The Dangerous Charm Of Secret Love
Love grows and ignites with greater force when it comes along with a large or small dose of impossibility. Passion never burns as hot as when it is crossed with some prohibition. And if it must be kept secret, all the better. There is a dangerous charm in secret love…
But just as the insect flying around the flame sometimes ends up burning itself, forbidden love can also end badly. Sometimes they are simply followed by a romantic “goodbye,” but most of the time, they leave one of the involved parties with large wounds that take a long time to heal.
“And for the lovers, their despairing love can be a crime… but never a sin.”
-José Ángel Buesa-
Secret love
If a relationship must remain secret, generally it is because there is a very powerful reason behind it. Most of the time, what lies behind this is a third party with whom there is a romantic commitment. Usually secret love is one where there are at least three parties involved. Sometimes four. Sometimes more.
A previous commitment is not the only reason why love may become secret. Sometimes the situation is ruled by convenience, as happens with celebrities who have to keep their relationships a secret so they do not lose followers. Sometimes there are other kinds of pressures, familial, work, or social, that force a relationship to remain a secret.
In any case, this type of love is secret because it is forbidden in some way. And it is precisely this element of prohibition that adds a special seasoning to those feelings. The relationship cannot develop in a “normal” way. It is necessary to start a sort of “parallel life” to keep that love going.
The charm of the forbidden
All prohibitions are, at the same time, an invitation. This is so because in the human mind, prohibition activates desire. Don’t you feel more interested in a movie if they tell you that it was censored in several countries? Don’t you look at that door that says “DO NOT ENTER” with greater interest? Don’t you long to be one of the people who can go through it?
The forbidden exercises a natural charm because it allows us to see, up close, something that we are lacking. So it is precisely this lack that gives rise to desire. For this reason, prohibition and desire are two sides of the same coin.
When we are talking about love, things get even more exciting. Prohibition turns into fuel for the flame, even if it is very small at first. Obstacles transform into stimuli and risks end up being seen as enticing challenges. The very risk of the relationship makes you fall in love. But be careful: playing with fire so much, we may end up being consumed by it.
The danger of secret love
The first danger of a secret love is obviously that it might be discovered. We can assume that if it is secret, it is because the consequences of revealing it may end up being very serious. There is nothing secret that will not be revealed, and there are very few cases where the truth remains a secret for a long time.
Of course, many lovers also experience these revelations with a certain excitement. They betray the commitment that they have with their partner, but they also unconsciously want “to be caught” in the act. This is part of a confusing game to test limits with the official partner or to undermine them and balance the scales that all relationships have to some extent or another.
The second great risk is that you are literally playing with your own feelings and those of others. The true and only reason for the relationship may lie within the charm of the risk. It is not love that brings you together, but the intention to challenge the forbidden. The bad thing is that within this “game,” almost always, all of the parties involved come out hurt to some degree.
Finally, the risk of secret love is that when the time comes, they neither allow us to grow nor do they make our lives better. They end up being chapters where we behave like children who do not want to obey. But when everything is out in the open, what remains is simply having tasted the charm of the forbidden…and the time we wasted on that fleeting pleasure.