A Letter to My Future Lover

Dear future lover,

I hope you passionately enjoy something insanely foul, the same way I enjoy milk with ice and Oreos with cheese and orange juice. Maybe something like wasabi in your ice cream. I hope no day goes by where I don't tell you how much I hate your opinions, and I hope each day you remind me I have no room to speak because I'm a chocolate, cheese, and orange juice enjoyer.

More importantly, I hope we can laugh it off. I hope that we have so many differences that we are constantly challenging each other. I hope you are more intelligent than me in some areas, just as I'm more intelligent than you in others. I hope neither of us feel threatened by each other's accomplishments, rather we feel encouraged instead. We feel proud to have someone who does better than us.

I hope that you find joy in embarrassing yourself in public. I hope we can go to the mall in matching onesies and laugh with the people giving us weird looks. I hope that we can be our own separate people with our own lives; I hope we complement each other instead of completing each other. I want to be able to live without you, but I don't ever want to feel the need to.

I want you to know that on my bad days, being present is enough. You don't need to always have the right words to say, because I promise you that no amount of your support can drag me out of a BPD episode. And I feel like that's okay. It's not your job to fix my problems; it's your job to be present with me through them. That's all I ask. Though, being able to provide helpful verbal support would be nice.

I know I've given so many of my expectations, but here is what I promise to you. I will try my best to communicate any problem in a way that isn't me attacking you, more of in the way that it's us attacking the issue together. I will always make sure I'm treating you like a priority, and if I'm not, I hope you feel safe enough to let me know. I want you to feel like you can tell me anything on your mind, and I will listen without judgement.

I promise I will always find reasons to make fun of you, just as I promise I will always find reasons to remind you of your worth. I will do little things to support you throughout the day, maybe through writing you small notes of encouragement daily, making sure you eat, or taking you on surprise dates (and paying). As much as I tease you, I will do everything I can to make you feel important.

Please, for the love of God, be weird. Have a niche hobby or interest that you could rant about for hours. I will try my best to listen t0 you talk about it as much as I can, but when I have bad days, my irritability increases, and I hope you can understand that. I hope in return you allow me to talk about philosophy, and you'll let me tell you over and over again how much I adore Diogenes.

I want to let you know about my flaws. I get insanely attached to people, insanely fast. I have a hard time expressing my feelings out of the fear of being a burden. I can become dependent if proper boundaries are not set. I need you to let me know when you're going to be busy before you leave. I won't ever stop you from living your own life, but I would like to know when you won't have time to text so that I don't have to worry.

Lastly, I want you to know that while I'm open to finding you, I will not spend my life waiting for you. I'm not going to lie in wait; I'm going to become the best version of myself, and if/when you come along the way, I will hopefully be ready for you to enter my life. Not as someone I have to depend on to be better, but someone who I can be better with.