

But it is because we resent being unable to control it. So much so, we go on to actually believe ‘love’ is the problem. No. The conditions we’ve placed on it have created the problem, as well as the intentions behind enforcing these conditions. We condition love in order to be in control of it lasting — long enough for us to die. Ultimately, we don’t want to die alone, and without love.

This is why a relationship is a commitment — not only a commitment to love one another but a commitment to “make it” (make it to the end). And we are conditioned to attach ourselves to this outcome. So, when the restriction these conditions have created (to enforce this) are challenged, foundations begin to crumble.

In other words — this is when things start to “change”, we feel betrayed, and the honeymoon phase ends. We blame one another when the reality is love is weakened the moment it isn’t allowed to be unconditional. Yet, we were conditioned to place limits on our connections.

But what if there was no pressure?

Picture this:

A society where we don’t label our love.

Where did our concept of relationships come from? How did we learn this? All of our connections have their own sets of standards and limitations, and the labels we place on each other’s roles influence this, but what if there were no labels to influence these roles?

What if we were free, free to see our ‘lovers’ no different from our ‘friends’? What if the titles didn’t exist? What if they no longer mattered? What if all the expectations were never formed? What if the roles didn’t exist, although the individuals did? How would love look then?

How free would we be to love unconditionally — or not? What if there were no terms or conditions, just our feelings, and the freedom to follow them? What if there was no pressure?

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Previously Published on medium

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