Allergic to Love

To Tina Turner, my heartfelt thanks. When I first heard her sing “huwaaaaat’s love got tah do / got tah do with it,” my four-year-old brain immediately connected with the lyric, and it became a strong testament to my then sponge-like absorption of things new: “What’s Love Got To Do With It” was the very first song I sang in one of my countless recitals as a kid. I even kept the Tina outfit I wore (no wig back then – too gauche, my voice teacher thought), in memoriam of that particularly embarrassing three-and-a-half minute worth of fame, an experience among numerous others, which I would not care to repeat in future lives.

Now, twenty years later, I think that Tina said the most brilliant thing and sang the most heartfelt song ever. Ember Anne blogged about something similar on her own site (which, weirdly and eeringly, sounds like my own life story being told – by another person whom I’ve never met before) and it got me thinking about two things: (1) what, indeed, does love got tah do with anything, and (2) am I allergic to relationships?

I have girlfriends who have/had bad relationships. Their stories range from coping with temperamental/jealous/unfaithful boyfriends/husbands, to living with woman-beating s#%* heads, to giving their hearts to lying, cheating men who are in “wedded bliss” with other women. Because I love these lady friends who trust me enough to tell their stories to, their influence and their lessons have a profound effect on me.

Because of them, I think I’m afraid to take risks and let myself go.

Add to that the fact that I read blogs by women like Girlie Monkey and Mindy in Minneapolis – and I think, if svelte smooth sexy women like them (at least that’s how I perceive them to be) have trouble in the dating world, what more for me???

I try to forget about the horrible experiences(sssssss) I’ve had with the opposite sex back when I was a teen, but it’s not easy especially when I see a piece of monay (a big round-shaped piece of bread). I laugh now at the awful nicknames given to me by the boys back then, but…

Sometimes they’re still objects of my nightmares, you know?

And then, I read blogs like:

• Chrissy’s Life on Manitoulin, where a poor character named “hubby” is awoken at two o’clock in the morning to save a rain-soaked cat (he was smart enough to just roll back to sleep, though);
• Jimmy’s UncivilOne, where he captures images from websites his ex-wife likes and pastes them onto his own blog (awwwww, how shuweet);
• Curiosity Killer’s custom-made site, where she talks about her extraordinary life in Hong Kong (I’ve never come across a “love”-related issue/angst yet in her blog, so please DON’T correct me if I’m wrong);
• Ganns Deen’s personal site, where he posts songs of praise and love, and shares stories about his life-made-in-heaven with wife "C," son "N1," car Gigi, and soon-to-be daughter "N2"; and,
• PJ’s Tech Shark blog, where words like “halubshu” and “mahal” dedicated to a woman named Conne abound.

So, in answer to my own concerns…
(1) What’s love got tah to do with it, Tina? ANS: Everything.
(2) Am I allergic to relationships? ANS: Yes. But I try and “cure” myself of this allergy through daily doses of bullet-points one to five, mentioned above. Thanks to them, hope remains.