On Love

April 27th, 2022

Love

[1] Love – it encompasses so many aspects of our lives. It has so many different meanings, so many variations of the same thing. There is a version of the word in all languages around the world. In the Greek language, there are 8 separate terms for this one English word and they all mean different things. Philia is the word for a deep friendship, almost even like a term for soulmates. Storge is generally thought of as the love towards one's family — of a parents' love for their child and vice versa. Agape a unconditional love what I gave my first love, a love without condition... Mania is ‘obsessive love’, a type of love that can lead someone to anger or jealousy. There are more, but mania is one that I can only use to describe how my first ‘love’ was.

[2] I had met my first love at fifteen. Foolish, I know, time has wizened me to allow me to realize this. It was a love agape, I had cared so deeply for my partner that it blinded me to who they were truly, I was in love with who I thought they were. It was not meant to be any sort of true love, I had simply been blinded by my own desire to see it that way. Too enamored to realize how many faults tore this person's real self — faults that I could not just fill with the cement of tender loving care. Faults that left would rot away, and turn sickly if covered up. I could not save them nor could my love for them.

[3] I met them a few times over a year's span, in brief glances from a car window and awkward almost forced waves. Internally, alarm bells had rung off bright in my mind — my downfall would be not listening to trusting my first assessment of them. We met through a friend, my friend, who had just moved cities and ended up moving in with the person who decided to hold my hand. I would drive with my mother for an hour to pick up my only close friend. We would pull up to the driveway, my friend would come out and the then stranger would follow behind to see him off. They would always seem… off. Like they didn't want my friend to leave. This was the first of red flags I ignored.

[4] It's funny — how feelings can change so drastically over time. Seeing my future ex stare longingly after my best friend. I didn't think anything of it — not aloud. I didn't want to admit it, but I still had a crush on my best friend. For the longest time I'd kept that inside, despite how much it hurt. I'd told him about my feelings a few months before I'd ever met the person that broke my heart. Our relationship was still fragile, so I couldn't raise my concerns about my future paramour. I didn't want to believe it myself either. So I ignored how weird it was that these two were so close to each other, when they'd really just met and hardly knew each other!

[5] After a few months of dancing around each other, I finally started talking to Kay. It started over text, with them demanding to know when my friend would be home. They'd messaged me over Facebook, my friend had apparently given them my username so we could talk about the plans for taking him home. It was weird, and they took forever to respond. Messages generally took forever before we started dating.

[6] I don't really know how it started just that it happened. We were playfully flirting over text, completely platonically, and then my friend messaged me.

[7] "Hey dude, do you like Kay?"

[8] I was… surprised to say the least. Sure, I liked them, but this was someone I'd once had feelings and may still have had feelings for asking this. Feeling mildly uncomfortable I texted back.

[9] "Lol, yeah why?"

[10] My best friends reply, "you should totally ask them out!!"

[11] So… I asked them out. They said yes, as you'd expect. We dated. We dated for about two months. Somehow, we never really talked. We'd say our 'I love you's, greet each other in the morning, call each other cute and trade pictures… sort of. I never noticed at the time, but looking back it was normally them sending me pictures. Sometimes they'd ask for pictures of me, but I think they just really wanted attention. Wanted me to call them cute, among other things. I think they loved me, but not in a romantic way.

[12] I might be lying to myself, saying they loved me when really I probably could've been replaced by anyone else. I was, at times. I remember being texted one day, they were freaking out. One of their friends randomly kissed them, I guess. I never found out all the details, I just calmed them down and told them it was alright. Maybe they were lying, maybe they made the whole thing up. That was our relationship — good one second, me calming them down the next. One sided.

[13] I broke up with my ex partner twice. They took too much from my mental stability. I had to fix them all the time, I never could work on myself. It hurt, but I had to do it. The second time was much easier. I honestly don't remember much of our second try. It passed by in a flash and they were in a mental hospital for most of it. They didn't change. If anything they were worse, and I just hadn't realized it in time to say anything.

[14] I think the worst part of our relationship was when we weren't even in one. Once it was all over, my friend finally told me what they'd done. I don't know when any of it happened, I don't know if we were dating or broken up. I do know that my suspicions in the beginning were dead on. They liked my friend. They loved him. In a way I don't think they could ever and had ever cared about me. It hurt more than I thought. All along, I was second to my friend. I knew it, deep, deep down I knew it. I never wanted to believe it. It was truly like some TV drama. So much had happened in such a short period of time with them.

[15] It's hard to know who you're getting involved with. You can know someone for a lifetime and never know their true intentions. Matters of the heart should never be treated lightly, sometimes you may never recover. Be careful with who you keep close. Love is precious, something you need to protect and nurture. Love is a powerful thing but never let it blind you to the truth.