21 and Love

The Types of People You Will Fall in Love With in Your 20s

You will fall in love with someone who annoys you, whose orgasm face looks and feels pathetic. Despite all of this, there’s something keeping you drawn to them, something that makes you want to protect them from the harsh world. What you fail to realize, however, is that you are the harsh world. You aren’t their noble protector — you are someone to be protected from but it takes a lot of dates, a lot of nights where you question whether or not you are actually a good person, for this to ever resonate with you. When it’s over and whatever love is left is put back in the fridge like a sad plate of leftovers, you will finally understand that you have the power to hurt someone. You can either hurt them or love them and it’s up to you to decide what kind of role you would like to take on in future relationships. What feels more comfortable — being the one who loves more or being the one who’s loved less? 

You will fall in love with someone who’s cold and always seemingly pushing you away. When all is said and done, they will be forever known as the one person you couldn’t get to love you. Unfortunately, it will hurt and sting worse than the good ones, the ones that chopped up your meat for you and picked out an eyelash from your eye and were nice to your mother, because love often feels like a game we need to win. And when we lose, when we realize we couldn’t get what we ultimately desired from a person, it makes us feel like a failure and erases all the memories of those who loved us in the past. It’s a permanent smudge on your love resume. 

You will fall in love with someone for one night and one night only. They’ll come to you when you need them and be gone in the morning when you don’t. At first, this will make you feel empty and you’ll try to convince yourself that you could’ve loved this person for longer than a night, but you can’t. Some people are just meant to make cameo appearances, some are destined to be a pithy footnote. That’s okay though. Not every person we love has to stick around. Sometimes it’s better to leave while you’re still ahead. Sometimes it’s better to leave before you get unloved. 

You will fall in love with the old couple down the street because to you they represent the impossible: a stable, long-lasting love. You’re trying to get someone to like you for more than ten minutes. A monogamous “never get sick of ya” love seems unfathomable. “What’s your secret, sir? Do you just say yes a lot?” 

You will fall in love with smells, the good and the bad kind. You will want to wear your lovers shirt because it makes you feel close to them and you’re okay with being that PYSCHO who is legitimately sniffing their shirt in public. You will fall in love with sweat, certain perfumes, the smell of the season in which you fell in love. This particular love smells like fall. It smells like Halloween and a roaring fire and leaves and fog and mist and candy and food and family and whiskey and sex and the lint that collects on sweaters. When it ends, if it ends, you will never experience another fall without thinking of him, her, it. The memories will stick to the ground like a mound of leaves and will only dissipate when the weather drops. 

You will fall in love with your friends. Deep, passionate love. You will create a second family with them, a kind of tribe that makes you feel less vulnerable. Sometimes our families can’t love us all the time. Sometimes we’re born into families who don’t know how to love us properly. They do as much as they can but the rest is up to our friends. They can love you all the time, without judgement. At least the good ones can. 

This is where I’m supposed to tell you that you will fall in love with The One, a person who isn’t too cold or too nice. Their “O” face is perfectly fine and they’re not afraid to show how much they love you. This person is supposed to wait for us at the end of the twentysomething road as some kind of reward for all the heartache and loneliness. We deserve them. We’ve earned this kind of love.

So fine. You’re going to fall in love with The One. You’re going to fall in love with someone who will make sense beyond college or a job or a particular season. They’ll make sense forever and won’t ever want to leave you behind. I’m telling you this not because it’s true but because it NEEDS to be true. Everyone is entitled to this kind of love, so why not? Have it. It’s yours. Blow out the candles on your 30th birthday, holding their hand, and let out an exhale that’s been waiting for ten years. Do it. Now.

I love this. 

That was "The People You Will Fall In Love With In Your 20s" by Ryan O'Connell from Thought Catalog. 

I had a conversation with my boyfriend a couple weeks ago that really had me thinking about this passage. Coming into this relationship I held a lot of worry and uncertainty internally. I was scared and confused. I didn't really know what I wanted, yet I was determined not to repeat the mistakes I had in the past. As well, I had a lot of conflicting ideas that were trying to battle it out in my head for dominance.

Like, for example, the advice I'd received often from an adult female family member: "Don't settle. You deserve the best." What they forgot to tell me: Best  Perfect. 

There is no such thing as the perfect man, but if there was, I think I created him. When I was 10 I started to write short stories about a family in Oregon. They had a daughter my age who became very much like my best friend. I think I created her out of loneliness. This was the time in my life where I was having trouble fitting in at a new school. I wished so desperately that Cassidy was a real person who would go horseback riding and have sleepovers with me. I also gave her an older brother, Jason, who I fantasized about being a real person - somewhere out there - who would someday fall in love with me. It wasn't until a couple years ago when I had to give myself a harsh reality check - Jason wasn't real. This "perfect boyfriend/husband" I had created in my imagination does not exist out there for me to find and I needed to stop looking for him. 

So I tried to banish all romanticized notions of love out of my head. There were no love at first sights, no knights in shining armor, no soul mates. There were just men and I just had to frickin pick one. 

And that I did. He was a very nice guy and he was very very good to me. We lived together for 8 months and then I broke his heart. After a fight he told a mutual friend that he would sooner propose to me than break up and I knew right then that it had to end. As much as I wanted to be, I wasn't in love with him. I had tried. I had gone into the relationship unsure and had gone against my instincts for months. I remember that I had thought about breaking up with 5 months before I actually did. I wanted to protect him from any awkwardness at school because even though I didn't love him, I still cared. I realize now that this was exponentially unfair. I strung him along while I decided whether or not I wanted what he was willing to give me and I swore never to do that again to another human being. I vowed that the next time I went into a relationship I would be honest with myself and not take the other person's feelings for granted. Like O'Connell said, I have the power to hurt someone. Having that power is a big responsibility and it doesn't always feel nice to have it. 

Next commences the period of my life where I had a string of really short relationships. I would go on dates with men until I found something wrong with him and then split. "He doesn't want as many kids as I do." "He isn't supportive enough of the arts" "He still lives with his mom" It may have been the selfish way of doing things, but I'm sure all of these men have moved on and hold no grudges.

Then I met another man and despite telling myself I couldn't, I fell in love with him. I told him I wanted to marry him, and have his children, and move in with him. I trapped him and he amused me for while by going along with it before finally admitting that he was in love with someone else and broke it off. I was devastated, yes, but thus appeared my second love epiphany. Relationships are a little bit like produce - letting them grow organically is a lot better for us then pumping them full of growth hormones. I vowed to let him take control of the best next time.

I'll touch very briefly on the next guy that came along. I kept quiet and let him tell me where he wanted our relationship to go. I was a secret. He didn't want to be seen in public together. He didn't want anyone to know that we talked or hung out. This wasn't a relationship, he stated, - it was just casual sex. Somehow I believed that if I stuck it out, he would grow to really like me and want more. I was wrong. And in 15 seconds you've probably already established what it took me 3 months to come to terms with: This guy is an asshole. 

This brings me to today. I would like to say that I've learned all my love lessons and that I am now the perfect girlfriend, but that is simply not the case. I entered this relationship aiming to do everything right. I was unsure about the whole thing at first, but I remembered how much it sucks to sense the other person's uncertainties, so I tried to mask them with affection in as many different ways as I knew how. I had mentally given him the reins of the relationship to let things advance at the pace he was ready for and I'd go along for the ride. What I failed to realize is that I was about to make a plethora of brand new mistakes. I forgot to ask him how he was feeling about it all. 

We're good though. I'm more confident  in this than I ever have been. Friends that were once saying "Doesn't sound like he really likes you - dump him" are now saying "Em, I'm glad I was wrong about him" We're not perfect - we never will be. I'm not planning our wedding, but I'm excited to see where this summer takes us. I don't take his heart or his time or his kindness for granted - I hold great value in the fact that he is trying and learning to trust me with his thoughts and feelings and maybe someday secrets and I hope he finds it as easy to care about me as I found it easy to become fond of him. 

Notice that I don't use the word love. I didn't because this is no longer a word I take so lightly. This word has so much meaning. I've fallen in love many times. I fell in love with summer in Rossland. I fell in love with my friends in college. I fell in love with music and theatre and tastes. I fell in love with that hour before the sun sets - when the sun is low in the sky and casts that beautiful glow that makes everything seem romantic, but is impossible to drive in. Love is not out of the question. In fact, it's happening, but before those three little words come out of this mouth, I need to be positive that he is ready to hear them.