THINK: What is the difference between loving someone and being in love with someone?

Being in love is what romance novels and movies are all about. It’s that euphoric feeling you get when the world stops to turn, your tummy starts to churn and do flip flops, you “hear the music” when he whispers in your ear those three magical words. It is wonderfully exhilarating. It causes you to have the makings of a fool’s smile playing in your lips at the most inopportune times and places, but what the heck do you care, right?

However, being in love is a transient state. I do not have the data right now, but it takes too much of one’s energy to “be in love” -- what more to “stay in love.” In time you hear the farts, you see the parcel of food in between gum lines, your face gets drenched because he splays saliva all over when he eats/speaks – honestly, do you really still “hear the music” at these times?

If you still do, that’s because you made a decision to do so. You decided that you will love him … no matter what … come what may.

You decided to accept him at face value and whatever is hidden underneath that will surface in time. You decided that you will accept and stick with all the eccentricities and shortcomings. That is commitment.

No matter what the Fates may toss to test your “love,” be it Brad Pitt in all his naked glory or Daniel Radcliffe in his unabashed vulnerability, you will have eyes for him and only him. That is fidelity. Loyalty.

When you have wronged him in any way, you are prepared to offer apologies. Also, you are only too willing to forgive and forget if he was the one who screwed up. That is humility.

After all, as much as we enjoy and continually look forward to being “in love,” that is just a phase and will, despite efforts, wane away in time.

To love someone is a conscious decision we choose to make. We love and stay with the other entity as a matter of choice, not chance.

To stay in love, we have to make a conscious effort to love each other even when the romance took a slack in the humdrums of everyday life. We love in silence ... even without hearing the music.