Star-Crossed Lovers: Do they actually exist?

We’ve all heard the phrase ‘star-crossed lovers’ before. Most of us probably first heard it during our high school English class when we were studying Romeo and Juliet. But, star-crossed lovers have always existed and you may have even had a crush of been in relationship in which you’ve felt a love so powerful but unfortunately external factors like distance you from one another, work or time constraints have gotten in the way from you pursuing that love or that relationship to its fullest. It’s like being forced to break your own heart over and over again because of whatever married is in your way.

I’m sure there are some of you that don’t believe in the concept of a romance being doomed from the get go, and that’s completely valid. I didn’t believe in it either, until I experienced it first hand and couldn’t stop thinking about it. Maybe you’ve experienced it first hand as well but brushed it off or labeled it as something else. Maybe you haven't and this is all new territory for you. Either way, you're in for a wild ride.

My first experience of being in a star crossed love was in primary school. I was about nine and there was a boy in my class, let’s call him Liam, who I had a pretty big crush on. And luckily for me, he had a crush on me too. I remember him asking for my number and talking to my mother on the landline before she passed the phone over to me and we talked about our favourite Harry Potter books for hours. I remember him asking me to the school disco and I remember me saying yes to him without a moment of pause. But our romance was cut short, as his mum worked at the school as a teacher and she didn’t like me very much. She showed her dislike for me whenever she was on duty at lunch break and saw me dashing in and out of the school toilets quite frequently. I always got in trouble as she thought I was playing an inappropriate game, when really I was forcing myself to vomit my lunch out, because of the names I’d been called for having a cross eye. Looking back, that was probably when my eating disorder started. Liam’s Mum told Liam to stop having a crush on me and he listened. After all, he’d always been Mummy’s favourite.

My second and third experience of being in a star crossed love were in high school. The first one was with a boy in my drama class and the second one was with a boy in my English class. Although they both admitted that they liked me, both of them were too shy to publicly be seen with me in an affectionate way. Instead, we’d message until the late hours of the evening or we’d make sure that we were put in the same group in class activities, so that we could ‘be together’ in secret. But needless to say, none of these strategies worked out. One of them actually also had dominant ‘Mother’ issues.

My fourth and fifth experience were quite recent, although I admittedly call anything in the past five years recent, so maybe it’s not as recent as you think. One was a boy, let’s call him Nigel, who played the bass and had the most beautiful brown eyes. He really made my heart dance but our hearts had different vibrations and one of us decided to stop falling and the other was left to fall alone, which was a bit of a dick move on his part.

My fifth experience was with a boy and we will call him Leo. I hadn’t known Leo for very long and Leo hadn’t known me for very long, but when we first met, it was like we’d known each other our whole lives. As he pointed out what he thought looked like a shooting star in the sky, it felt like we were destined to meet. And when his arms and body wrapped around mine, I experienced a cacophony of happiness. But Leo lived very far away and we both knew that logistically it wouldn’t work out. We watched both of our hearts break and our smiles melt as we kissed each other goodbye and we went our seperate ways. And whenever I think of this particular memory, I still feel immense pain.

It was these experiences combined that made me believe in this fantastical notion of star-crossed lovers as there’s nothing worse than not being able to commit to the one your heart longs for due to whatever barrier that’s impossible to remove. But that’s never stopped my heart or brain from trying.