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The first time I fell in love, I was in love with someone 10 states away.
I think. Actually, I’m not sure I even bothered to count. I just knew it was far. We had only spent a few weeks together before he left. Cuddling in the basement of his friend’s house when nobody could see or taking long walks to my house holding hands. My parents thought I was just spending all my free time studying.
I was studying, all right.
When I grabbed his hand, I felt like I knew him. I let my thoughts spiral to the next 15 steps of our relationship. I played them over and over. I assumed he liked things he didn’t seem to like. I filled in all of the question marks of his personality with stuff I’d completely made up in my head.
When he stopped talking to me — When he disappeared, I realized I didn’t know anything about him. But worse, I knew I’d gotten myself in this mess. So I cuddled up with my giant teddy bear, stared at my wall for a while and cried.
Well, guess we’re not getting married then.
Asshole.
. . .
My mind used to escape to the future a lot. By the second date, I had our life plans made. And I couldn’t even enjoy dating people if I wasn’t 156% interested in them. Maybe that’s just my personality, though. I don’t like to do things I can’t commit to fully.
The problem is, I’ve never gone slow enough to actually get to know people. I really didn’t know anyone I’d dated very well. Not just because they were so fucking emotionally damaged (being queer in this world fucks you up, people), but because I was more in love with the idea of who they were.
I projected a lot of what I wanted out of love and relationships and expected other people to fill in that blank. I thought opposites attracted. I thought people would make much more of an effort than they ever actually do. It was naive. That’s fine with me now.
You realize that you’ve lived parts of your life exclusively in your head. Created motivations for people that don’t actually exist. Told yourself stories that aren’t true. Made excuses for people.
But I think it’s necessary too because we all need a good punch in the face from reality. To be told that we, in fact, have to live in the present. We have to actually understand the person who is sitting across from us. Who we share our lives with.
I may never know know exactly who someone is, but I can’t definitely do a better job actually understanding who they are. Allowing the time and the space to see them as a full human being. Not just an attractive person with an acceptable-enough personality.
Like, at this point, I’ve planned enough weddings in my head to last 10 lifetimes. And when the possibility of living that future with someone was taken away, I blamed them. Never myself. Just them.
I really really can’t do that stuff anymore. It just messes with my head.
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This post was previously published on www.medium.com and is republished here with permission from the author.
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