Compelled Anyway: What We Don’t Like to Admit About Love

By LONNIE KING

We like to think of love as a choice. A noble one, maybe even a heroic one—but still ours to make. But what if real love doesn’t always ask for permission? What if it compels us?

Some words feel old-fashioned or awkward in modern usage. Compel is one of them. It’s not trending. It’s not soft-edged or feel-good. It doesn’t show up in hashtags or slogans. But it says something that other words can’t quite capture.

Or, like Paul Reiser’s character in my favorite movie Diner, Modell, it’s one of those words that just make us uncomfortable.

“You know what word I’m not comfortable with? Nuance. It’s not a real word. Like gesture. Gesture’s a real word. With gesture you know where you stand. But nuance? I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong.”

I think ‘compel’ — and its various forms — is that kind of a word.  I don’t hear it used often.  When I speak the word, it sounds like it might be from an alien language.  And yet, it’s a perfectly useful word.

To be compelled means you’re no longer the center of the equation. Something greater than your preferences—greater than your comfort—is pulling you forward. It’s not a demand. It’s deeper than that. It’s a knowing you can’t ignore.

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The Ancient Word That Still Messes With Me

Years ago, I used to read a passage from an early Christian writer—Paul—who said he was compelled by love. Not guilt. Not fear. Not moral superiority. Just love.

It wasn’t a motivational quote or an inspirational wall decal. It was a disruptive call.

And it should be disruptive. Because if we’re going to love people the way Paul described, it won’t happen in our comfort zones. It will carry us into the lives of others who don’t look like us, think like us, act like us—or worse, vote like us.

This kind of love doesn’t ask for alignment before engagement. It doesn’t wait for agreement to offer dignity.

It compels us toward people we might never have chosen on our own. People we don’t fully understand. People who might even make us uncomfortable.

That’s what makes it love. That’s what makes it real.

What Paul described wasn’t performative kindness or guilt-driven service. It was something deeper. He believed that once you truly experienced a love that gave everything, you didn’t get to hoard it. You passed it on. You lived differently. Not to prove a point, but because you couldn’t not live differently.

And that messed with me then. It still does.

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Freedom and the Tension We Don’t Talk About

We often talk about freedom—freedom to choose, to walk away, to prioritize our peace. That’s real. And it matters.

But what happens when love makes that freedom feel like a luxury we’re no longer entitled to?

That’s the tension: to be free, but also accountable to something beyond ourselves. To know that compassion doesn’t always feel comfortable. That grace can interrupt our plans. That integrity might ask more of us than we were ready to give.

Sometimes the thing that compels us doesn’t come wrapped in warm feelings or tidy outcomes. Sometimes it just comes quietly, and stubbornly refuses to leave.

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It’s Not a Slogan. It’s a Reckoning.

To be compelled is to live as if what matters most isn’t what we want—but what others need.

That doesn’t mean we erase ourselves. It doesn’t mean we say yes to everything or stay in unhealthy patterns. But it does mean we refuse to build our lives around self-protection disguised as boundaries. We stop waiting for people to be “worthy” of our care. We stop expecting love to be convenient.

Real love—grown-up love—is disruptive.

And yet, it’s the only kind that changes anything.

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So Why Still Choose It?

Because once you’ve tasted the kind of love that gave before it asked, that listened before it judged, that stayed when it could’ve walked… you can’t go back to living for yourself alone.

You may still wrestle with it. I know I do.

But you follow it anyway.

You’re not doing it to win points. You’re not trying to earn anything. You’re just living as someone who’s been marked by something too big to keep to yourself.

That’s what compels us. Even now. Maybe especially now.

Grace and grit to you! — LK