Up until recently, I hadn’t really accepted the fact that I could possibly die alone without ever being married or having children. Maybe it’s pathetic. Maybe it’s self awareness. Maybe it’s a little bit of both. If I were being didactic or poetic, I would say to revel in their solitude is to truly understand yourself. However, because we live in this world, at this point in time in history, I have to be realistic and in being realistic, this kind of mindset doesn’t get you very far in the current social stratosphere.
A wise woman on the Internet once said, “People are, it would seem, lonelier than ever and also less used to being alone.” I could go on-and-on about our society’s penchant for likes, pokes and all that is instant gratification, but this is a story about love.
So, let’s go back in time together.
I was 18 when the supposed love of my life broke my heart. I use the “broke my heart” lightly because I have come to know that quite wasn’t what happened, but because the situation was heartbreaking and this is how my silly 18-year-old brain felt.
So, picture this instance as if you were me and it’s the typical rom-com scenario you’ve conjured up in your head so many times before. A girl in front of a boy, asking her to love him, except she doesn’t and neither does he. Instead, he says:
“I’m in love with someone. Her name is Katherine.”
“Wait, what?” You ask, still shell-shocked from the bomb he’s dropped on you.
“I think I’m in love with Katherine,” he repeats, smiling. “Well, wait, but why?”
You say, trying to keep your composure, but wanting to either run away and cry or stomp your feet in resistance like a child.
“Because she’s what I want in a girl. She’s smart, pretty and funny.”
You can’t comprehend these words because to you this can describe, anyone. These words describe you, but he isn’t talking about you. He’s talking about Katherine. And she is all of the things he’s listed, but you can’t help, but think that you’re smarter, prettier and funnier than her or all the other ones before he and you can’t help but want to be the next one on the list.
“But there are lots of other girls in the world.” You say, hopeful that these words will kick some sense into him. Hopeful he will see that the “other girls” in the world are you.
You.
You’ve always been there and the sad part is no matter who he decides to love, you will still be there, pining for him, listening to his aches and woes and thinking, If only he had chosen me. This wouldn’t be happening if he had chosen me.
But instead, here you are, listening to him talk about another one of his conquests. Here you are listening to him talking about being in love and here you are, heartbroken once more that the person you’ve decided you want to spend the rest of your life with does not want to spend theirs with you.
“Other girls?” He says, snapping you back into reality. “I want her! She’s the one.” He’s smiling as these words come out and the sight you once thought was so beautiful is now only heartbreaking.
“But you don’t even know her.”2. “I can get to know her. People get married after knowing each other for a day. I don’t think this is any different. It’s love at first sight.”
“Love? What do you know about love?” You’re growing angrier and angrier by the second, not because of his inability to see that you are, in fact, in love with him, but because he doesn’t know what love is enough to be in love at all. He doesn’t know what love is, so, of course, he doesn’t know what you staring at him for longer than socially acceptable is supposed to mean. And definitely doesn’t know how he’s the last person that you want to see and talk to every night before you fall asleep and the first person you want to see and talk to every morning when you wake up. That is love, or so you thought.
“I don’t know much, but this is it. You can feel it.” He responds, still smiling and still so dreadfully oblivious.
“I don’t understand you. You don’t know this girl at all, but…but you love her, is that right? I don’t think so and I’m not going to stand behind this and let you get hurt.”
“Again,” you add fruitfully.
“Why are you fighting this? You’re my best friend. You should be supportive.”
“And you shouldn’t be a dick.”
And it’s here, at this point that you’ve taken it too far.
“How am I being a dick?”
“I… don’t know. You just are and what you’re doing honestly, really self-destructive.”
“Self-destructive? Whatever, I’m going to ask her out. Talk to me when you want to be a better friend.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.” You say in agreement mainly because you can’t say anything. You’re hurt, yes, but because you can’t gather the courage spit out anything else, you have to stay hurt.
He pushes past you and walks off into the distance, presumably towards home and you’re left there, reeling and rubbed raw in all the wrong ways because then you think to yourself, “Wow, I’m really going to be alone forever.”
--
Now, it’s four years later and you’ve moved on from the beautiful boy who broke your heart that day. He ended up not getting together with the infamous Katherine and you were there to ease his pain.
However, she became something of a “nothing” to him, which relieved you. This was nothing, in the sense that she once was his everything (or so he thought), but now you both act as if she never existed and that she was simply a passing phase in his life.
However, after the Katherine phase and before the phase of your own nothingness in his life, something shifted. Maybe you resented him for never feeling for you in the ways you felt for him. Maybe you finally realized that there was nothing behind him drunken 2 AM texts, beckoning you to trek across campus to fall into bed together. Or maybe, you simply met someone else.
And you did.
However, even so, you still can feel the way that lonely clings to your heartstrings when you climb into bed without your significant other even though you saw them hours before. You can feel the way that lonely spreads through your esophagus after they kiss you goodbye.
While you know it’s just a feeling and feelings are often not based in reality, sometimes, it feels that love dominates the current reality in which we all reside. Celine from the Before Sunrise series says it best when she talks about how contradictory love and reality are. “Why didn’t they ask me to marry them?” She starts. “ I would have said “No,” but at least they could have asked!”
I relate to this a lot because it constantly feels that no one loves me. I mean, I know that people love me, but it feels as if no one would ever love me enough to marry me or have children with me, as if those are the only two denotations of love that exist. Granted, as I previously stated, I really do not want to get married nor do I want to have children, but part of me wishes that someone out there would love me enough to consider wanting that with me.
It’s hard to accept that you may not always be the love of someone’s life. Or moreover, the love of anyone’s life. How many of us have entered relationships thinking that they would suddenly change for us, or, moreover, that we, too, would change as a result?
I don’t think that the boy who “broke my heart” meant to do so. I can’t even recall if we ever really talked about what we were doing in the first place. I mean, even so, we both spoke our truths through in our own ways, but, in the end, neither of us listened enough for it to truly work out.
That doesn’t mean that this won’t be the case for anyone else. I just know now that love won’t conquer all and that’s what’s set me free, at least, for the time being.
A wise woman on the Internet once said, “People are, it would seem, lonelier than ever and also less used to being alone.” I could go on-and-on about our society’s penchant for likes, pokes and all that is instant gratification, but this is a story about love.
I was 18 when the supposed love of my life broke my heart. I use the “broke my heart” lightly because I have come to know that quite wasn’t what happened, but because the situation was heartbreaking and this is how my silly 18-year-old brain felt.
So, picture this instance as if you were me and it’s the typical rom-com scenario you’ve conjured up in your head so many times before. A girl in front of a boy, asking her to love him, except she doesn’t and neither does he. Instead, he says:
“I’m in love with someone. Her name is Katherine.”
“Wait, what?” You ask, still shell-shocked from the bomb he’s dropped on you.
“I think I’m in love with Katherine,” he repeats, smiling. “Well, wait, but why?”
You say, trying to keep your composure, but wanting to either run away and cry or stomp your feet in resistance like a child.
“Because she’s what I want in a girl. She’s smart, pretty and funny.”
You can’t comprehend these words because to you this can describe, anyone. These words describe you, but he isn’t talking about you. He’s talking about Katherine. And she is all of the things he’s listed, but you can’t help, but think that you’re smarter, prettier and funnier than her or all the other ones before he and you can’t help but want to be the next one on the list.
“But there are lots of other girls in the world.” You say, hopeful that these words will kick some sense into him. Hopeful he will see that the “other girls” in the world are you.
You.
You’ve always been there and the sad part is no matter who he decides to love, you will still be there, pining for him, listening to his aches and woes and thinking, If only he had chosen me. This wouldn’t be happening if he had chosen me.
But instead, here you are, listening to him talk about another one of his conquests. Here you are listening to him talking about being in love and here you are, heartbroken once more that the person you’ve decided you want to spend the rest of your life with does not want to spend theirs with you.
“Other girls?” He says, snapping you back into reality. “I want her! She’s the one.” He’s smiling as these words come out and the sight you once thought was so beautiful is now only heartbreaking.
“But you don’t even know her.”2. “I can get to know her. People get married after knowing each other for a day. I don’t think this is any different. It’s love at first sight.”
“Love? What do you know about love?” You’re growing angrier and angrier by the second, not because of his inability to see that you are, in fact, in love with him, but because he doesn’t know what love is enough to be in love at all. He doesn’t know what love is, so, of course, he doesn’t know what you staring at him for longer than socially acceptable is supposed to mean. And definitely doesn’t know how he’s the last person that you want to see and talk to every night before you fall asleep and the first person you want to see and talk to every morning when you wake up. That is love, or so you thought.
“I don’t know much, but this is it. You can feel it.” He responds, still smiling and still so dreadfully oblivious.
“I don’t understand you. You don’t know this girl at all, but…but you love her, is that right? I don’t think so and I’m not going to stand behind this and let you get hurt.”
“Again,” you add fruitfully.
“Why are you fighting this? You’re my best friend. You should be supportive.”
“And you shouldn’t be a dick.”
And it’s here, at this point that you’ve taken it too far.
“How am I being a dick?”
“I… don’t know. You just are and what you’re doing honestly, really self-destructive.”
“Self-destructive? Whatever, I’m going to ask her out. Talk to me when you want to be a better friend.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.” You say in agreement mainly because you can’t say anything. You’re hurt, yes, but because you can’t gather the courage spit out anything else, you have to stay hurt.
He pushes past you and walks off into the distance, presumably towards home and you’re left there, reeling and rubbed raw in all the wrong ways because then you think to yourself, “Wow, I’m really going to be alone forever.”
--
Now, it’s four years later and you’ve moved on from the beautiful boy who broke your heart that day. He ended up not getting together with the infamous Katherine and you were there to ease his pain.
However, she became something of a “nothing” to him, which relieved you. This was nothing, in the sense that she once was his everything (or so he thought), but now you both act as if she never existed and that she was simply a passing phase in his life.
However, after the Katherine phase and before the phase of your own nothingness in his life, something shifted. Maybe you resented him for never feeling for you in the ways you felt for him. Maybe you finally realized that there was nothing behind him drunken 2 AM texts, beckoning you to trek across campus to fall into bed together. Or maybe, you simply met someone else.
And you did.
However, even so, you still can feel the way that lonely clings to your heartstrings when you climb into bed without your significant other even though you saw them hours before. You can feel the way that lonely spreads through your esophagus after they kiss you goodbye.
While you know it’s just a feeling and feelings are often not based in reality, sometimes, it feels that love dominates the current reality in which we all reside. Celine from the Before Sunrise series says it best when she talks about how contradictory love and reality are. “Why didn’t they ask me to marry them?” She starts. “ I would have said “No,” but at least they could have asked!”
I relate to this a lot because it constantly feels that no one loves me. I mean, I know that people love me, but it feels as if no one would ever love me enough to marry me or have children with me, as if those are the only two denotations of love that exist. Granted, as I previously stated, I really do not want to get married nor do I want to have children, but part of me wishes that someone out there would love me enough to consider wanting that with me.
It’s hard to accept that you may not always be the love of someone’s life. Or moreover, the love of anyone’s life. How many of us have entered relationships thinking that they would suddenly change for us, or, moreover, that we, too, would change as a result?
I don’t think that the boy who “broke my heart” meant to do so. I can’t even recall if we ever really talked about what we were doing in the first place. I mean, even so, we both spoke our truths through in our own ways, but, in the end, neither of us listened enough for it to truly work out.
That doesn’t mean that this won’t be the case for anyone else. I just know now that love won’t conquer all and that’s what’s set me free, at least, for the time being.
