Breaking through
A long-held and closely guarded secret of mine is that I have been in love with the same person for over two decades. It was a secret because it’s confusing and painful and socially unacceptable. (I wrote about it nearly ten years ago, but I rarely talk about it in person.) On the one hand, the person I fell in love with no longer exists. On the other hand, the person he grew into does exist. I mean, we aren’t close friends or anything, but he exists nonetheless. I will call him Exhibit A (EA.)
We met as teenagers, and it was an unlikely pairing. I see how remarkable it is that two very unusual people in a podunk area somehow met and became friends. We had and still have similar interests that evolved along parallel paths over the years. We think about things in a different way. We like to learn languages, we enjoy studying historical texts, we play and write music, we both make ridiculous expressions constantly because we both happen to have rubber faces. We both find weird-ass things amusing and we both make odd jokes about obscure topics. It’s good that we met at a formative time, I suppose. Not so great for me, as it turns out, but at least it was a good connection during a notably difficult portion of human development.
Realistically, I understand why he keeps his distance. For one thing, I went through a phase where I felt that I had to tell him everything about these obtrusive emotions and thoughts via pseudo-anonymous means. I outlined why I was doing that and said he didn’t have to respond or even read anything I wrote because I was writing it for myself.
This action alone might disturb even the most caring person. I knew that, yet I did it anyway, because I thought that getting it outside of myself would help me get over it. I said some truly unexpected things, well aware of how wild they sounded. Sometimes he responded with feedback or corrections or his perspective on whatever I was talking about, and it was helpful.
I have asked myself many times what “in love” actually means, and I have tried to determine ways to quantify my version of it. I have only been “in love” a few times. I tend to feel love for people in general, agape, and I genuinely care about everyone by default. I have been in relationships where that is the type of love I felt, where I tried to make that be enough. There have been a couple of instances where it felt different, though.
Since the only other two people I loved in a similarly unexplainable way have died (one passed away in 2016 at age 28, the other was my 7th grade sweetheart, who passed away in 2018 at age 34), I don’t have a 1:1 comparison. Though, I do know that the 7th grade love just ended up feeling like fondness, not actual love.
I took the strongest emotions I’ve felt for other people and assessed why I felt that way. I realized that each of the times I felt strong emotion for someone, it had a component of fear. I know that the love for EA originally had a component of fear, because I never felt confident in his feelings for me. This was due to a series of events and circumstances beyond either of our control.
However, I was actually able to meet with EA in person several years ago. In one of the bravest moments I have ever lived, I read an apology letter to him. Years after I had wronged him. I don’t recall how I came to the conclusion I needed to do that. It was during a time where I was trying to rejoin the world and get rid of any fears that I felt were holding me back. I was trembling mightily, but I did it anyway. He just chuckled about it, because he had already told me I didn’t have any reason to apologize. I needed to personally apologize anyway, so I did. He folded up the letter and put it in his wallet. The fear left that day.
So, if the fear component was not the source or catalyst of this deep level of emotion, what is it? Where did it come from? Why is it directed toward this specific person? Why and how is it so strong?
Hilariously, I have done everything I can think of to convince my brain not to think about him, to force myself not to love him. Since it’s an involuntary set of emotions, none of these efforts have worked. I actually visited with him multiple times over the course of a year or so, attempting to do exposure therapy on myself. I hoped it would sync my emotions with reality and neutralize them. It did not.
I even spent like an additional year being a contrarian and arguing with him online about stuff we disagree about as adults. There was no change.
I did Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, literally changing the pathways in my brain. I hoped that these feelings were a symptom of some brain malfunction, perhaps related to depression or anxiety. There was no change at all.
I took the time to look at him through a lens of extreme criticism and judgment. This is not my natural state of mind (so it just ended up being comical to me), but I did it anyway. I came up with all the things about him as a human that have repulsed me from other people. I outlined his faults and incompatibilities. I drummed up reasons to see him as a coward and a prideful fool and a disappointment. I repeated these things to myself, got angry about it, felt disgust about it, and resolved that I would get rid of all undeserved adoring emotions for that cherished person, no matter what. I worked on this for years. Years.
I eventually forgot about trying to convince myself of those things because–you guessed it–there was no change. I don’t actually believe any of that because I have always just accepted him as he is, where he is, when he is.
Every so often, it gets to me and I feel incredibly sad or upset about this predicament because it seems pointless. This strong emotion is special and rare… and for what? If everything happens for a reason, why am I carrying a torch for someone who doesn’t want it? How could there possibly be a reason to feel deep love for someone you don’t really know? How does that make sense?
It doesn’t make sense.
I have no way to regulate it. It just exists because it does. I know there must be other people out there with this type of experience, but it’s something few people talk about.
One of the strangest components of this set of emotions is that I realized in 2019 [while actively in a long-term relationship] that I would straight up dump that partner without a second thought if EA showed up in my life. With no remorse. Granted, that relationship was obviously not some kind of great love, but I think we all can agree that running off with a [relative] stranger would make very little logical sense.
I realized, then, that the feelings for EA must be unconditional love. This is particularly curious because he once told me it wasn’t “his place to interfere in other people’s lives.” While clearly an attempt to protect himself from pain, I took that to mean he would never come into my life willingly. (Also, how could it be interference when I have wanted him in my life since I was 15?) Even so, I knew I’d prefer to be with EA, decades after dating and years after even hanging out in person or talking regularly, than to try to maintain a lukewarm love for the other person.
I understand now that this feeling will never go away. There’s no discernible reason for this love to have survived for so long. I may make the effort to enter future relationships, but I am also aware that I may never experience a full and requited love with a caring partner. It would be a relief to find someone so perfectly suited that he simply bumps EA out of my heart/mind, but I won’t hold my breath.
At this point, I have little interest in dating at all and haven’t for years – partially because I am tired of emotionally immature men, but partially to avoid accidentally treating a person unfairly by having uncontrollably strong emotions for someone else.
I can ignore or hide the love for awhile, but it always reasserts itself with a vengeance when least expected. I understand now that I must have two “partner” slots in my brain/heart – one is permanently filled with EA and the other is an “optional use” slot. I am technically capable of additional love of the same caliber, but it is a rare find. And so, I have learned to accept it. I have learned to channel it so it doesn’t cause overwhelming angst. Instead, I use it as an energy source. I realized that although I can’t share that love with EA, I can share its warmth with others. This tends to surface as a giving spirit or in thankful gestures.
On the one hand, this is good because it helps others. On the other hand, it underscores the reality that I live in an endless loop and that other people benefit from my anguish. And that I have no choice in the matter. Unpleasantly, this comes back to a core component of my lifelong depression: feeling that I exist only as a tool used to facilitate other people’s pleasure or success. It seems, ultimately, that I must endure it and try to come to terms with the heavy feeling of injustice that comes with this knowledge.
Even so, I feel better when I am able to spread that abundance of unused care around. While it does feel like a curse to carry a dramatically undying love, I finally see that it may also be a blessing. It doesn’t benefit me in any way, but it does help amplify the care I can show to others. Everyone could use a little more light in the world, and this is what I can do to help us all.
0 Comments