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Dating Diary:
When do "I love you"?
Dear Diary,
WHERE WERE WE?
One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love. (Sophocles)
Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition. (Alexander Smith)
The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved. (Victor Hugo)Saying I love you is a lot like sex. Some people wait for "the right time," when the moon is aligned with the planets and the temperature is a balmy 21.5 degrees. For others, "it just happens." Neither is good or bad, they're just different. But like sex, being prepared for when that happens is the deciding factor between content and regret.
Everything would be simpler if there was a handbook. This mystical handbook would tell us all we need to know about love and life. It would tell us what to do and what to say. It would take all the guesswork out of a broken heart.
On the topic of saying I love you, the handbook might say:
- Never say I love you before three months.
- You will only love a person once they have bought you five gifts and met your parents. If this contradicts rule #1, use your discretion.
- Never say I love you first, unless rule #1 and rule #2 have been fulfilled.
- If rule #1 and rule #2 have been fulfilled, but you still find yourself unsure, then the gifts that were purchased were not expensive/thoughtful enough. Dump the person.
- When saying I love you, remember to do it with a smile.
Of course, this handbook is totally made-up and stupid.
Many girls dream of their wedding day. They have everything from the dress to the cake to the wedding list picked out. Everything but the groom, who is just a technicality in their fantasy. I was a little different. I never dreamt of my wedding day - I dreamt about love. They say that dreams are realities waiting to happen, and so in my teens, my reality seemed that I would never find this elusive love. I dated around to date around. But deep down, I knew I could never love these guys.
But wait - let me backtrack here. I knew I could never love these guys because I didn't know what love was. Just like an orgasm, there isn't a checklist. You will hear the word being thrown around, but until you experience it, it's just some secret club you fear you will never enter.
There are some people out there who are enamored by love. They want to join this club at all costs, even if that means faking it (say it with me: much like orgasms!). Sadly, this can happen, and the more they trick themselves into believing it, the more they think they've captured it. I didn't want to capture love - I wanted it to find me. The only problem was that I placed myself in a hopeless maze; there were walls that I thought no one would ever penetrate.
I spent one year in a dead-end relationship. When I finally emerged, weathered and beaten, I thought I was invincible - invincible because I never succumbed to my mind's tricks. How could I spend one year, 365 days, 8,760 hours, not loving this person? I thought it would eventually come. I waited and waited. But it never did. And I was resolute in it being real, not just a trick I played on myself. So I never felt it, and I never said it.
Imagine the pain of loving someone who didn't love you back. I felt this pain even though it never happened. I came to fear love because it was stronger than me. I never wanted to lose control. So when I said it, I thought my heart would burst. I looked into his eyes, even though it was difficult, and waited.
Again, I need to backtrack to the beginning, and why I decided to take myself out of the comfort of my box and effectively put myself in the line of fire.
The elements were there - I had the boy, and I had the knowledge of what love was and wasn't. It wasn't what I had years ago, when I waited foolishly like a little girl for a fairy godmother to tap me on the head and make me fall in love. This time it was different because I didn't have to wait. It came quite unexpectedly, and when it did, I tried to contain it as much as I could. Paranoid thoughts ran through my head like a hamster on its wheel. I reeled, full of emotions - elated at times, guarded at others. But imagine my relief of coming out of a really bad relationship and being able to find someone who was actually good, someone who didn't run away from life but embraced it. Someone who never thought that making me cry showed that he cared.
As the feelings grew, so did our relationship. I treasured every moment we were together - even those times when we annoyed each other so much I thought someone would get punched. And then I realized, or rather, let myself realize, that I couldn't keep something like this from someone I adored so much.
The last second before you dive out of a plane. The last breath before plunging underwater. This moment was very much like those.
Some time ago, I met one of Bee's friends. We hit it off right away, and while sipping wine on his porch, she asked me if I loved Bee. I nearly choked. "No," I scoffed. She eyed me closely. "Are you sure?" she asked. "Yes," I replied, and went back to my wine. But I wasn't sure, not then. I was more afraid than anything. That if I was in love with him, I would lose control. That if I was in love with him, the wall that I had spent years building would crumble. That if I was in love with him, he would not reciprocate. But she saw it, even if I didn't want to see it. It was already too late to think about control.
When someone asks you why you're in love, what do you say?
There isn't any concrete reason, no one thing that Bee did that made me fall in love with him. I may love him differently than his ex-girlfriends. I may love him differently than I loved my ex-boyfriend. Love forms and grows in a relationship, moulded by the people in it. If you take away a person and replace him with another, there may or may not be love, and it may or may not be for the same rationale. But in the moment, in the now, I know I love Bee for who he is, not what he could be or what I want him to be.
When he looked into my eyes and said I love you, I knew I had lost control for good. But to share this feeling of being lost with someone I love is well worth it. ¤ C.Ho.
Next month: Christine tackles the issue of the toilet seat: will it be up or down?
[ When do I love you? His take. Part II of the battle. ]