It occurred to me that my wife is the most important person in the world.

You can call me a purist, if you want to, but I hate starting a campfire with lighter fluid.

As a matter of fact, if you ask anyone in my family, they’ll tell you my “pet name” for lighter fluid.

–>Girl scout juice.

Now, after you’ve taken a moment to forgive my misogyny…

I think that a person with a brain and a match and the proper tools should be able to start a fire without accelerant. When my family camps, I have the proper tools and the brain and the match and I can, and have, create(d) a campfire that’s worth enjoying.

However, when the proper tools and/or the match and/or the brain aren’t available, lighter fluid becomes a means to an end. No one squirts lighter fluid on wood because they are wanting to watch lighter fluid burn. Rather, people want a campfire that will burn for hours past the point where the lighter fluid has been burnt off of the wood on which it was sprayed.

The burning of the lighter fluid leads to the burning of the wood, which is the goal, of course.

Lighter fluid is a petroleum-based solvent, an accelerant. It’s not that the wood on which you would spray the accelerant is not flammable, it’s just less flammable than we would have it be when we are trying to start a fire.

Now, what does any of this have to do with love?

* * *

My wife criticized me, constructively and for my benefit, the other night, and then apologized for having done so. I thought her concern was cute and endearing, and I told her that it was easy to take criticism from her because I knew her so well, as to know that she meant her criticism for good and not for ill.

Which started us reminiscing about our relationship and the old days and how far we’ve come together. We talked about the depth of our love and how it has deepened across time, and how shallow and superficial it seemed to have been early on, as we looked back on those early days.

I told my wife that my infatuation with her has long since passed, to have been replaced with something much more stable and strong and true.

It was at that point, it occurred to me that infatuation is an accelerant.

Love, when it starts, often starts as an infatuation. We become consumed by our interest in someone and they become consumed by their interest in us. The infatuation makes the possibility of a deeper relationship possible, if things progress well. Because of the infatuation, we spend time together, getting to know each other, developing a shared narrative. These things become the start of the actual relationship, and without us probably even noticing, the infatuation gives way to these developments.

In the same way, it’s hard to tell when a campfire becomes a campfire, when it is no longer the burning of the lighter fluid.

Now, one of the problems with using lighter fluid to start a fire is that it doesn’t always work, and what you end up with is a fire that lasted only as long as it took for the lighter fluid to burn away, without having caught anything else ablaze. Similarly, the real fire has to start, in a relationship that’s going to last, before the infatuation fades. A lot of different problems can lead to the fire never really starting –> too windy, wet wood, etc.

What you end up with, when there’s a problem getting the wood to catch fire, is a substantial problem. No romantic relationship can grow if it can’t get past the infatuation stage, just like you can’t have a campfire by just burning liter after liter of lighter fluid. As much fun as that infatuation stage is –I can’t stop thinking about them and I can’t wait to see them and I wonder what they’re doing right now and I wonder if they’re wondering about me– love doesn’t stay there. Love turns into the campfire that can be enjoyed for so much longer than it takes for the infatuation to burn off.

* * *

I take pride in my marriage with my wife. I take pride in the work that we’ve done to keep it going, and I take pride in the soothing, warming, radiant campfire that it’s become. We’ve maybe had a few times when we let the flames get low, but the coals beneath have always been hot enough to bring the fire back to life.

Similarly, I’ve taken pride in building campfires and maintaining campfires. Putting a fire together properly so that it can be started without “girl scout juice” isn’t that complicated, and now that I’ve come to think about it in depth, it’s really not worth being so proud.

Whether one uses lighter fluid or not, the goal is the same: a campfire that will last, to be enjoyed by those gathered around it.