Love? Men? All of the above?
(Content warning – serious navel gazing and I’m talking about my love life)
Saying I didn’t do love when I was nineteen was a nice shorthand for ‘I’ve read the Ethical Slut’ (I hadn’t) and I want to sleep around without people getting pissed off or me cheating on them.
I used to get pulled up on the details, yes obviously I love my friends, so yes I do do love but for fucks sake I’m clearly talking about a specific context guys. Falling for people, I worked out eventually wasn’t the sudden rush of a crush, it was the undertow pull of a current where you’re inextricably drawn to someone. I do wonder if I’m right about that though, or whether I’m just misapplying neurodivergent recognition to something more emotional than it is. In any case, I definitely don’t feel entirely happy in romantic situations. Identifying as Greyromantic was a really eye opening moment for me. Some people do approach romance and dates even casually as these specific things, I like to go into things as friends. Hell you can even get marriage to make sense to me when bride and groom describe each other as best friends.
Then there’s been the life long realisation that people feel things a lot more than me, and that I do seem to lack some depth of emotion, or maybe I only feel things very deeply ever so occasionally or with people I already have a level of trust with. To be honest I think that last is more true, I have a habit of taking the emotionally comfortable option. Which is not necessarily the option other people seem yo think should be emotionally comfortable.
Do I do love? Do I just choose the emotionally easy option because then it doesn’t hurt? Or am I just confused because I don’t feel deeply very often? It doesn’t help that genuinely people seem to behave very differently than I do when emotional and that when I talk about this the assumption is I’m trying to be a special snowflake rather than describing my experience.
I do love my friends. That’s a standard and a constant. After the last couple of years I wrote that last blog entry about finding men just too much. Then I spent a weekend with my pandemic friend and there was more kissing than I expected. Looks like I’m not done with men. Looks like I can still kiss my friends. I felt more myself last weekend than I have in a while and I found someone I really enjoy being around. I think I could probably talk to him forever, or at least until he gets fed up.
Let’s not over analyse that I started this blog entry wanting to think about him and my relationship with men and instead spent several paragraphs mulling over my thoughts about love. Obviously I love him, he’s kept me sane(ish) for two incredibly stressful years, other than that it’s his birthday next week and I’m very much looking forwards to kissing him again.