Affirmative:  Looking for love may be like playing with fire, but it doesn’t mean you have to get burned. Three years ago, demoralized by back-to-back relationship disasters, I said “never again.”  Now I employ specific relationship safety techniques: Move slowly, wait a judicious amount of time for intimacy, stay emotionally detached until trust is established.

Negative:  Oh, come on.  There’s no such thing as “safety” when it comes to love.  It’s not a matter of if you’ll be hurt — it’s a matter of when and how badly. Will you be desolate, bereft or suicidal?  Will you wallow for months or merely weeks? Will you swear off relationships forever or just for the next couple decades? As George Bernard Shaw said, love is “the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions.” Try controlling that with your “safety” mechanisms.

Aff: Humph! I beg to differ with Mr. Shaw.  I’m more of a Corinthians girl: “Love is patient and kind, not jealous or boastful, arrogant or rude … Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things … ”

Neg: Riiight.  Ever wonder why you only hear that at weddings and not, say, in divorce court?

Aff:  “Love lifts us up where we belonnnnnng!”

Neg:  “Love makes us act like we are fools!!”

Aff:  Someone’s a little bitter.

Neg: Bitter?!  As if!

(Song “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted?” begins playing.  Negative looks at Affirmative suspiciously.)

Neg: I’m going to ignore that and continue with the debate. (clears voice)  Truly caring about someone requires becoming vulnerable.  Becoming vulnerable requires the possibility of getting hurt.  Therefore, truly caring about someone means you’ll probably get hurt.

Aff:  But we don’t have to become vulnerable too quickly.  After all, you wouldn’t walk up to a stranger on the street and tell him your deepest fears, desires and secrets.  Why would you treat a date any differently? If anything, you should be more guarded.  This sort of emotional prudence has allowed me to steer clear of the grief I suffered when I was younger.

Neg:  Oh, please.  The only reason you haven’t been hurt deeply is because you haven’t let yourself care deeply.  Like the re-calibrated SATs, your scores may have improved, but all that’s really changed is the scale.  Sure, your dating life has breadth, but it doesn’t have depth.

Real relationships require investment, opening up. We can’t act like panicked D.C. denizens at the first sign of an “orange alert” and refuse to leave our bedrooms, petrified of a future attack that may or may not ever happen.

Aff:  We could.

Neg: (annoyed sigh) Oh, come on. Is anything in life — including relationships — ever really “safe”?  All the duct tape and plastic wrap in the world, real or emotional, will only deceive us with a false sense of security.

Aff:  The girls in the apartment across from ours did their windows.

Neg: Get back to me on how they’re doing after a nuclear attack.

Aff:  I’ll do that.

But my contention stands. Entering into relationships with caution is much healthier, emotionally. Sure, such strategies aren’t foolproof, but I do know that I’ve never felt that sort of desolation again.

Neg:  Fine, you no longer have dramatic, tumultuous, hair raising breakups. But there are other sorts of pain!

(Affirmative starts humming “All By Myself”)

Neg: (sarcastic): You’re so clever. Look, there are worse things than to be alone.

Aff: Like what?

Neg: Like emotional paper cuts. It seems as if they should only sting, but instead they hurt like hell and won’t heal.

Aff: (confused) Example?

Neg:  Well, ironically enough, I tried your “safety strategies” with my last boyfriend, and although the breakup was amiable, I still feel recurrent pangs of distress.  There were no fights, no screaming, no insults — just a polite cell phone conversation.  “I thought a lot about this,” he explained courteously, “and I just don’t think it’s going to work out.”  He wished me well, hung up, and I cried …

Aff:  For like four minutes!  And then you sped off to a friendly dinner with a former flame!

Neg:  Well, I was late!

Aff:  Right.  My point stands.  You were able to shift gears fairly easily — to turn off the ‘hurt’ if you will.

Neg:  Except that it kept coming back!  Unbeknownst to him, my ex’s explanation of “no explanation” opened a Pandora’s box of unanswered questions, mismatched expectations and empty hopes that just kept on going.  We were never dramatic.  We didn’t get caught in a vicious cycle of theatrical fights like some ex-couples.  We never had the explosions of raw emotion that marked my other break-ups.  We were kind, we were considerate, and we were unresolved.

Aff:  Well, you may have sent each other mixed messages, but they were with the best of intentions.  You had a healthy “let’s see what happens” attitude!  You stayed detached.

Neg:  Yes, but that only made our relationship more complicated.  We thought we were “going with the flow.”  But our permanently ambiguous state rendered me unable to use good judgment, and ultimately, it ruined our friendship.

Aff:  So he ended it badly.  But you weren’t entirely hung up on him — you’ve dated a lot since then; you’ve had a great time.

Neg: (unsure)  I don’t know … it just seems that no relationship, no matter how civil, is devoid of pain.  He didn’t want to hurt me, and I certainly didn’t want to be hurt.  But he did and I was.

Aff:  Of course separating from a person you care about will never be pleasant.  But there are ways to mitigate that pain.  You could take my friend Sasha’s advice: “Just walk away and forget about him.”

Neg: (scoffing)  Forget??  Has Sasha ever been hurt?

Aff:  Twice — the first two girls he loved.

Neg:  Is he still friends with them?

Aff:  Er, no.  They don’t speak.

Neg:  See!!  Exactly.  I think I win.

Aff:  No, all you’ve proved is that one can get hurt.  One can also learn how to move on from being hurt, and furthermore, how not to get hurt again.  Actually, Sasha’s in love right now …

Neg:  That’s only because he let down his guard!  And so he may be hurt again …

Aff:  But what’s the point of life without risking a little?

Neg: (singing)  “You got to … give a little, take a little, and let your poor heart breakkkk a little.  That’s the story of, that’s the glory of loveeeee.”

Aff:  Okay, you're obviously a tool, but I do love Bette Midler.  C’mon, let’s go watch Moulin Rouge.