When I was growing up I believed that everything I’d ever need to know about love I could learn by listening to the lyrics of disco music. My fantasies were filled with spinning lights and lava lamps, psychedelic polyester shirts with the ends of the collars shaped like scalene triangles.

I imagined that I would one-day meet a young man—on the dance floor, of course—and we would fall in love. So deep and complete our love would be that nobody else would be able to understand it but us.

It’d be the sort of bond Evelyn “Champagne” King described in “Shame.” We would dance in step, this young man and I, to songs by Chic, the O’Jays, and the Village People.

Ever so aware of the uniqueness and timelessness of our love, we would affirm it by sharing the most profound observations. “We’re living in a world of fools,” he might advise me if anyone dared to question what we had, “breaking us down. When they all should let us be. We belong to you and me.”

If I felt the two of us were drifting apart, I would know exactly how to draw him back to me. “Ever since our voyage of love began,” I’d remind him, “your touch has thrilled me like the rush of the wind. And your arms have held me safe from a rolling sea. There has always been a quiet place to harbour you and me.” Oh, he and I would be the perfect couple, like Sonny and Cher, or Ike and Tina.

Though many of the girls I knew had similar starry-eyed fantasies, the budding Lotharios in our social circles were more interested in exploring their carnal desires than following the cues of a courtship that had been soundtracked by the A sides of a stack of 45s. Except, of course, on Valentine’s Day when Cupid’s potion-laced arrow could temporarily transform even the dullest of dudes into a bouquet-of-roses wielding Billy Dee Williams wannabe.

But, as it turned out, all of my teenybopper romances seemed to have a lifespan of no more than 8 weeks, and never, not once, were any of those weeks in February. So I would watch with great envy as other girls were gifted stuffed animals and heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, or had corsages pinned to the cotton-candy pink or candy-apple red dresses they wore to the annual Valentine’s dance.

Then I graduated from school and met the man of my dreams. It was the mid-80s; disco was all but dead, so I refashioned my fantasies with velour tracksuits and paisley ties, a steady stream of Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson.

This man, whom I’ll call B.B., was now the only face that came to mind when the artist formerly, and once again, known as Prince, commanded: “Dig if you will, the picture of you and I engaged in a kiss.”

You can only imagine, then, how thrilled I was come the month of February that B.B and I were still together. It would be my first real Valentine’s date. We had it all planned perfectly, dinner by candlelight at a bistro and then dancing until dawn. B.B. held my hands, looked deep into my eyes and said, “Think about it.

There must be higher love, down in the heart or hidden in the stars above. Without it, time is wasted time. Look inside your heart, I’ll look inside mine.”

I bought a new shade of lipstick especially for that night. It matched the plum swirls in the Esprit dress I wore. I sat, the heroine in a soon-to-be classic love story, and waited for B.B.

During the first hour, I listened to the radio, swaying gently as Cyndi Lauper sang, “All through the night/ I’ll be awake and I’ll be with you/ All through the night/ This precious time when time is new…”

The clock ticked on. The music played on. Surely this was not happening. Not to me! There were no mobile phones back then, so midway through the second hour, I started calling B.B’s pager, punching in the special code he’d told me belonged to me alone. No response.

At the end of the third hour, I woke up, having fallen asleep on the couch, walked to my bedroom and crawled under the covers, fully clothed and crying. The next day, B.B. showed up with an armful of beautiful geraniums, and the most outrageous lie.

Though he had not a scratch on him and did not seem the least bit shell-shocked, B.B. explained that he’d been in a horrific accident, one that had required the use of hydraulic rescue tools—aka “the jaws of life”—to extract him from the mangled vehicle.

Of course I didn’t believe him, but it seemed pointless to say so. Wherever he’d been that night, it wasn’t with me. That was the only truth I needed to know.

“I’m glad you didn’t die,” I told him, not entirely sure I really meant it. But something did die that night, in me—my tendency to romanticize love, to reduce it to its most stereotypical symbols: a melody, a bottle of wine, a long-stemmed flower, a sparkling diamond.

Ah, but love is not a one-time celebration marked by sweets, sexy clothes and Hallmark cards; it’s a commitment. And songs are only snapshots of the emotions we experience during the course of that commitment.

It makes me laugh to think of those days when I believed love was just so easy to find, to sustain, to define and understand. Love is never only one thing; but, rather, a delicate combination of all things—easy and hard, pain and pleasure, tears and smiles, everlasting and fleeting.

Love is someone treating you to a delicious meal, but if it is indeed love then the same individual will also be the one to nurse you back to health after that meal gives you a runny stomach. Ain’t love grand?

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone, especially the ones I love. This article was originally published in the Daily Graphic on 13th February 2015. It may not be reposted or republished without the author’s permission. The author can be reached at view@danquah.com