Friday, November 14, 2008

18 - When someone doesn't love you the same way

As you've probably guessed, this is a serious one for a change. It's not a stupid, senseless and mindless habit this time. It's about something deep, something emotional and something astonishingly common. I've had a good seventeen years to find people to love, care for and share with. More than half the time, I've had feelings for them, feelings that I'll just group together into what we know as crushes. When someone does not love you the same way, it means they don't have a crush on you at the time you have a crush on them.

When you think about your own love, the pain and torment of said love originates from the internal struggle, and the ever-lasting wonderment about whether or not the other person likes you back. A whole list of other things can drive you to shed doubtful tears. You may think you don't deserve such a great person as him/her, or you may notice that he/she has some flaws you might not be able to oversee, or you may have external pressures from your family and your peers, or you may be afraid of a little competition, or you may be much accustomed to acting stoic, causing you to think about how you're ever going to change your personality, but the universal thing that makes us most worried about confessing your love is the fear of not getting what you wished for, and the overwhelming heartbreak that comes with rejection.

And then there is the horrible case in which you are already in a relationship, but you have lost your initial spark, and your companion just does not love you the same way as he/she used to in the good ol' days, and it hurts when there is no possible way to rekindle old, passionate flames. Whether or not you're in a relationship, you may give a huge multitude of things: care, effort, time, advice, patience, trust, consistency in character, shoulders for crying on, ears for listening, hands for holding, understanding, respect, etc... You may give all these things, but in the end, it comes down to whether or not they love you the same way - if they have the same feelings you do, and it is a pity when they don't.

I speak of this from experience and having heard many a sad story, I know of this from my friends and my family, my parents in particular as they are divorced and do not love each other in the old respect they did seventeen years ago. Sigh, I am only a seventeen-year-old student, yet life appears so much older, less colorful and more unattractive when I go from class to class. The classrooms reek of sadness thanks to loneliness and the absence of a mutual love, despite the childlike excitement and desire at school, the sparkles in our eyes we get from learning, the work that we do that distracts us from our troubles, the smiles on our faces we use as shields to hide the thoughts that lie deeper within our head.

But, really, who hasn't been rejected? Who has ever been able to escape the love spell, in other words, the curse of affection that consumes the minds of each and every person in my life (especially the important ones)? Why is it that we all want to be loved in the way we love others? What is it that makes us wish the stranger was our friend, wish the friend was our lover? How can my idea of love be different from yours if love is meant to be pure, independent and ever-lasting? Why is love seemingly unfair? Why love at all? Why bother?

This problem occurs a lot.
Do you hate it too?

3 comments:

Douglas said...

I cannot count the times my heart has been broken beyond all repair (yet somehow recovered). Nor would I want to. Each has a special place in my patched up heart, each is a part of me.

J.J. in L.A. said...

Your 3rd paragraph hit home. It's something I'm dealing with right now. It's hard when you care for the person but you know you want "more" at some point.

yolanda said...

oh. michael. that is a really beautiful post.

i love talking and reading about love.

can i share some wisdom with you? (wisdom gleaned from 27 years and a lot of relationships!)

go for it. ask the person to go for a coffee/walk/drink with you. its the not knowing where you stand with someone that kills us, not the rejection. and the longer the not knowing goes on for, the worse it becomes!

when we dont tell someone what we're feeling, we end up getting a little obsessed! and we can lose touch with reality, and start imagining that this person is something that theyre not.

the way to do it is one step at a time. if youre attracted to someone, see if the attraction is reciprocated. then figure out if you like them :-)

doing it that way means that its not such a big deal if theyre not interested. you havent invested a huge amount of time and energy into thinking about them!

and, believe me, every time you take the plunge and ask someone out on a date, you will feel yourself getting stronger and stronger. regardless of whether they say yes or no. facing fears is amazing!

keep up the writing ... and the loving :-)

yola x