Does love really exist? -By Ashiru Dan’Azumi Alasan

In my life and reading career, no concept intrigue and sounds confusive to me than the concept of love.

  I’m day by day becoming hesitant and a bit contemplated about what actually depict, express and portrays the nature of love.

Freda Yemi, my course mate share the same view, for she lamented how a considerable number of people in different occasions is looking for a way to pamper her with gift and kind gesture despite her aromatic nature.

Love is said to be the important pillar that supports matrimonial, brotherly, sisterly as per as inter-personal relationships. Then why people are becoming victims of this life saving element on daily basis?

A scholar Abu Mazeedatul Khaiyr wrote in a book title ‘Tales of marital love’ that, love is the tantalizing allurement of the impassioned heart that enables us to show our deep affection, reciprocity, and alienability to others.

Robiu Adeyika, a student of mass communication, Bayero university Kano, had this to say about the nature of love and i quote: ” Love is the healthy mind that can incite us to give someone what we suppose to keep for ourselves”.

From the above definitions and personal points of view about love or its nature, we can deductively say that, the message of love is immaterial in comparison to the magnitude of the message itself.

Furthermore, the Greeks, have many words to describe the multifaceted concept of love. They point out the divine love or agape, the erotic which describe the intimate or deep affection between man and his wife then, the philia or brotherly affection between siblings and shared among humans. All the above categorization is not something one can bring home about as per as the true nature of love is concern.

Imagine a lady that wrote a letter to her newfound love as the case may be, telling him that, he was the apple of her eye, his love is not an optional accessory that she can choose to exclude from her life, but, she pour abuses on him for just admiring another lady three month after they got married. Where is the love she claimed she had for him?

Let me pose some questions here: is love the mindless choice of words that express the intoxicating feeling any of us have the privilege of experiencing, or the lustful desire that we quench through sexual engagement.

Is it the displayed admission of concern and sacrifice between parents and their children, or the kind gestures from a wealthy neighbor, friend or a philanthropist?

If unconditional service and sacrifice is a sign of true love and togetherness, how do we classify Master- servant relationship as encompasses in the ancient traditional leadership. Is the latter in love with the former?

Moreover, if the better end of love is marriage, then the famous love story of Romeo and Juliet written by William Shake spare hundreds of years ago is disguising and absurd, as the two leading  characters achieve nothing. They at last poison themselves to death. Is that what true love entitles?

In another version of Arabian based love story, the major character Abdullahi popularly known as Majnun is killed by country children for just following his beloved Laila to her new abode. Is that the reward of those possessed by demonic legion of this abstract fellow?

If sexual gratification is the highest reward one can get in an erotic relationships, then what about commercial sex hawking which serve the same purpose. Is that love too?

Undoubtedly, a parents will sacrifices their wealth, influence, time and all sorts of valuable possessions for the love of their children, to make them responsive and useful. Then why sometime children become deviants or delinquent. Is it a sweet way of settling debt or a feeling invested in an empty opportunist?

In the same vein, a Teacher will claim loving his pupil or student, wanting him to become prosperous in life. But along the way, that pupil will be flogged or given a corporal punishment, can that Child conceive the idea of being loved?

Definitely, we all want to experience love,  but here is something we must ponder about:

Are we in love with others or we are in love with the idea of being in love?

Many a times we turned to the arms of someone, looking for assurance that will come from him as a compliment of love. But we unfortunately become bitter when we realize the person saddle the relationships down with undue weight, just because, love is unrealistic and imaginary feeling.

I never come across a non tragedy love story in both my life and reading career, this keep me contemplated about the existence of that intensified mirage called a love. And even if it exist there is something fishy about it.

Ashiru Dan’Azumi Alasan writes from

Mass Comm Department, Bayero University, Kano.