TO LIKE OR TO LOVE?

Otago Witness, Issue 4028, 26 May 1931, Page 63

TO LIKE OR TO LOVE?

“I’m simply madly’ in love with Cecil!” sighs Ivy blissfully. “ I know, dear,” says Janet, with a rather worried frown. “ But how much do you like him?” The truth is that Cecil is not the type of young man whom any decent girl could possibly like. He’s selfish and rude to his mother, somewhat addicted to one over the eight, “ can’t stand dogs,” and is not above boasting of his prowess with the opposite sex and his past love affairs. Not a nice man, but poor, silly’ Ivy is so blinded by “ love ” that she can’t see how very unlikeable the odious Cecil really is. ¥ •?. if Ivy is like “ Ann ” in “ Tantivy Towers,” who breaks off her engagement ■with a highly respectable country gentleman for a rather harum-scarum singer whom she hardly knows and about whom she admits: “ I do not like this fellow much, But I love him quite a lot.” Alas, that is exactly poor Ivy’s position, the explanation of so many unhappy’ marriages and shattered romances. So often, when a girl announces passionately that she is “ mad about ” some man, it* really’ seems as if she must be. How otherwise explain why a perfectly nice girl like Ivy should fix her affections on a perfectly nasty youth like Cecil ? Once the madness of love has passed, as it must do, what will there be left to like? When poor Ivy finds herself left with a curly-haired, but no longer glamorous stranger, whose principles and ideas are so very different from her own, what’s going to happen ? To like a person, you must respect them, and nobody could possibly respect Cecil. if * V Love and friendship ought to go hand-in-hand, but I’m quite certain that Ivy would never have dreamt of making a friend of Cecil, if she hadn’t been infatuated by his roving eye. “ With lip close to lip any girl cau impress, But to see eye to eye is the test of success.” To like the same things, whether it’s the talkies, or steak pudding, may not sound as romantic as being “ madly in love,” but it’s a much firmer basis on which to build a happy marriage. It’s perfectly true that people with dissimilar tastes can be happy together, but two people whose likes and dislikes are fundamentally different, who have nothing in common but kisses, stand a very poor chance of being happily” married. You’re “in love” with him (sure you’re not “infatuated”? They both begin with the same letters), but you don’t like the way he lets his sister fetch and carry for him without so much as a thank you, or the way he sneaked out without tipping the waitress, or that time he borrowed a pound from you ‘ and has “ forgotten ” to pay it back—- \ beware! Pause, and consider if you really want to marry a man whose ways you don t ’ like! i like! —Silvia Thorn-Drury, in Women's - Weekly.