True Love is a Pain in the Ass

Sometimes love is like the fire swamp.

I dated a lot of people in my teens and young adulthood, but I didn’t get seriously attached to many of them. I said, “I love you.” I thought I meant it.

Looking back, I can see I didn’t give much of myself. I delved into who they were, what they loved, and what insecurities of theirs I could shore up. My mom once said of a particularly angsty but sweet guy friend of mine,

“Maybe you can fix him next.”

I scowled and stomped off because I didn’t like my mom commenting on my dating life, because I was sixteen…and because it was true. I gravitated to boys who needed a pep talk. (Takes one to know one, Mom. You were quite the fixer yourself.)

I’d take an interest in their fledgling guitar hobby, listen to their obscure 70’s punk music, go to Rennaissance Fest with them and tell them the super-special scrambled eggs they made me were inventive and delicious. (Of course they were good; they were two parts cheese to one part egg.)

Then, something would happen somewhere between three months and two years down the road. I would get this vague sense of dissatisfaction, of antsyness, and I would leave.

I always made up reasons.

He was too clingy, too irresponsible, too immature. As I got older, I thought I’d just keep dating this way until I found the one, the guy who fit me perfectly. But that’s hard to do when you don’t show your edges; there’s nothing to fit against. It’s like trying to assemble a puzzle with half jigsaw pieces and half silly putty. (I’m the silly putty in this situation.)

Here's a bit on my messiest, most dysfunctional relationship.

Why did they like me so much?

Why were they so surprised when I broke up with them? I could be, especially toward the end, apathetic, avoidant, and in at least one case, downright mean. There were boys who cried over the phone post-breakup, much to my surprise. By all rights, they should’ve been glad to be rid of me. I never felt what we had was particularly special.

I could message some of them and ask, but that would be super weird.

Here’s my theory: I was the perfect girlfriend — a role I played with gusto for a while. I was interested in all of their shit and told them they were great. They were so enamored with being seen, they didn’t notice they couldn’t see me. I was hiding behind a facade: super-cool girl who loves them and doesn’t need anything in return. To be fair to them, I didn’t notice I was playing a part, either; I did it automatically, like breathing. Ironically, I’ve never been a very good actor, but I did this so well, I convinced even myself. We were all so young and stupid.

It was safe that way.

I was in charge. I didn’t have to put my soft parts out there and risk being rejected. And, as soon as whichever relationship I was in started to feel like a burden, I quit it. That’s not really love (she says with the benefit of 25 years of hindsight.) Evidence of my cynicism here.

Really loving someone romantically is fucking terrifying.

Showing someone who you are under your surface sets you up to be left. Now that I am no longer occupied proving I’m cool as shit, the things that might put people off are visible:

1. I don’t like sports as much as I pretended to in my 20s.

2. I am super forgetful (but fairly adept at faking remembering — actually that’s a lie. My family is laughing right now. I am a terrible liar.)

3. My weekly moods mimic a rollercoaster. in hell. where gravity gets suspended then reintestated at random intervals.

4. I can be self-involved. Or overly empathetic. There is no middle ground.

5. I tend to forget anniversaries.

6. I am bad at picking up on subtle social cues.

7. “Sad for no reason” is just an average Tuesday.

I now have a relationship in which I can let it all hang out and my partner can too. As scary as it is, it’s the only way. But love is still as much a burden as it is a joy.

Seriously, how many times have you heard 1 Corinthians at a wedding ceremony?

Love is not always patient and kind.

I’m not talking about the fleeting hormone-fueled passion in a Romeo and Juliet story — the one that burns so brightly, you have to kill the characters off. No one wants to see two years down the road when Romeo is pissed because Juliet forgot his birthday again, and Juliet is stewing because she cannot stand the way he picks his teeth at the dinner table. It’s easy to be passionately in love when you die in Act V.

But when you love someone, when you make a years-long life with them AND let all your inconvenient emotional baggage hang out AND connect with your partner’s baggage, it’s hard.

“There is no contradiction between loving someone and feeling burdened by that person. Indeed, love tends to magnify the burden.”

~ Andrew Solomon, Far From the Tree

In a longterm relationship, you will sometimes wish you were in Vegas instead of with your partner at their mother’s best-friend’s funeral. You will occasionally long to be in the dentist’s chair getting a root canal instead of listening to your mate cry about how their career is going nowhere yet again.

But sometimes, it’s YOU.

Here’s the worst part, though, at least for me. Sometimes you will be the one who’s needy. You will be the one your partner stays home to comfort. You will be the one who can’t let go of that one thing your partner is sick and fucking tired of hearing about.

That’s the manifestation of love — showing all of your beauty and all of your mess. It’s being okay with your partner not thinking EVERYTHING you do is just the cutest. It’s weathering your partner’s difficult quirks. You’re still there for each other. You cut each other some slack.

I don’t know how to say what love is, except to say it’s “a soul’s recognition of its counterpart in another.”

Beautiful, right? Unfortunately, it’s from Wedding Crashers. I have wowed more than one person at a party with this definition of love, and Jason always tells on me. (It’s a slight misquote, but I like “counterpart” better.)

I used to think you could say why you love someone:

They’re a good listener, they’re funny, they respect you. But it never feels like enough, no matter how many characteristics I can point to. Love is an emotion. It occurs without thought. It’s what you do with it that matters. And letting it in, actually participating in it, can be hard. Scary, even. Especially in the longterm.

I don’t know what love is exactly, but I do know (now) what it looks like.