I’ve been sitting trying to think what to blog about when I started to read some of my old diary, journal and blog entries. These things date back all the way to high school, so it covers about ten years’ worth of entries. What struck me was how my attitude towards love (specifically romantic love) had changed since then. In high school it was all hormones and angst. I’m not even quite sure if I was looking for something specific in a guy back then… all I remember was if he was cute and vaguely interesting, a crush was sure to develop. Looking back in hindsight, I realise that wasn’t love at all, just a desire to want and be wanted. It was painfully crushing and overwhelmingly intense at times, but it was mostly still a superficial desire.
Although that desire remained constant for several years, it changed into something different, something a little more muted and calm. Although I should add it was only muted and calm in between relationships; it could flare up pretty quickly when an interest in someone developed. Somewhere along the line came the realisation that what I want and what I think I’m supposed to want are two vastly different things. I also managed, eventually, to tell the difference between what kind of guy would make me feel happy as opposed to what kind of guy would make me look good to the world. It caused quite a big shift in my perception, and as odd as it sounds, it felt wonderfully liberating to be able to find someone attractive and not expect myself to want more than just to appreciate their beauty. Prior to this I had always thought that if I found someone attractive then of course I must want to be in a relationship with that person. Luckily I was wrong.
With that shift in perception came a somewhat grey area, something I’m still struggling with: I often struggle to tell the difference between a real romantic attraction and a platonic attraction to a physically attractive friend. I think in order to completely be able to tell the difference between the two I still need to get know myself a little better. Sometimes when you want something and you get it then you realise it isn’t exactly what you wanted, no matter how well it fits into your life plan (and then you usually begin to see the little flaws in your plan). Of course other times you get something you didn’t want and then realise it’s actually what you needed desperately; then looms the danger of rushing into it.
At the end of the day, I don’t think there are any rules surrounding love. Love isn’t a game, it isn’t physics, but it adheres to certain fundamentals, one of which I believe to be unconditionality. If you love something with conditions attached to it, then it’s not really love at all, is it? But if the world in all its infinite possibilities place every obstacle and ego-bruising disillusionment in your path and you find yourself still with that calm, unmoving feeling… then that’s probably real love.
Still, there is a strange fondness and fuzziness I feel for previous attractions, no matter how awful some of them turned out and no matter how sure I am that it wasn’t real love. Perhaps it’s just a residual emotional memory of the event, or an ever-lingering gratitude for times that brought a measure of happiness and joy into my life. Even if it’s ending resulted in angst-ridden Sundays spent at home watching Felicity and listening to Sarah McLachlan.
At the moment, I feel somewhat in the eye of the emotional storm, able to look behind me at what brought me to this point and able to speculate at what will happen when the next love comes around. With this knowledge, I find I’m able to weather these emotional waters much better. Though I still fall overboard sometimes, I don’t jump in headfirst anymore in order to drown myself for the sake of someone else’s attention anymore. I know now that to love someone doesn’t come with an expectation for them to love you back. I love them because I want to love them. If it’s meant to be something more, the feeling will be mirrored naturally.
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