“There’s a saying old, says that love is blind. Still we’re often told, ‘Seek, and ye shall find.’” Those are the opening lyrics to a song of the same name as this column written by George and Ira Gershwin. I have always loved that song. To me, it defines romance and the human desire for love in the purest way. It shows how important it is for people to find their one true love – that person that they will share the rest of their lives with – their soul mate if you will. For example, the line, “I’d like to add my initial to her monogram” is to me the most romantic way of saying that you want to marry someone – and even though people don’t talk that way anymore – I wish they did.

The reason I write this is because as of late – I have been quite jaded when it comes to love and romance. Just the notion itself was greeted by me with laughter and ridicule. After decades of fruitless attempts at it and repetitive constant failure – I began to assume that true love did not exist at all – that it was only a made up idea created by the romantics and the writers of old. And considering the fact that nearly forty percent of all marriages end in divorce – including my own – and that everyone has had at least one serious heartbreak in their lives – including myself – that true love is indeed and unfortunately a myth.

But despite the fact that I have been feeling this way for quite some time – the desire to have true love still festers inside me. No matter my external views of the subject – internally – I still crave it – and I know I always will. While most of my fellow gender is obsessed with dominating and demoralizing women – I have always longed for romance and passion. Truth be told, a night of wine, candles and the music of Tony Bennett would satisfy me more then a night at a cheap motel with a bottle of KY Warming Liquid. In other words, I am and will always be a romantic at heart. So no matter how much I say that there is no true love and I will be single for the rest of my life because of it – it is something that I cannot live without.

Since I have gotten back to Brooklyn, I have once again immersed myself in my music collection that I had missed so dearly for the last two-and-a-half months. While it contains songs from everyone from The Eagles to Snoop Dogg – the majority of the 566 songs are of a romantic nature – something I had been avoiding as of late. Remember, if I felt there was no such thing as true love – then why would I listen to songs that glorify it? But because of this need for romance inside of me – I decided to give in and listen to them once again – and in doing so – I came to a surprising conclusion…

…that despite the fact that I feel that true love does not exist – I am going to do everything in my power to try and find it.

Regardless of my feelings on the subject, I cannot live without someone to love. I am too much of a romantic and too full of passion and the willingness to share it to spend the rest of my life alone. I can’t – for my own sake and sanity – let my romanticism and heartfelt desire to make someone happy remain bottled up inside me. It is time for me to put aside my criticism of love, despair from past failures and belief that love does not exist – it is instead time for me to attempt to prove myself wrong. Not only have I been single for over a year now – but I have been married to these negative feelings about love and relationships – and quite frankly – it has been very lonely – so once again in my life – my quest for the illusive true love will begin.

Will I start putting profiles on dating websites? Of course not. Am I going to take out a personal ad asking women if they like Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain? No. Will I spend my nights attending speed dating events? Absolutely not. But what I will do is hold my head and my confidence high in the hopes that sooner rather than later – the right girl will come along who is searching for the same thing I am – someone to watch over them…

…and then – my search will be over.