Love Flying Blind Fat Kids

There are two 7 year old kids talking to each other on a playground during recess. Johnny gets his friend Frankie's attention and asks him what he wants to be when he grows up. Frankie looks at Johnny and tells him he wants to be a basketball player. Frankie is a short, fat, white boy who has no athletic ability and cannot run in a straight line if he tried. Johnny responds to Frankie as they swing on the swing set, which happens to be the limit to Frankie's athletic abilities, "Ya know Frank, that is a good idea, I believe it will happen for you." Frankie then asks Johnny what he wants to be when he grows up. Johnny says to Frankie, "I want to fly airplanes." Now Johnny lost his sight in an automobile accident when he was only five years old, doctors told him he will never be able to see again. In the same way these kids are ignorant about their limitations, Mel, Laura, Terri, and Nick are ignorant about love. Terri mentions that Ed loved her when she says, "It was love (referring to Ed's actions toward her)." "Sure it's abnormal in most people's eyes. But he was willing to die for it. He did die for it." I think Terri wanted Ed to love her but Ed did what he did because he was crazy, not crazy in love with her. But when we get down to the bottom of this story in What We Talk about When We Talk about Love, every character displays the same outrageous ambition that Johnny and Frankie do, despite their multiple marriages and crazy "love stories". To me it seems like they are all searching for the true meaning of love, and just like the two boys are aspiring to become something they cannot, these characters cannot define love because in their cases, love has taken on many insufficient roles.