For anyone who’s watched the first episode of the current season of How I Met Your Mother, you’ll know what a Lebenslangerschicksalsschatz is.

Klaus: Lebenslangerschicksalsschatz is not something that develops over time. It is something that happens instantaneously. It courses through you like the water of a river after a storm, filling you and emptying you all at once. You feel it throughout your body, in your hands, in your heart, in your stomach, in your skin. Have you ever felt this way about someone?

If you take shows like HIMYM for gospel truth then you’re in for trouble. I feel that ‘love at first sight’, or whatever name you have for it, has been romanticized too much in so many Hollywood movies and other shows.

For all the men and women who love deeply and truly, Klaus’ lines may have a ring of truth in it. But that he says in the beginning: “Lebenslangerschicksalsschatz is not something that develops over time,” sets my point of disagreement.

To say that love, the truest and most sincere kind that fills and overflows you is something that happens suddenly in the beginning instead of developing over time is so contrary to my own experiences of love (romantic and of real friendship, as love has many forms) and of the growth that seems so natural for people in love. 

For me, Klaus’ definition of something that happens simultaneously is either infatuation or lust, or of parents towards their children. Obviously the show doesn’t refer to the latter. How much do you know a person’s being if you do not take time into consideration, as well as time needed to know that whatever it is you feel – love if you will – makes you and this other person grow? In real life, break-ups happen because something is wrong with the relationship (worst case scenarios include couples being toxic for each other, abuse, among other things. Deal-breakers include wanting/not wanting children, religion (sometimes), fundamental beliefs, etc.). You don’t stop marrying someone because oh, you suddenly don’t feel that he or she is The One or an ex-boyfriend comes to take you away because in those nine years that you haven’t seen each other you are absolutely sure that who he is now is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. 

But perhaps there is a different angle for this, and I’m willing to consider that this might be a better interpretation of what Klaus meant. That after a while of dating somebody and getting to know that person, there may be doubt as to whether or not that person is The One.

Maybe for some people, they experience a ‘eureka’ moment. That something may trigger a sudden surge of feelings that you realize the importance of one person in your life – an outburst of joy at the thought of someone, a lightness of being at the company of somebody. But emotions as strong or passionate have to bank on memories and other feelings which can only be built through time. But the thing is, doubts are normal. It’s alright to be unsure at some points in a relationship because when would you be ever sure of a future that haven’t happened, really? There is doubt in faith and faith in doubt (as I’ve learned in one of my Theology classes). I have less inclination to believe that people who let themselves be swayed by passion without considering responsibilities and reason are experiencing true love. I have seen and experienced love that hurt (yourself, other people) when love is idealized into these instantaneous moments and it goes against what I believe true love is. 

It may be just a personal opinion but I believe that love that grows slowly like the oldest trees, taking root in the deepest soil is stronger than the river that flows after the storm.