BENGALURU: The in-love feeling isn’t just a sudden fall – it starts with just an ‘interestedness’. Officially, the more renowned dictionaries of English like the Cambridge or Oxford dictionaries, will say there is no such word in English, but we know there is such a thing even if it is a grammatically incorrect word. Interestedness is a curious state of being interested, often without knowing why.
In fact, it happens that we find ourselves interested in someone, not knowing why and then becoming curious why we are interested, trying to tease that out, and in the process of trying to understand the interestedness, we end up finding ourselves quite entangled with that person and all the different feelings that come along with such a thing.
Love often catches us by surprise because it starts with this random sense of interestedness and we can’t let go of the curiosity about the person. Others around us might see it and warn us -– “Hey! You are getting that look in your eyes. Be careful. Looks like you are getting interested in that person a bit too much. What’s going on here?” But we might not hear them.
Maybe that’s why it is called falling in love because this fall is an unexpected thing that happens when you were merely looking around. Otherwise, it would be walking into love, or easing yourself into love, or entering into love, no? This whole falling business is about being taken by surprise. Sometimes, especially in arranged relationships, one does ease into a situation of realising one is in love over a long period of time. A certain brand of jewellery tried to capitalise on that moment by promoting platinum rings as marking that moment of recognition of being in love, not even knowing you were interested and just feeling invested in each other, and then waking up one moment in Kodagu or Goa and feeling it.
Anything can happen, sure, but the falling in love business generally starts with that curious sense of inexplicable interestedness. When you are in a ready to mingle state and open for relationships, it is all well and good, but the trouble is that this interestedness comes up at the oddest moments with the oddest people. You think you are happily together for fifteen years, and a totally atypical person catches your attention and you might find yourself interested. You might even lull yourself into a reverie, thinking anyway this person isn’t typically what you get attracted to, indulge your interestedness and then bang! You are in love and you don’t know what to do about it.
The darnedest thing about love is that it doesn’t seem to follow any system of rules, happens at most inopportune times, can be so uplifting and so destructive, and it all starts with that interestedness. If you aren’t available for the ride that’s love, then watch out for that tingling curiosity and nip it in the bud – otherwise, welcome to the fall!