I pray you,

Do not fall in love with me,

For I am falser than vows made in wine

Besides, I like you not.

— Shakespeare, As You Like It

Those words are from the play, As You Like It, but how would you like it if someone told you that to your face? It must strike a chord in your system, but it wouldn’t be music to your ears. It must cut to the core, and would be the most unkind cut of all, as Shakespeare penned. It must make you feel a way, as we say in Jamaican parlance.

And yet, it happens all the time when people fall out of love with each other, although perhaps not with such eloquence and purple prose as in that quote above. Nowadays it may just come in the form of a text.

So much fanfare is given to falling in love, with poems, songs, sonnets and prose being written about that phase of the relationship.

“How do I love thee, let me count the ways,” starts the poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

“Mi love you like fresh vegetable,” sang Tony Rebel.

“Falling is love is like leaping from a cliff, your brain tells you not to but your heart tells you to fly.” — Unknown.

“You can’t blame gravity for falling in love.” — Albert Einstein.

See, even scientific genius Einstein had his theory on the matter and had something to say about falling in love. Of course, that theory was not as famous as his theory E=mc2: energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, but should perhaps get equal props. After all, falling in love may be akin to mass (you) falling at light speed in a downward trajectory. So there must be some science behind the phenomenon.

And we in Jamaica are not to be left out, as people often say, “I love you more than cook food.” Now, that’s true love and lyrics that would win the heart of anybody.

But it was the Bard himself who really put a handle on it when he wrote, “Love is merely a madness, and I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen. And the reason why they are not so punished and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too.” That, too, is from
As You Like It. In those days people who were deemed insane were treated in that manner.

So falling in and out, that’s where we’ll hop to today, right after these responses to my dissertation on ‘Freak Offs’.

Tony,

I cannot elaborate on the subject. As far as I am concerned those persons aren’t just freaky naturally, but sadistic in thoughts and emotions. Don’t want one near me.

Miss Prude

Teerob,

You know, you are so correct. All those people who condemn the freak offs secretly wish that they could have experienced even one of them. So many of them are repressed sexually and locked in a sexless relationship. Deep down they envy those free spirits who indulge in such wanton pleasure.

Ricardo

So if falling in love has all those pitfalls why do people continue the practice? Einstein said that we can’t blame gravity but the fact remains, people are said to fall in love, fall head over heels for each other, fall for her, or fall for him, even tripping and falling in love at first sight when one or both persons buck dem toe and fall buduff for each other.

“I couldn’t help it, the first time I saw him I fell hopelessly in love.”

But why the word fall though? Why not rise or soar, levitate or elevate, ascend to astronomical heights? Maybe because when you fall you have no control at all, or very little if you’re wearing a parachute, a parasail or a hang-glider. The fact remains, you are going down.

Still, nobody wants a parachute when they fall in love, for they want to experience the thrill of the free fall, hurtling through the air until they reach terminal velocity with no control at all. That’s why skydivers will free-fall for thousands of feet before they open their parachute, as that rush of adrenaline gives them such a high, such a feeling of excitement.

At that stage, people will do things that they would not normally do. They try to see each other as often as they can, spend as much time together as humanly possible, say the things to each other that they would never say to anyone else, and do things that would make a porn star blush.

They look at each other with a starry-eyed gaze, constantly.

“Why are they acting like that?”

“Because they have fallen in love.”

In this phase, nobaddy cyaa talk to dem, and any parent who has a teenager can attest to the weird and crazy behaviour that afflicts them when they’re in that free fall mode, especially if it’s a teenage daughter. At least that’s how it used to be back in my day, but we can’t vouch for these nowadays pickney.

But even adults who fall in love can get crazy and do strange and weird things, so it’s not age or gender exclusive. Of course, all this falling usually leads to the inevitable conclusion, as the plummeting skydivers in free fall often get married.

No fall lasts forever. And as the saying goes, it’s not the falling that mash you up or kills you, but the sudden stop when you hit the ground. Yes, yes, yes, if you fall forever you’ll be fine, but at one point the falling stops and that sudden thud heralds the beginning of one partner or both ceasing to love.

It’s usually a gradual transition though, a slow attrition of feelings, a glacial movement that slips down the slope so imperceptibly that it often goes unnoticed in the beginning, until it’s obvious.

“One day I just realised that he didn’t love me anymore.”

In essence, in the very same way that they fell in love, it’s the same way that they fell out of love. The only difference is that it came not with a loud bang, but with a whimper, until it flickers and dies. There is no fanfare, no wine, chocolate, and flowers, no late night dinners and drinks, no cymbals clashing and no clarinets sounding their clarion call.

Warm soft words in the beginning now become cold, brutish and harsh, and even Shakespeare had a few when he said: “The power that I have over you is to spare you, the malice towards you to forgive you. Tear-falling pity, dwells not in this eye.”

And that last line from the quote above must cut the deepest of all when it says, “Besides, I like you not.”

It’s simply amazing how quickly love can turn to loathing, cuddling to contempt, and romance to ruination, as that same couple who were in free fall together hurtling downwards, holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes, can no longer feel the ecstasy and thrill of falling in love.

But remember, anything that falls will come to a stop eventually; and it’s not the endless fall that bruk you up but the sudden stop when you hit the ground. So, it shouldn’t really be called falling out of love but rather stopping of the love, for that’s what really happens when the love ceases.

I see couples all the time, once the epitome of free fall lovers but now virtual strangers, devoid and bereft of any feelings towards each other.

“But how come dem bruk up after just two years?”

“They fell out of love.”

Sometimes that falling got a little push from someone else, as what happens to some people. One guy who stopped loving his wife told her, “I met someone.” Oh yes, just like when you’re skydiving and the instructor gives you a little nudge to shub you out of the aircraft, some people get a push from a third party… then they fall again, but for someone else.

The irony is, that falling is often temporary, for after a few years or so the cycle is repeated and they end up hitting the ground again with a thud.

“What a woman! Fall in love so much time and still can’t find the right one.”

But who says that one should only fall in love one time? That’s why skydivers keep going over and over — to experience the thrill of the freefall, knowing full well that one day that parachute may not open, may fail, and they plummet to their death.

The same with falling in love as it’s often said that it’s the thrill of falling in love, and not the love itself, that excites people. If you ask any hunter, it’s the thrill of the chase that’s exciting and not actually capturing the prey. Many big-fish anglers will release the marlin after spending hours reeling it in.

So, some people will keep on falling in love over and over again, while some timid souls will stop after one bad experience. Many people do not take it very well, for after falling in love they want it to last forever, so when it stops, they cannot handle it.

Some women go to pieces while men may get violent. It was our very own Ken Boothe who sang:

When I fall in love

It will be forever

’cause I’ll never ever

Fall in love again

Nothing in life lasts forever, and if you don’t get it right the first time then try, try, try again — but next time don’t forget your parachute.

More time.

seido1yard@gmail.com

Footnote: Lawrence Rowe was an extraordinary Jamaican and West Indian cricketer who was ranked among the best batsmen that the sport has ever seen. His record of scoring a double century and a century in his début Test match will never be broken. Imagine achieving that feat in his very first Test match, ever. Yet Lawrence fell from grace when he participated in the infamous ‘rebel tour’ in South Africa when that country was under apartheid rule whereby black people were subjugated. Lawrence has never been forgiven by some, but there is a campaign afoot to forgive him for his act and have his image exhibited among the hall of fame at Sabina Park. It’s been 40 years. Even if he’s deemed guilty of that act, 40 years is a long time. There are murderers who serve less time than that. Give Lawrence a break, I say.