Ink and Vein

I love too much.
I love too easily.
I hold on too long.
I don’t expect enough.

I don’t love enough.
I’m too picky.
I give up too fast.
I expect too much.

Keep looking for love – you never know who you’ll meet!
Stop looking for love – that’s when it finds you.

Love is a feeling. Love is an action. If it was supposed to happen, it would. You have to put yourself out there, or nothing will happen. If they wanted to, they would. Just be patient, they’ll come around!

So much contradictory advice, about finding love. So much that is reductive, that is either/or, that is lacking in nuance.

As a person who has been single for 7 years, often reluctantly so, what I’ve learned about love – platonic and romantic – is that many people don’t have the capacity to experience or witness loneliness, so they share platitudes they’ve heard to try to provide comfort. I’ve also learned that people are rarely good at being honest or direct about how they really feel – sometimes, I’m not sure many people even know how they feel, let alone how to express it.

I’m lucky to have an abundance of platonic love in my life, and to know that platonic love is just as important, if not more important, than romantic love.

I’ve also been single for 7 years, without more than handholding and one night of cuddling taking place in all that time. For a woman who isn’t aromantic, asexual, or sex-repulsed, it’s a rough spot to be in. I’m a physically affectionate person, and I’m grateful I have friends who hug me. But it’s still rough.

The attempts at connection, at expressing interest and being rejected, are rough. The feeling that, when someone does show interest I should just be grateful and accept what I’m offered even if I don’t reciprocate their interest is rough. Watching people I had or have feelings for choose other relationships is rough. Watching people I don’t even like being happy in relationships can be rough if I’m feeling particularly petty or sorry for myself that day.

A couple years ago, I read Arrangements in Blue: Notes on Loving and Living Alone by Amy Key, a memoir about her 20 years of single life. A beautiful, vulnerable, at times embarrassingly honest exploration of romantic love, and how it feels and what it means not to have it, for years and years. As I read, at times I found myself thinking “You’re so desperate, how can you share this? Aren’t you tired of yourself?”

And really, I was just talking to myself, thinking of myself and the times when I’ve been so consumed by wanting, by the desire to be loved, that I could hardly stand myself.

I was thinking of the times when I wished that a partner was waiting for me at home, someone to start dinner or clean up the dishes with me, someone just to be there, sharing the same space as me.

I was thinking of how much I wanted companionship, and, quite frankly, to have someone push me up against a wall and make out with me. I was thinking how much I wanted someone to want me. The term “skin hunger” hardly feels adequate for the depth of my want.

And the more I wanted, the less likely it seemed that it would happen. It felt like the power of my wanting was just pushing people away, and conventional dating wisdom reinforces that: Don’t be too desperate. Don’t seem too eager. It’s not attractive.

I’m just not good at playing it cool, though I certainly tried.

I pretended I was okay with whatever people wanted to give me. I told myself I was just being understanding, that I was meeting people where they were, that I was being patient, that I was respecting boundaries and needs. I stuffed my hurt feelings down, and just tortured myself while waiting, and hoping, that eventually someone would meet me, even part of the way.

The problem with hiding hurt is that hurt turns into resentment and then turns into walls. I hide my hurt because I’m afraid that my relationships won’t be able to withstand my need. I hide my hurt because I don’t want to get defensiveness when what I need is understanding and reassurance. I hide my hurt because I’m afraid that the people I love will decide I’m not worth the effort it could take to repair the relationship.

I used to think hiding my hurt was for the benefit of others, and perhaps it was to an extent. Over the past few months, though, I’ve realized that hiding my hurt was about protecting myself. If I let people see that I’m vulnerable, that I need something, it’s as if I’m just inviting more hurt – as if my need and vulnerability are reasons for past mistreatment and abuse.

As I reflect on love, and the abundance of love I’ve experienced in my life, I think also, about the ways that I’ve kept myself from loving and being loved. In not expressing my needs, in not asking for help, in not being honest when I’m hurt, I’ve not made it possible for others to meet me, to reciprocate, to care for me.

Love is not easy. As bell hooks told us in All About Love, love is an action.

Love might start as a feeling, but it continues through our actions, and love cannot thrive if we hide from each other, if we perform what we think the other wants for fear of losing them.

Love is authenticity, trust, and vulnerability. Love allows us to make mistakes, and learns to sit in the discomfort of the pain and loneliness and messy hurt of others. Love doesn’t avoid conflict, but tries to work through it.

When repair is not possible, love lets go.

I haven’t figured out how to do any of this, yet, but I am learning how to work through my fear and how to let those I love see me in my strength and my pain, and all my other states.