To fall in love is to play with fire, but our deep need justifies risks

The church bus was dark and quiet as we rolled through the middle of Arkansas late at night. We were on the way back to Alabama from a youth mission trip to Oklahoma City. But I was terrified — with a racing heart and sweaty palms — because of what I was about to ask the beautiful woman sitting next to me.

Gail and I were both freshmen in college. We had known each other for years. I had had a crush on her when we were in junior high school, but she had become just another girl in my graduating class by the time we finished high school.

We had reconnected a few months before this because of a college class we shared. We had first started talking. Then we started spending time together. I had fallen for her — but I was terrified that maybe she just saw me as a friend.

The time had come for me to ask her if she was willing to have a romantic relationship with me.

I have no idea what I said, but I somehow got the words out. She gladly accepted the offer. My heart was full and I thought my life would never be the same again.

I’ve been thinking about that night — and about my entire relationship with Gail — because of what I’ve seen happening this week in the lives of two teens I know.

Neither of them has ever really dated before. She’s 17 and he’s 18. But each has been secretly interested in the other for the last month. He finally worked up the courage to ask her out earlier this week — and they went on their first date Saturday.

They’re already planning the second and third dates.

I have no idea what might happen for these two. Most first relationships don’t become permanent, even if they do last for a while. But the giddiness and happiness that I’ve seen from both of them as this has played out reminds me of the terrified young guy on the church bus that night.

And even though I have no idea what will happen for them — and even though my first love with Gail crashed and burned after three years — I can’t help but feeling as though I’m vicariously living through my precious first love one more time.

I think I would feel ridiculous admitting to such maudlin sentiments if my experience weren’t so common. Some people had terrible early relationships. But many of us have strongly positive memories of an early love, whether it lasted or not.

Maybe it’s not rational, but this deep desire for love that we feel — as it blossoms when we’re young and as it can continue to burn later in life — is an incredibly important part of the human experience. We need love of all kinds — and there’s something hard-wired into us to pursue the sort of mushy and ecstatic emotions that I felt those many years ago.

We associate these feelings with youth and with first love, but this powerful need never really goes away.

Decades after that first relationship, I’ve dated many women. I’ve had maybe a dozen serious relationships. A handful of them were of vital importance. I was even married (and divorced) when I was young.

But despite all this experience with love and relationships, my stomach still does flip-flops when I have some interaction with a woman who I’ve had feelings for. My brain tells my heart that it’s not logical to feel that way, but my heart still doesn’t listen.

This weekend, a woman who I don’t talk with anymore “liked” a new picture of me on a social media platform. It didn’t mean anything. It really didn’t. But my heart still did flip-flops when I saw her name.

She’s beautiful. Smart. Intense. Vivacious. But I realized long ago that we were ultimately not going to be a match — for multiple reasons. My mind is certain of that.

But she still pushed buttons for me this weekend. And my heart whispered — not for the first time — “what if…?”

There is no power in a human life like that of love. And of all the powerful and world-changing forms of love, the romantic kind is almost a universal experience. No matter what we’ve been through — no matter how hurt or disappointed we’ve been with relationships in the past — most of us still crave this amazing experience.

I know that I do, even if finding the right match for me is a bit like finding one particular grain of sand on an endless beach.

Everyone knows that loving another person is a form of playing with fire. Everyone I know has been hurt by love. There are no exceptions as far as I can tell. There are always deep disappointments at some point.

So why do we keep playing with this fire? And why do I keep wanting it, even if that fire has burned me over and over?

It’s because this kind of love is just as vital to a healthy and flourishing human life as food, water and air.

Love often hurts, but when we finally get it right — if we finally get it right — nothing is ever the same. And that makes it all worth the risk.