Love Is a Confusing Game

I'm female, I'm 25 and I'm lost. Lost in the big wide world of love. I'm single, I'm loyal, and I just want to be loved one day ..

So let's start at the beginning, the beginning of the beginning. I thought once I was in love but now I'm thinking was is just my young age, was I naive and did I confuse lust with love?

When I was 18 I met a guy a few years older than me on a night out with a few of my friends, he brought me a drink and we really got along. We parted ways exchanging numbers, I didn't think he'd text me but he did within hours. The conversation was flowing and we decided to meet, of course I was extremely nervous. I waited at mine for him to pick me up, I didn't wait long as I heard his car pull up outside (this made me have butterflies). I had forgotten I had leant my phone to my mum so I went heading upstairs to grab it as I heard the text tone go off (my heart hit my mouth) my mum being the brassy, crazy lady she is roasted out with the loudest laugh.. as she read the text out loud. I was mortified, embarrassed but also very confused. Then I heard the dreaded words come from my mother's lips, "Hurry up you rugmuncher." I felt my face instantly flash red I grabbed my phone and ran from the house to the car, still hearing my mother's laugh as it blared out the house and around the estate.

Mine and Adam's first date went well, many more followed, I knew I liked him after just a few weeks. He asked me out and I was so happy! I mean finally I had found someone who actually liked me for who I was! A few years passed and it was all the happiest time, we got along, we always had a laugh, we both liked doing the same thing, I was in love! But was I?

When Adam and I broke up, I shut down, I just didn't understand why he would be so cruel. I shut myself away. I starved my body, punishing myself, I convinced myself that there was something wrong with me. I dropped from a size 12 to a size six within weeks, my family was concerned about my welfare. It took time but I eventually came round, I started living my life again. That's when I questioned was it love or lust?

I've stayed single ever since, I've been asked out once or twice but I've declined. I've not felt ready to open up my feelings to another person. You hear stories of men and women meeting at a young age and growing old. You hear of tales of your friends, grandparents, and parents love for each other. That's all anyone wants, to feel loved but we take for granted what love is? It's an easy four letter word but often is confused with lust, another easy four letter word. Infatuation, a word that's not regularly used. Obsessed, a word that's used more and more everyday. It's been four years of being single, I've started my new life alone heading in blind as an independent young woman. I watch my friends having relationships and having children, yet I am alone. Some nights I feel lonely, others I'm thankful for the peace.

I've learnt over the past four years that before you love another you have to find and love yourself. Maybe it was lust with Adam, maybe I will never know. Society today has given the younger generation an awkward love, With Tinder and POF, with eHarmony and speed dating you judge someone on their photos, on their short description of themselves, on their hair colour, height, and weight. Instead of talking to another human at a bar or in the street. We all dream of the movie love, the sweet talking gentleman, the shy blushing lady. Today we get wolf whistled, we get swiped right, we get a Facebook poke. What is love today?

Love is what we all search for, love is shown from the moment we are conceived, to the moment our parents hold us for the first time. Love is what brought us into this world, but love is hard to find. Love is a puzzle of emotions and communication, a whirlwind of rushing blood, a tsunami of theories. Love or lust.. is overrated, overused, and underestimated.

Nobody dreams of the single life.