Great loves

Matt was watching an episode of "Sex and the City" on DVD (again) and I sat to watch too. His "friend" Carrie was wondering how many great loves any person can expect to have in a lifetime. One, two if you're lucky? She's had two great loves, "Big" and Aidan. She was only in her 30s and two great loves had come and gone. Now What?

My first great love was in Paris. I met Franck on my 21st birthday in 1988 and I knew the second I saw him. He did too. Although I was dating another guy and he had a girlfriend, we started a torrid affair. I broke up with my boyfriend and he broke up with his girlfriend and we began an awesome, incredible, difficult and hurtful relationship. We were together on and off until I moved to the US in 1991.

Between 91 and 93 although I dated, I never felt anything close to what I had felt for Franck. I started to think that maybe he was the love of my life and we had screwed up. Then in 1993 I met David. I remember being relieved, knowing that you can have those strong feelings more than once. 14 years later, I still vividly remember when, where, our first date, our first kiss... I think I have all this engraved in my mind forever. I still recall as well, the pain of our break-up after our short time together. The later hook-ups that made me so happy but also hurt so much because I knew they meant nothing.

Why Franck? Why David? I don't know. I meant "I love you" every time I said it to someone else but those words never felt the same way as with those two. Were they my Great Loves? What constitutes a great love anyway? Can it be just the way you feel about someone regardless of their feelings for you or lack thereof, as with David? Is it a great relationship that for some reason doesn't work out, as with Franck?

Now years later am I setting myself up for failure by aspiring to those feelings again? It got me thinking. I have been single since I broke up with my last boyfriend in 2004. Since then I haven't met anybody I felt anything for. I don't want to settle with someone just to be in a relationship. I want to see fireworks, get giddy like a 15 years old schoolgirl when I talk about him, have butterflies in my stomach when I'm thinking about him.

What do you do until then? What if I don't have those feelings again? Is a great relationship with someone who loves you dearly and whom you love as well not good enough? Did I actually doomed all my last relationships because of my idea of a Great Love? Is it enough to be some one's Prince Charming? Should both persons be each other's Princes? Maybe I should close the Cinderella book and start reading War and Peace.