I'm a hopeless romantic. A firm believer in love as portrayed in fairy tales- the "happily ever after" kind. However, I am also a skeptic. A doubting Thomas where it comes to love declarations and what not.
It takes a lot of proof for me to believe a boy's declaration of love or even the fact that his kind gestures are pure. They call that trust issues.
And perhaps I do have trust issues but it is not baseless as all my life, I've been close to boys and I've seen them deceive girls on purpose; to get validation from friends or to simply get pleasure.
The other day, a boy told me "I love you so much. You know I do. No one can love you the way I do". And indeed, I knew there was truth in his declaration of love for me.
However, now that I think of it, I was wrong to have validated the truth in his statement.
As true as it is that he loves me, the fact that no one can love me the way he does is as uncertain as the expiry date of his love for me.
You see, everyone talks from the standpoint of his or her experience. I have never trusted boys and their love. But I trusted this boy's own. For the mere reason that we have been friends for years now and all he ever does is push me towards achieving my goals, towards becoming better.
In reality, his creation of value in my life gave me proof of his love. However, his assertion that no one can love me the way he does gives off an air of pride in himself and even a demeaning image of other boys who claim to love me.
A realization if the import of the second part of his statement made me feel undervalued as though I could not be loved as deep as that except by him and he could decide to retract his love and leave me with shallow love.
This realization made him lose my trust. And I have thus resumed my lack of trust on boys.
Boys are like that. You think they love you and yet they may just be playing with you. Then you believe one who loves you and all he wants to do is put you in bondage of allegiance only to him, making himself the only one capable of loving you as deep as he portrays.
I am still a hopeless romantic. But I now doubt 'happily ever afters'. Boys made me so. Perhaps I will try a man.
- Chizaram Opara