In a bout of cynicism

While I was in college I never felt confused over my feelings for someone. I feel great affection for many people, but that isn't love. I ached for my lovers on occassion, but that too wasn't love. I'd dress up nicer, put on make-up, go to the gym, walk past the commons at a certain time--all because I was infatuated with that guy in my polisci class.

Senior year that changed. I started dating someone and fell head-over-heels--FAST. It was a feeling of desperation; I couldn't go on without it. It was a feeling of trust; he would never abandon me. It was a feeling of desire; I wanted him the moment he walked into a room. And finally it was a feeling of security; he needed me as much as I needed him, he would never go away and we would never fail.

Obviously, since I'm no longer dating this person, this cannot be true. But recently I've been thinking about it. He always claimed that he did not love me. He had loved someone before me and what he felt for me was not what he felt for her. I countered with the love-infatuation differentiation that naturally would be confusing for a 18-year-old college freshman who'd been jerked around by a girl 5 years his senior. What I felt for him and knew he MUST feel for me was different. Better. More meaningful.

But it wasn't, and perhaps I was the one who was full of infatuation. Filled with the attraction of reciprocal desire, infatuated that someone I was attracted would find me smart, caught up in the ardor of being needed. After the relationship ended, I, of course, vowed to never be so immature again.

So what do I think love means now? Respect, kindness, a desire to be with someone through it all, not just what's fun. Mutually acknowledged objectivity in what you both need and don't need. Knowledge of space--what's healthy, not just what feels good. Good sex mandatory--ripping each others clothes off not. In fact, despite believing earlier in my romantic career that celibacy was ridiculous, it can serve its purpose.

I think about these things and love, and I realize that my new mandates cause love to become more manageable and more...controlled. Is this love, or is this settling? It feels like a risk, trying to do it again, but maybe it is in fact the opposite in the form of a sick parody of stability replacing happiness. I feel sure, but perhaps my surety is and symptom rather than the answer; a lack of self-awareness on my part. It is humbling to think that that which I have accused so many before me of doing is something I could be faulty of myself.

...and then I realize I've just been eating too much chocolate today, its overcast and I'm incredibly bored at work.