You trip in lust before you fall in love. Sometimes, you stumble in friendship, slip in desire, catch your foot on fondness, endearment, curiosity. It's easy to trip; it's the fall that's hard. It's the fall that robs you of breath, that breaks your heart.
- Fran[Galactic Idiots]
When I was younger, before I crossed through the borders of adulthood, I always thought of love as a simple thing. It looked simple to me. I thought that all you had to do was fall in love with someone, confess your feelings to them and have them love you back. It seemed easy peasy. This delusional thought stayed with me even as I found myself infatuated with someone. This thought stayed because the person liked me back and we confessed our feelings to each other. At first, it was a beautiful thing. There was the anticipation of seeing each other when we could. There was the softness and the warmth only first love could bring. I found myself centering this person in my world, making myself revolve around him. So, when distance came between us and he couldn't deal with it, he chose another person and he left. This felt like my whole world was shattering. At the very young age of fourteen, I was heartbroken. I cried, thinking that of course, the tears would bring him back but it never did. Love was not enough for him to brave the distance.
It took a year for me to get back to myself, albeit a less lively self, a watered down self. I kept my heart under lock and keys, or so I thought, but love; a sneaky thing indeed found it's way into my heart. I met another person and I thought I was wiser. Do not make this person the center of your world, I told myself. But I didn't know when this person became my everything. I couldn't go a day without speaking to this person and I thought it was the same on the person's end. But again, love wasn't enough. I had to leave because I was insecure. I didn't feel respected and I couldn't trust him. I knew he thought that I could never leave him because I loved him too much and so, he took me for granted. This was why I thought to myself, “let me leave before he does. Let me break his heart first.” And in the end, I was the one who hurt myself because he moved on easily.
In coming years, my mind defined love as a damning thing. Something that would only lead to regrets, lost yearning and hurting memories. Consciously, I stopped letting myself like people too much. I stopped sharing pieces of myself to people and I started holding them off at arm’s length. When people tried to get close to me, I found myself scurrying away or doing the most absurd things to get them to leave me alone. Even when I saw stories and proof that love existed in the most beautiful of ways, I thought to myself, “It just isn't beautiful for me.” Not until I met him.
He crept in stealthily and quietly. He broke through the walls and barriers i had built around my heart. And he did it without me noticing. We became friends through the strangest of ways. What started as a simple acquaintanceship became something more. Our interests were mutual. We both loved cartoons and animations, and writing and books and art. He was effortlessly handsome. He had the kind of face that would invade your thoughts for days. Conversation was easy. There was no forcefulness, no hint at anything more. Just two people enjoying the company of each other. He created the art of sharing Insta reels as a form of expression. There were inside jokes and the comfort he brought when i was around him. And absurdly, he became my best friend. I started letting my guard down subconsciously. I became free and open and life became wonderful once again. He made me think love could look beautiful again.
Through the deepest of conversations, I realized that love had hurt him too. The way it looked, it seemed he had closed his mind and heart off to the idea or concept of love. This bonded us more because we knew we wouldn't expect more from each other than easy friendship. But, I was naive to think things would always remain that way because I fell in love with him; romantically. I tried to lie to myself that it was platonic. I tried to convince myself that it was but it was futile. I started wishing desperately, for him to love me back the way I did. But what's mere wishing without action? So, I mustered all the courage in me and told him how I felt, hoping that my feelings would be requited but at last, he only loved me platonically, as his friend. The funny thing is I didn't feel rejected. I wasn't sad that it wasn't the same on his end. I was just as happy to keep being friends with him. And so, I shoved the feelings deep down to a place where I forgot they existed and life continued.
Time flew by. I got myself into flings just to satiate the loneliness I sometimes felt. I never committed myself fully or wholly to anyone. I was satisfied with the bare minimum I gave to others and receiving it back. I thought my feelings for my friend no longer existed not until that evening when he told me he liked me. And my feelings bubbled back up, almost choking me because they had been repressed for too long. I was giddy with happiness. It felt wholesome knowing that my feelings had finally been acknowledged and requited. Of course, there was the uncertainty of what this meant for our friendship, if we were willing to risk it to enter a relationship. I was ready. I felt that since we were friends, relationship would be easy for us because we knew and understood each other. So, I waited.
I waited for him to take the next step. I waited for him to ask me out. I tried to prompt him into doing it by sending epistles asking him what he meant by liking me. This time around, I couldn't muster up the courage to ask him out because I knew this time around that i wouldn't be able to handle the rejection. I knew the rejection would break my heart. We started sharing kisses and long hugs and I foolishly started assuming we were in a relationship. The assumption took root in my mind without any warning. Though, when people asked if we were dating, my mind would ring out yes, while my mouth said no. I started putting expectations on him, the kind I was supposed to put on a lover or boyfriend and he didn't fit those expectations. This was the beginning of the hurt and the drifting apart. I wrote him letters explaining how I felt about everything, how i was hurting. I sent some, and i couldn't send the others because if I did, the rift between us would become larger. My friend never really acknowledged this letters.
The hardest part of everything wasn't him not acknowledging the letters. The hardest part was that he didn't acknowledge my feelings. The hardest part was that I couldn't gauge how he truly felt about me or how much I meant to him. I didn't know if he thought about me the way i did him. Even if he liked me, he clearly didn't like me enough to risk entering a relationship with me. Even if he loved me, it would always remain platonic. He was comfortable staying on the edges and fringes without fully stepping in. And he had me on a leash I couldn't untie. I didn't want to like or love anyone else. Even when I tried liking someone else, I found myself looking for him in them. I wanted them to be him. I tried getting over him, but how do you get over someone who's already a daily part of your life? How do you get over someone who makes life easy, simple, wonderful? How do you get over someone who is almost Mr Right? How do you move on from a situation like mine? These are questions I desperately need answers to.