It was really weird for me to fall in love with love stories: I never experienced one, although I did fall in love several times by mistake. I never really knew people that I’ve fallen in love with, only their concepts in my head. Ultimately, it wasn’t even love in the first place but a wish to be friends. A wish to be close to people to whom I wasn’t. After spending time watching romantic slice of life shows and thinking a lot about the unreasonable entitlement I’ve felt to be close with those people without actually saying anything to them, I thought: maybe I was never in love with those people in the first place. Maybe it other feelings, like respect or appreciation, that were interpreted by me as “love”.
Honestly, I still do not know what love is: its concept is so unfamiliar to me. So distant, yet I can’t stop watching, can’t stop reading romance stories. I might understand what tropes, what clichés there are for love, but being unable to understand what love actually is.
What is love? It’s kind of like friendship, but isn’t. It’s an emotion that consists of many different emotions, but it’s not really an emotion. A deep trust between people, kind of trust that is unshakable and deeply fragile at the same time. Love can be just taking enjoyment out of looking at someone you love, or listening to them talking about the things they love, about the things they hate. Love is… weird.
I don’t think I like the societal implications of love. I don’t like that it’s a thing that you suppose to feel. What if I don’t feel love? But I feel appreciation, respect, sympathy, things that are close to love but aren’t love? Is it okay for me to be me?
I think so.
Maybe I do feel love. I don’t know myself for sure. I mean, I haven’t fallen in love. So it’s hard for me to say.
