The worst time to fall in love – Please spare the goat!

Is there a right time to fall in love? I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on your tolerance for pain. Love hurts. You know that, right?

There is, however, a wrong time to fall in love: the time when you feel you need love most. When that time comes pack your bags, cancel your cell phone service, leave any electronic devices behind, and head out to a secluded island. Make sure there’s no one else around. No man. No woman. And no goats! What? You haven’t heard the story about the Scotsman and his goat yet? Stranger things have happened … I think.

Before we get to the goat, let me tell you this: I’m no love expert, but I can think of at least two times when you should run to that deserted island, instead of going out looking for goats … uh, I mean love.

• One, you feel lonely. Starved for some kind of emotional and intellectual connection. You’re empty.

It’s not a good spot to be in. In truth … it sucks… It hurts. And it’s a horrible time to look for love.

See, before anything else, you have to deal with your demons. You have to figure out what lead you to that empty place in the first place. If you depend on someone else to fill the void, you’re setting yourself up for major disappointment.

I’m not saying that love can’t fulfill you. That it can’t make you feel complete. All joking aside, I think love can change you from a person who is merely living, to a person truly alive. It doesn’t necessarily fill missing parts of you although, to some degree, it does. To me, love can make all those parts have … meaning. It can make you feel like you have meaning. It can make you be whole.

Think what love is though. Love is not just someone making you feel alive again. It is also someone being made alive by you.

You have to be able to give at least as much as you receive. You can’t be an empty shell. You have to learn to enjoy your own company and your own person before you can expect someone else to do the same.

Love is not perfection. Love is passion, laughter, dancing, butterflies in your stomach, sappy love songs blasting on your car radio.  Love is walking on cloud nine and feeling that nothing could ever knock you down. But love is also someone else’s dark moods you have to learn to understand and accept. Love is the hurt feelings of not always being a priority. Love is the tears of little milestones and celebrations that were forgotten. Love is the heartbreak of your first major argument.

Love can make you feel invincible. And, without a doubt, love can bring you down faster than you can say “Ouch!”

Love is a really intense roller coaster. You have to be ready for the ups and the downs. Otherwise, you’ll break. The many imperfections of your loved one will make you bleed. What? You thought you’d find the perfect mate? Nope. There is no such thing … fortunately. The perfect mate would be torture not a blessing. Could you ever feel comfortable in your own skin knowing you could never measure up to a perfect lover? I didn’t think so.

Don’t worry: Mr. Perfect is an illusion, that’s true. But Mr. Just Right is not. And when you’re not lost, emotionally cold, and empty, then you can be Mrs. Just Right too.

So, if you find yourself … empty, spend some time to figure out what happened. What broke you into all these meaningless pieces? Don’t be on your own if you don’t want to. You might be the kind of person who needs help, reassurance, and love (the platonic kind) from family and friends. There’s nothing wrong with that. Anything to put those pieces back together into the unique puzzle that makes you … you. But make sure you are put back together. You can’t just be empty. In any relationship, that would make you a leech. Not a pretty picture, right?

Plus, and this is really important, emptiness like that can make you desperate and blind. Blind enough to fall for the first man or the first woman (even if you’re perfectly straight) that makes you feel even a little bit special. You might even fall for a goat. That might not be a problem … at first. But once that temporary blindness is gone, you’ll be shocked! Take it from someone who knows a thing or two about goats. You don’t want to wake up in bed next to one!

• The other time you shouldn’t look for love is right after you got dumped. Bad, bad decision! That’s all I’m going to say about that since I’ve already bored you with more “goat wisdom” than is healthy in a single post.

Before I end this, I’ll leave you with a link to the YouTube video that will clarify my earlier reference to the Scotsman and his goat. Enjoy!

P.S. You can stop watching after the first 1:15 minutes. Unfortunately, the rest of the presentation kind of fell flat. Maybe because nothing can top the imagery of the old man and the darn goat!