LOVE AFFAIRS

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1641, 14 May 1925, Page 7

LOVE AFFAIRS

EACH ONE IS UNIQUE,

I suspect (writes Ward Muir in the Daily Mail) that it is all the fault ot " How to be IHappy ■ Though Married."

This estimable work achieved such a success that, ever since its appearance, vast numbers of authors have conceived the bright idea of writing hooks and articles giving advice to lovers and to would-be husbands and wives.

Not everybody is married. But practically every adult is, or has been, in love. Well, can any adult honestly assert that he or she ever profits by the advice-articles above-mentioned? Can any sane male, for instance, declare that a single one of these articles assisted him in a love affair, alleviated the pangs of his sufferings, or threw a useful light on the unique .problem he had to tackle? Unique—that is where the advicegivers are astray. Every love affair is unique.

The advice-giver who has just emerged (or failed to emerge) from a love affair and immediately writes an article based on what he has learnt (or thinks he has learnt) may compose an extremely interesting discourse. But, in dissecting his own love affair, he is helping no one but himself.

The anxious young lovers who turn to his sermonette for guidance in their particular perplexities will be sent empty away. His love affair, mysteriously, did not resemble their love affair.

Flirtations may be all alike, but love affairs are all different. There is a typical flirtation but there is no typical love affair. This is because flirtation is a convention, but falling in love is not a convention. Falling in love has not rules and a technique. You can do it—and do it dreadfully well—tbje first time you try, or, rather, do not try, inasmuch as it is, of course, not a feat which can be .pulled off by taking thought beforehand.

You can fall out of love with equal facility, but not in consequence of any tips culled from an advice-arti-cle.

Warnings are useless. It is sadly significant that "How to be Happy Though Married" goes on selling, while a book called " Beware of Love " would have no sale at all.