[ WP ] What does it feel like to be in love

You're sitting in a darkened movie theater, your partner beside you. It's date night, just like every Thursday, at least when you find the time. You do n't hold hands, but when both of you reach into the popcorn at once, you give each other's fingers a playful squeeze. The screen before you lights up with the first scene of the latest epic movie that everyone has been talking about incessantly for weeks. The film has action, it has drama, and it has a love story. 
 
 The love story is somewhat shoehorned into the plot, but it's there. Two star-crossed, absurdly beautiful people, fated to be together and then not anymore. You know logically that the movie's score is manipulating your feelings. You can step outside yourself and analyze the sweeping vistas and top-notch special effects that push the plot along. But you still ca n't resist being drawn, inexorably, into the storyline unfolding before you: the story of the two ill-fated lovers with perfect, perfect hair. 
 
 You hear your partner giggle beside you when something funny happens in the script. The sound makes you smile. Once or twice, you hear a gasp, a visceral reaction to the film's rising action. Near the end of the movie, you hear a sniffle, then another. The protagonist and his lady friend are being torn apart by plot devices, and the result is a cinematic tragedy. It's a sadness that you usually observe from a detached perspective; is n't that unfortunate, you would usually think. But today, something is different. As you watch the on-screen couple say goodbye, a lump forms in your throat. You swallow. You reach for more popcorn and your fingers graze the warmth of your partner's hand. This time, for reasons you are n't quite sure of, you take the hand in yours and hold it, your fingers interlacing. 
 
 You inhale deeply, your gaze steady on the screen. The lump in your throat grows. For a brief, terrifying moment, you picture yourself as the movie's hero, the one who is losing his love. The love he's worked so hard and so futilely to preserve. The hand you're holding curls into yours like a kitten snuggling up for a nap. It feels familiar, like trust. Like home. 
 
 As the credits roll, you think: *I get it now. *
