First Pitch: Day Thirty Two – Love

2 Jan 2022

You have a love meter.

At the start of any relationship, the meter is so low that a fart could deplete it all.

After enough time, a fart has the same negative impact, but is hardly noticed in the sea of love that fills the meter.

Farts aren’t the only thing that can drain a love meter. At a certain point, it would take tremendous gas to drain a relationship. Aside from that atomic fart that destroys a city and leaves no survivors at ground zero, the relationship will go on, so long as love doesn’t appear as a competition.

You don’t just have one love meter. You have one love meter for every person you’ve ever met. Most of those meters are insignificantly low. If any of those people farted, you’d be justified to end the relationship.

You have a love meter for every interest or activity in your life. There’s a love meter for places, events, and even certain days. There’s a love meter for your pets.

One of your love meters is always the most full. That’s typically the person you love the most.

For the longest time, that person is a member of your immediate family. Or, maybe your immediate family farts a lot, and your Immodium addicted friend becomes your new representation of family.

Then, you meet someone.

Your respective love meters are rising rapidly. You’re each moving up each other’s ranks, closing in on the champ like a number one contender.

You accidentally slip out farts in front of each other and notice that your love meters didn’t notice. Then, you enjoy a joyous period of consequence free farting anytime the two of you are together.

Did you know that when you smell a fart, that is actually particles of shit you’re inhaling?

True, long-term love between two people comes when one person purposefully blows particles of shit out of their ass in the other person’s presence, then laughs as the other person shockingly reveals those particles have entered their nostrils.

Then, they continue watching Netflix together.

Love is messy.

The love meter you have for people is a set feeling. You never really lose the feeling of love for someone, unless they do something to impact the meter.

Other people’s love meter for you are based on your actions. Your love meter is a set feeling, but time is also set. You only have so many hours in the day to give attention to other people. Adding a new person in your life who takes a lot of your attention away from others will impact some love meters.

If someone else only loved you for the time you spent with them, and that time depletes, their love meter for you will naturally decline. That can be most challenging when the person you loved the most throughout your life is unwilling to take a secondary role to the person you found.

This is very common. It can be controlling parents who want to keep their adult kid a perpetual child under their control. It can be a best friend who now finds themself lonely with their best friend moving on.

Love shouldn’t be a competition. It’s not a zero-sum game.

It’s hard to keep this in mind. Let’s step out of interpersonal relationships and look at a different kind of love: The love of Major League Baseball.

Everyone here is united by an MLB love meter that is high. In some cases, you might love baseball more than any activity or interest, and more than some people.

It’s difficult to feel that love from the game at the current moment. The love from the game isn’t being returned to the fans right now. Instead, it’s being focused on money, power, and the long-term view of the game.

MLB will eventually return. Even if they drag out the lockout through the whole 2022 season, the league will return.

Not all of the fans will return.

Some only loved MLB when it was around. Those fans are looking for something to fill their time, and might find something they love more during this time off.

Some loved MLB, but are now questioning whether they should have loved the game so much. They might return, but their MLB love meters will be depleted.

Some fans will be patient. They know MLB will return eventually. Their love of the game lasts a lifetime, and when the game returns, that love will resume.

MLB can bank on those fans sticking around. They’re guaranteed to lose some casual fans if there’s a lockout that eats into the season. However many more they lose behind these groups is dependant on how much time the game spends away from those who love it, but still with conditions.

As this lockout goes longer, more and more interest is removed from the game.

The hope would be a resolution to bring everyone back and revive those love meters