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If you want advice, ask a smart failure, not a smug success. The best advice I ever got about love was from a man who had been divorced once, after marrying too young, and was long separated from a second wife. He spent the rest of his life unable to file the final divorce papers and unable to make that marriage work. His other romances came and went, after six months or a couple of years, whenever the lady in question wanted a commitment. He was committed to his friends, to me, and to his son, and as far as I could tell, for 30 years, that was it. I went to him for advice when I was 14. My best friend was in love with me, and I loved him so. I loved his sense of humor and his kindness. I loved how smart he was. I loved being with him every day, all the time. I never got tired of him. But. Of course. Not in love. I was trying. We were making out, standing up and lying down. We were unbuttoning tops and getting sweaty. It wasn't bad is what I told my adviser. "Honey," he said. "It's not going to get better. Love is a dance, and either you are moving to the same music or you're not, either your heart feels what his heart feels or it doesn't. Yours doesn't. Let him go and do it fast. Slower and kinder never feels better." Right on every count.
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From the May 2005 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine
