Give Up That Guy
Dear [BB],
[Give up that guy you like, and take up with me!]
Well, I’d strongly suggest that you move on and forget about [that guy you like]. Hard to do when you’re in love, I know. But in the long run, you’ll save yourself lots and lots of pain and disappointment.
I fell into the trap of trying to make my [first love] fall in love with me, pursuing her on and off for seven years (through grade school and high school). Then, finally, when she appeared to warm up to me, I felt overjoyed, yet couldn’t be sure if she was being sincere or not. After all, how could someone be so disinterested for seven years, and then all of a sudden, become very interested. It turned out that she had been hurt badly by her first love (the guy deserted her after getting her pregnant), and she was looking to me for comfort. She felt very comfortable around me, as I had been so nice to her for so many years. But all the “niceness” in the world does not, in and of itself, buy true love. And her reasons for loving me, noble as they were, weren’t right. True, I finally got her into my house and bedroom. But it didn’t last. She never really loved me passionately, and I, sensing this on a subconscious level, could never trust her. We were doomed to fail.
Her love was an act of willpower. That is, she willed herself to love me. But passion she had not. The passions of true love require no will to flourish. They’re just there, never forced to come. And generally speaking, waiting around for them to arrive yields little lasting reward. You cannot coax or manipulate someone into loving you and expect to get genuine love as a result. Forced feelings aren’t really feelings at all. Oh you might get them to behave, as you would have them behave (showing you through action that they love you), for a time. But this is just not real and is worth very little.
Desire and willpower are two very different sources of motivation. And it’s impossible for a person (in my humble opinion) to will himself to passionately love another. Willpower can work for a little while, but true, two-way chemical desire, is what really makes relationships last for years, helping people to be more tolerant of each other’s idiosyncrasies, and making it easier for them to get along without nasty fights.
Relationships are not about trying to get someone to do or feel something that they do not already. But more on that another time.
There. You have a taste of some of the things I’ll be writing about in my books. 
