"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable.
It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore.
Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain.
I hate love.”
It's not that I hate love. It's a beautiful feeling. You're lucky if you can experience it at least once in your lifetime. And if you are feeling it now, hold on to it and don't let it go for as long as you can. But for me, personally...I don't believe in it. It's like something you read in the papers, of a rare disease causing an epidemic in a whole village somewhere in the world. It's happening right there and then, but it feels unreal to you because it's so distant from you.
Perhaps the optimist in me had once clung on to that idea desperately. I had been naive then. The idea of love, of a knight in shining armour who would sweep you off your feet..that notion is something we had been brought up to believe in for years, from the old Disney movies to the glamorous Hollywood depictions of modern romance...But reality is totally different.
Sure, the feeling of being in love is beautiful. It makes smart people do stupid things. It turns even the most illiterate person into a poet overnight. It becomes your muse, your inspiration, your goal. It blinds your eyes towards reality with promises of happier things to come, with sparkles and roses all thrown in. But nothing lasts forever. After a while, the tingly feelings and the nervous excitement will be replaced with disgruntled "yeah, yeahs" and half-hearted "I love yous". You start taking that person for granted. You start to not care about that person...and then you drift apart - and then the world will come crashing down on you. If that's the case, then wouldn't it be better to not love at all? Or better still, to treat that feeling as if it's an addiction, like caffeine or fast food, but be careful enough not to tread too deep in it?
Because ultimately, it is the initial feeling of flirting around that attracts people to love. People are addicted to that little rush you get when you envision the possibilities lying ahead.
"Will he like me?" "Will she go out with me?"
These uncertainties are what gives 'love' the sense of danger and excitement. The feeling when he or she says something and you overanalyze it...that feeling of giddiness you get out of deciphering the subtle hints and the small pleasures derived from his or her actions towards you.
It is not the person that you want. Rather, it is the presence of a person. Humans are not engineered to live in solitude. We all desire a partner. We cannot stand being alone. In a way, we are all just using one another for our own survival.
Perhaps I have become jaded and disillusioned with the whole idea of being in 'love'. Perhaps, given enough time, I might come to believe in it once more. But as I am right now, at this moment, I just cannot see myself going through it.
Just like the hedgehog's dilemma, the closer you get to a person, the more hurt you will inflict to each other. Isn't it better to not even try at all, then?
