Of love and... Desire.

"Love is the yearning of loving and preserving the loved one. A centrifugal impulse; unlike the centripetal desire. It is an impulse towards expansion (...) it implies the impulse of protecting, nurturing, give shelter and caress and pamper, or protect jealously. (...) While 'desire' longs to consume, love wishes to possess. Desire is self-destructive; love, self-preserving." Zygmunt Bauman on "Liquid Love".

Two people meet, like each other and decide they want to know whether they can be compatible on other things besides aesthetics. They talk, laugh and find each other's company pleasant, even satisfactory. As the evening develops, they long to feel the other person and feel a fire whenever there is a surreptitious touch... When they say goodbye, they kiss and realise there is something there...

So, what do they do? Or rather, what can they do? 

This initial connection is a powerful desire which could consume both of them in a blazing fire (which I'm not saying is wrong). But what happens after the flames are gone? After that first attraction fades away and you see the person bare, without the mystery of the unknown that surrounded them. Desire centers one's attention towards itself... Or rather, oneself... Sometimes it takes longer for the blaze to expose what hides beneath, but it never fails. 

If let alone, desire can be too intense and scald the surface of whoever is feeling it, altering their perception and making them too sensitive to what comes afterwards; thus preventing them from exploring the newly discovered individual.

Love, on the other hand, is a feeling of growth; an impetus to become better and improve the one beside you. While Bauman says love is possession, and I agree, I also think it is creation. In a previous entry I talked about the 'admiration' component in a romantic relationship, I think that is what can keep the desire renovating itself; I believe it is a fire centered, not around devouring, but absorbing and making that part of whoever you love, yours.