My take on love has vacillated between the overly cynical (it's just dopamine trying to get me to procreate and pass along my genes) and the overly romanticized (each of us has a soulmate in this world - and I happen to have found mine several times between the ages of 16-24!).

My current view is very much akin to what Conor Oberst describes in Bright Eyes' First Day of My Life:

So if you want to be with me With these things there’s no telling We just have to wait and see But I’d rather be working for a paycheck Than waiting to win the lottery Besides maybe this time is different I mean I really think you like me

With these things, there's no telling: we just have to wait and see. There's never certainty in interpersonal relationships, and even marriage is no guarantee of couples staying together for life.

I could wait for decades - and until I'm long dead - to find someone who's perfect for me. I could break up with partners at the first hint of something bad (as I've done on many an occasion). However, the chance of me "winning the lottery" and finding someone who's ideal for me in every way is so incredibly small that it might as well be nil. Instead, I'd rather work for a paycheck: find someone with whom I can evolve and grow, and work on my relationship with him or her steadily over the course of many, many years.

I'm engaged now to a wonderful person who is wonderfully flawed, and in many ways incompatible with me. But we can get through fights in a way I've never been able to with others, and we're willing to compromise to be with each other. I haven't struck the lottery with him, but I've got a stable job and a promising future.

The song sounds cynical, but it's a gorgeous song from someone who is deeply in love and ready to try his best to make it last.