You know, I got to thinking about this last night after I left work, because another poster recently sent me a question about love, and my response included infatuation. If, by chance, that poster is reading this thread, then please take the following as a qualifying addendum, and not a recantation.
It’s my opinion that while infatutation is a quite different thing from love, there’s no need for ol’ Annie to slam the shit out of it like this (and I know that it isn’t necessarily something she wrote, but I’m still holding her wrinkled butt responsible). I myself have been down on infatuation of late, but I realized last night that it’s very often a prelude to love instead of a substitute. Now, I understand that for some people infatuation is all the farther a relationship goes. But for others, it’s a necessary situation that needs to exist before love does. I also agree that love can occur quite without a period of infatuation, thank you very much. It’s very possible for friends to realize that feelings they have actually run deeper than they originally thought (mind you, in my case, this has always been a one-sided revelation, but I’m not bitter!!I’m not bitter!!!). In such instances, the knowledge of the other’s idiosyncrasies and shortcomings is first-hand and experienced, so there’s no fear of overlooking or ignoring those qualities or faults.
Perhaps it’s better to explain my point like this. I think infatuation is along the lines of silk sheets on a night with a thunderstorm. It’s sexy as all get out, you’re sliding all over the place, you’re going at it like the world’s over with, there’s silk all around you. Maybe the lightning and the thunder work you up so much you have to go outside and stomp in the puddles and kick water at each other and then finally end up doing it on the hood of the neighbor’s car, then come back in and eat chocolate strawberries and champagne for breakfast.
Love, on the other hand, is flannel sheets. Plaid flannel sheets. With a quilt. It’s warm and you don’t want to get out of bed. It’s only drizzling outside, probably, but it’s a slow one, and there’s mist hanging in the air. There’s no champagne for breakfast; it’s scrambled eggs and greasy sausage and milk and toast. But that smell has something more to it than champagne ever will. And after breakfast, you step outside and take a walk in the mist, and then stop somewhere along the way, a little out of sight, and go for one of those long, wet, mushy, squishy kisses where there’s nothing left of you except your tongue and lips and teeth and whatever’s on the ends of your hands.
The step between these two come when it’s time to change the sheets. 'Cause it’s bound to happen sometime. Do you stick around for flannel and sausage, or take off for new silk and the neighbor’s car? That’s how you tell-look back at the bed and figure out what sheets are on it.
Man, now I really wanna kiss somebody. Bad. With lots of tongue.
Then he said, “That is that.”
And then he was gone.
-Dr. Seuss, * The Cat in the Hat*
