The contradiction of love
I wonder if it has always been a pain to be a hopeless romantic in this word, or if it’s just a problem of our generation. All the scrolling, swiping, hook up culture, countless possibilities, and always someone better on the horizon. That’s why people like me escape to the world of books, movies, shows, and find difficult to be present in the real word. The only way to push through after all the hope is gone is to desensitise. But then what is the point in living if not love?
Even though through my childhood I never had a positive and healthy outlook on love, I still somehow always believed love was out there waiting for me. I grew up in a broken home, where mum was never present, and dad was always drunk. I learnt how to create a different word inside my head, which was so much better than the one in which I was living. I was always told I was shy and too quiet, but no one ever thought about the fact that maybe I just had nothing to say to them - that I was just observing and making points in my head about “how not to end up and how not to live life”.
20 years later I'm sitting here and asking if romantic love is even real because I’ve barely had any positive experiences with it. What if we are all just horny and our hormones are controlling our brains that are telling us to breed, and that’s what we think love is? And when the honeymoon phase is gone we still say “I love you.” but with no actual meaning or feelings to it. We just say it for the sake of it and because we’ve been saying it for months now so it would be weird to just stop.
My parents never told me they loved me but I’ve been told “I love you” by a romantic partner quite a few times. But looking back I think I finally see why I have trust issues and every time someone new says I love you to me, my heart at first seems full but later on, it feels far emptier than before.
“I love you.” my first ever love said. Only to break my heart over a text the next day saying that he in fact had a girlfriend that he hadn't told me about the previous night, and he was never going to leave her even though he loved me so much.
“I love you.” he said right after he accidentally called me by the name of a girl he was cheating on me with. It was also the last thing he told me before breaking up with me by making a relationship with the other girl facebook official.
“I love you.” he told me but in the moment that I hit the rock bottom because life was too hard and I was about to hurt myself - I messaged him asking for help but all he said was “Leave me alone and don’t bother me with this shit.”
“I love you.” he said as he was putting me into a taxi to leave his place. I didn’t know that it was the last time I was gonna see him and that the next day he was going to message me that he didn't want to be with me. Two weeks later he loved someone else.
“I love you.” he said only to later leaving me alone with no phone, no money and no sense of direction in New York, and made me beg him not to leave until I was completely terrified and sobbing.
“I love you.” he said as he was handing me cash for my services whilst his wife was at work and his son at school.
“I love you.” he said right after he told me we should speak less for a while and who when I said I felt unloved and uncared for replied that he was busy going to a sex party.
If all of this is love I don’t think I want it anymore. People are throwing the love bombing everywhere they go and they don’t care that there are people who will still take it seriously. I used to think that when you said “I love you.” it meant that you were saying You’re my person/I care for you/I’ll be here for you no matter what/I don’t want to imagine my life without you. And that’s what I mean when I say it. But for other people it seems that it’s the same thing as “You’re a good fuck.” or “You’re cute.”
I think the only true love I’ve ever felt is the love of friendship. I had so many friends who knew so many versions of myself and who loved me through all of them. They loved me when I was at school, they loved me when I was working in Next, they loved me when I was a barista, and they loved me when I was a sex worker. They loved me in my strongest moments, and they loved me in my weakest moments. When I call they answer. When I need help they come, no questions asked. They are the family I’ve never had, and the supportive loving partner I’ve always wished for. Maybe that’s the love we should all be longing for and romanticise. The love that stays, and the love you don’t have to get a divorce from. Let’s make growing old with friends a normality. I feel like some tv shows have been trying to tell this as well. No Mr. Dreamy can ever compare to Meredith and Cristina’s friendships. No Mr. Big can be as big as Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda for Carrie.
It’s the kinda love that remains when shit gets hard and that doesn’t abandon you when you show a sign of weakness. The kinda love where you can be fully yourself without being scared of the other person leaving.