The Epidemic of Love

The hurt… it breaks you.

Would I be hurting my loved ones, who might come across this post? Maybe.

The Prologue

It is an emotion that grows over time, with the right people.

We are beings capable of giving love and showing affection. But in this day and age where everything and everyone is an option, are we capable of feeling what real love means like?

Love isn’t rare.

Believing that it is real when it is given to you is where things get complicated.

Where it began

Growing up with emotionally unavailable parents, I never knew what it felt like to be loved. Looking back, it is the affection which others have shown me that has stayed with me, after all these years.

Growing up in a strict and economically bound family, I never knew what it felt like to get something unless it was gained by force or if it became a necessity. Did I lead a mechanical childhood?

As an introverted kid, I liked to shut myself up. Selfishness became the better of me.

No money for school picnics slowly turned into becoming the predictable loner who never came for trips. I was always uncertain of the value that I held within the school, a makeshift friend circle and society.

Eventually, everything became a transaction.

If I were to spend time with friends, it would be a tradeoff between my marks and time to study. I willingly shut myself up.

The current dynamics

Eventually came a point in my life where I was externally looking for love, some affirmation, some affection elsewhere.

Was it a move to trade the loneliness that had set in my life? Maybe.

Things that others willingly or unwillingly started doing for me, right from small acts of kindness and being included, felt so good.

Things that others were so accustomed to, so early in their life.

Something that was so normalized in others' lives became a canon event in mine.

It made my day even if someone included me in a tea break during office hours.

I felt seen.

It is unreal to think how people can go for so long without love, and finally when someone shows you a bit of attention and interest, you get hooked and start craving it.

The pattern

It is a pattern that I have seen.

From comments on self help posts, and threads where people pour their heart out for some affirmation, I made myself seen.

Just so I could talk and have some light in my otherwise dull life.

Faking it

Eventually, people reached out. I have a detached style of texting, and I have faked my way through conversations.

Long chats followed, and the longing that you feel long after the chat has ended for the day had me re reading them through the night. I wanted myself to look good, be available to people when I had no reason to, all for my own gain.

I eventually realized something that I never knew. I was clingy.

At the same time, conceited me can bury a chat without showing the slightest attention if it has ended for the day. I have had people return to me like that. Do I possess a charm?

I yearn for love. I can forget people easily when they do not remember to check up on me, and I would be unbothered until they come back into my life with a ping on my screen when I least expect it, like nothing has happened. 

Why is this a cycle?

Making Peace

I realized that I can suppress my thoughts and emotions for the sake of relationships, so that I can have something to keep up with, not something to hold on to. I have been accustomed to being alone, and can adapt to situations when someone comes to me for support, but at the end of the day I am left stranded with the fact that there is no one going to do that for me.

Relationship Dynamics

I can quickly move on and not feel a thing if my partner stops texting one fine day, or holds the silence for a week. I just assume that what's supposed to happen has happened, and move on with my life

I don't know how it feels to be loved, to be given affection, to be given affirmation or a hug when I need it the most

I will never know how it feels to be recieved by a warm hug after a day at work, unless something becomes real and that I get convinced that it is so

Receiving love is scary, especially when you’ve learnt how to navigate through things alone, and been hurt before.

Love seems far away, my words feel fake and forced, hoping for a chnage / affirmation that my presence helped somebody

I'm fitting in, so that I get to experience something - some semblence of a relationship, companionship etc

It's all a facade

Reflections

I lay somewhere in the middle.

Life happened.

It feels like I matured too early and no one stopped me from taking things seriously.

I was the one who put effort into things, but now I feel that I could have afforded to slack off and still achieved the same things.

The best time to explore dating went unexplored. By my own limitations, or more importantly, me holding myself back.

I am holding on to what I have today.

A limited circle, my comfort zone and some semblance of a relationship.

I found love, but at what cost.

I look at what is coming ahead and regret that I did not board the boat when I had the chance.

The Baseline

The baseline is this. It takes a whole lot of time to believe that the love and attention that I get is real. Until then, it does not feel real. It feels like I am wasting my time giving others what they need. Everything feels like a transaction, everything feels like it is done to facilitate something beneficial, and I refuse to believe that things can just be real.

On some days when things really get heavy, I ask my partner if I am good enough for her, and if I am good to her. Irrespective of the number of times she affirms me, I never find it convincing enough. I feel like I can be replaced. An insecurity of being dropped like a hot potato is overwhelming.

It is probably the aftereffects of relationship stories that I read that make me feel this way. I understand that it is me being paranoid about something that does not feel real until I experience it in real.

But until I held her hand, I felt like I was breaking inside. I longed for a touch that felt mine to savour. I want something that happens in real, every day, something I get to experience. Calls and texts do not convince me enough to feel that I love her.