h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Lies, Lies, Lies. Love is lie, spelled differently.
Hell no. Love is NOT lies. And you know this is true because you've been there. Love might bring some aches, and it might be lust, it might bring fears, and it must be sex, but it's surely not lies.
Lies are the anti-love and make any reationship a selfish sham.
Lies are usually the path an anti-lover, what a hurt misoginist uses to attain sexual power over his(her) partner, and in the end will destroy that relationship.
I say try to avoid falling for a liar or being one yourself. Either way, your relationship wil end poorly. Better to make an honest mistake by falling in love with somene who turns out to be incompatable and you split up, than with a liar who will cause you terrible hurt. Leave a liar soon as you find out!
From a seventy year old with a bit of experience!

The best summary of "love" is in Behold The Man by Michael Moorcock; The main character, a romantic, is talking to one of his friends, a satanist, about a recent breakup:
"Your trouble is that you believe in true love," says his friend
"How do you mean?" he replies
"Well, look at it like this: I "love" the idea of human sacrifice but can't do it because it's illegal. I am also unable to "do it" unless she's wearing a black veil. You on the other hand believe in the sacrifice of the heart (not illegal) and are unable to "do it" unless she declares true love, thus perverting them for the rest of us,"
"oh, I hadn't thought of it like that"

PS not a direct quote, mostly from memory

To Ms Agnes Microbe.
Your point is valid in many cases, but I have found (out of no personal experience of my own, as I am rather hopeless and lonely) that there are some instances in even the most agreeable and open-hearted men and women do say and think very strange and unfathomable things that lead to enormous misunderstanding, strife and potential global conflict (most of these things having been stated already). However, contradicting to an extent the point I just made, it would appear that patience and willingness to accept opinions beyond one's own leads to a fairly (almost disappointingly in some cases) easy mutual understanding between all but the most incompatible (as in Windows-Mac) relationship.
Thank you.

It seems funny that both women and men complain of being misunderstood/ easy to understand/labelled by the other sex. This would point maybe towards over-generalisation that both parties are guilty of. If men and women were all truly searching for the exact same things in a partner, and able to offer similar aspects of themselves as relationship fodder, surely we'd be happy with the first partner we met? Obviously this is a ludicrous idea and something must be said for personal taste/idiosyncratic behaviour. It is easy to become jaded via previous failed love trysts, and perhaps this colours the individual's perception about the whole of the opposite sex, rather than the individual perpetrator of love's crimes. If only it were possible to erase past hurts and come to each relationship with the innocent naiveté of the first encounter, then maybe more relationship would have a chance to flourish.