This week, I’m going to indulge myself and write in a more personal and philosophical style. My story is nothing original or unique: in fact, I’m almost certain this is the pitfall of many a college woman. Since I’ve actually taken my relationships seriously (basically since a date didn’t consist of making out in a movie theater), I’ve become fascinated with trying to hone down my definition of love. What does it mean to love another human being and at what point is the hurt worth the risk?
In high school, I had a long (two years – and for high school, that’s saying something) relationship with a boy. For the sake of anonymity, we’ll call him Justin. Justin was my everything (in the most cliché sense). We rarely fought and he gave me all the care and devotion I could have asked for at the time. He first told me he loved me in a note that he wrote me while on vacation in Europe: “Your absence having made this apparent, I love you. And I have for quite some time.” Our break-up was catalyzed by me going away to college and the seeming magnitude of the distance between us. It took me six months to finally feel okay.
After a sordid and complicated year with men, I was resolved to be entirely single. I had seen the damage caused both by and towards me and a relationship didn’t seem within the realm of what I could handle. Someone (we’ll call him Peter) who was a close friend approached me and told me he had feelings for me. I was completely devastated and desperately just wanted to keep him as a friend. It took me two months to realize how much he cared about me. The defining moment in our relationship (and the moment that precipitated my willingness to date him) was when he looked me in the eyes and said, “You think you’re this great mess but you aren’t. Your mess is worth it to me.” This relationship lasted for six months and was one that changed my outlook on relationships.
While dating Peter, I learned so much about how to care about myself and reciprocate the care he had for me. I trusted him entirely and while I don’t know if I could characterize that as love, it’s the closest I’ve come to actually loving someone. Having had quite some time to ponder our relationship and its effect on me, I’ve decided a few components of my feelings for him: he made me a better person, he made the mundane beautiful, and at times I cared about him more than myself. While I obviously advocate a sort of selfless love, I wonder at what point did I abandon caring for myself to care for this other person. I left this relationship feeling entirely emotionally depleted and the breakup is still one that I regularly deal with. So, while I’ve been able to learn so much more about what it means to love another human being, the cynic in me wonders at what point did that break me?
Thanks Haddaway for giving us a raging dance club number to bob our heads to but also being succinct: what is love (baby don’t hurt me).