I had a few female friends from kindergarten, like Lena, a bubbly little girl that loves plush monkeys and invited me a few times to her birthday parties. She also announced to her family and me that "one day, we will marry!"
Oh, dear Lena 😊...if only things could be so easy in reality.
Years later, we connected through Facebook and she remembered that she once wanted to marry me or how we had played house together. Unfortunately, since we were both older, that lightness and easiness of being kids was missing and things that wouldn't bother you so much as a kid would be a problem.
I would have liked to met her, if even just for nostalgias sake. But she left me on read many times and when I was voicing my frustration about that, she was gone.
Why do I think of this? Well, because I was wondering why I always seem to have wanted to be with or near girls, not just other boys. I had male friends of course and we played Legos or guns or videogames and other stuff boys play. But as my mom and grandmother had taught me, "girls are more mature than boys".
Well, in some way, they were. Although I think that quickly changed around our teenage years. Both genders then behaved more and more erratic.
Despite my efforts to get to know a girl and to "go with her", it somehow never happened. During the first 10 years of my life, I guess it was simply that such young kids wouldn't have the slightest clue what we would actually want to do together.
And after that, I was apparently too unattractive for the girls, since none of them ever replied to any of my letters, inviting them to see a movie.
But throughout it all and despite the many rejections, I kept pursuing them, because I wanted to feel that feeling you couldn't feel with boys:
That feeling to be smitten, to be happy, to be high on love and admiration for someone.
I was already 20 when I finally had my first kiss (and first time), but unlike my rather romantic dreams and fantasies of it, it was rather disappointing and definitely with the wrong girl.
In hindsight, I think I only truly had that deep feeling for my last girlfriend, for my girlfriend M in 2012 and for my second girlfriend D in 2006.
It is quite strange, because if I'd compare them, they are all quite different. And I lately wonder what it was that made me fall in love with them. Or if that even was love?
But what is love? Is love a feeling we feel for a person we like a lot and who often is very much like us? Not necessarily. My last girlfriend and D were not so much like me in ways of interests or thinking. Despite that (or because of it?), we had happy times, especially with my last girlfriend. With D, there was also a lot of drama and instability. Although that later also happened with my last girlfriend.
With M, I actually had a lot in common and our thoughts didn't seem so different either. But unlike with my last girlfriend L and D before, I didn't feel nervous when I met M.
I guess one thing they all had in common is that they seemed to genuinely care about me (at first) and that they gave me seemingly genuine attention and effort. I think this made me feel like I can trust them and I opened up emotionally and mentally.
Maybe it's that feeling of being truly vulnerable to another human being that we can define as love? To be so happy to be around or with someone, so proud and full of joy that we accept them with all their pros and cons and trust them with our happiness, in a sense? Not in the way that we say "here, from now on you must make me happy", but "here, I give you my full trust. If you give me yours in return, we can double our personal happiness by sharing it!"
Unfortunately, it seems that neither D, M nor L ever truly loved me and felt this way. Nor did the other women I dated that I thought I loved, but somehow didn't feel quite as much for as I did with those 3. Which is also something I don't understand.
Love isn't just a feeling we have because we are lonely. Or because someone is smart, pretty or sexy. That's all too superficial and shallow, although it can be a small part of it.
But I think that feeling of love is more about this ability to put ourselves second sometimes voluntarily and to be patient. And to never give up on that other person, because we understand and learned that while we can end things and try again, we will always sooner or later come to a crossroads, to our fight or flight moment.
I saw what happened to some of them. They left me to find happiness in other ways, but now either seem lonelier, sadder or - at best - stuck in the same position where they were when they left me.
Not that I fare any better, but I didn't leave them and didn't really understand why they did.
Didn't they feel that feeling? How can this feeling be so strong and all consuming for me, but not for them? I guess logically, they either never felt this exact feeling I felt or they were too afraid to truly be vulnerable and open?
It can truly hurt us a lot and I have been feeling numb and empty for quite some time now, because I no longer have someone to share that feeling with, to feel it for. I want to love and be loved, but it seems as if I am doing something wrong or I just don't understand or learn what the lesson is that comes with this feeling.
I guess neither did they though? If we all met because our love for someone else didn't work, aren't we all losers at love, no matter how long we may have had a relationship with someone? If it ended, isn't it still a failure? Isn't it still a sign we may have to change something?
I don't know if they have to change, I have to change or both of us have to change. But I would be happy to do it if it gave me a chance to feel that feeling again in a healthy way. I am just not sure anymore how. Can I still feel it, after all those disappointments? Am I just incapable of learning?
Because I feel IF both sides truly embrace it and have to courage to feel it and to hold on to it, this feeling is the purpose and source to happiness in our lives!
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