Unfortunately, this is no love story, just an honest account of how it feels to open your heart to someone who doesn’t appreciate it or even know how to handle it.
The start of college brought a boy into my life that somehow made me believe we could potentially be together- that maybe, he could fulfill my desire for a real relationship. I poured so much of my heart into the friendship and I thought that maybe if I showed him all that I had to offer through stories of my experiences and aspirations, learned who he was as a person by asking questions that most people had never cared to hear the answer to, and made him laugh with my witty sometimes dumb sense of humor, that somehow he would end up falling for me.
I hoped that our friendship could eventually turn into something more. We spent a lot of time together and I craved his attention.
I knew that I had developed genuine feelings that moved far beyond my physical attraction to him. I saw who he was as a person and did not care that people thought he was weird or a bit awkward at times. I liked that he could be goofy and didn’t always have the ‘right’ words to say. He listened to my ambitions without judgement and cared about getting to know who I was.
I liked his smile and his silence because I always knew his thoughts must be loud during those moments.
There were so many occasions that I could have expressed these sentiments; expressed that I cared for him in a way I never had about any guy before. Yet, I was convinced that it was never the right time. I knew deep down despite our chemistry, he was still not over the last girl he loved.
To confess my emotional connection meant the possibility of losing him. So naturally, I kept my thoughts to myself, not once exposing directly how I felt. Of course, I know he had to have known that those feelings existed- tucked behind all our shameless flirting. The way I looked at him, my constant desire to spend time together and my little compliments at the most unexacting moments were hints of my desire.(Picture by: Indiee Fox and Ben McAdams)
I always used to say I wanted someone to break my heart because then it meant that I actually loved them. What I didn’t realize was that your heart can break a little each time you are with someone, because they don’t see the same potential in you that you see in them.
Now, we talk less; to call him a friend does not even seem fitting anymore.
I know that he is searching for someone to fill his pain, to make him feel like more of a whole. I wish I could tell him he is whole without the approval of any girl or any guy. Although how effective would that be if he has gone his whole life believing differently.
Our mind likes to turn us into fools, we get stuck so far in what could be and what it all means, we forget to focus on the true reality of our relationships with others.
I carry a lot of love in my soul and I want it to be given to the boy who is in love with who they are first. I know I have to accept that maybe he was not ready for my kind of love; that from the start I was never meant to get the guy.