My knowledge of love came in phases. Slow phases. Waves of realization that would wash over me and leave me balking at the sheer obviousness of it all. In hindsight, everything seems so clear but in the present, I remember the haze of confusion and lust and excitement and butterflies.
In my early teen years, love was pure beauty. A fairytale that I longed to experience and feel the true euphoria of, I gobbled down teen romance novels and dreamt of the day that I would play the protagonist of my own. A likely result of my imbalanced hormones and low self-esteem, I believed that a relationship with a boy would be the key to my adolescent happiness. There could be no downside, no fall, no pain in relationships and I let myself fall in love with any boy that spoke to me.
In high school, I learned more. I felt my first pang of heartbreak from a boy that would never give me my teen romance, no matter how badly I wanted it. I felt my first stirrings of sexual desire with this same boy that taught me how to kiss on playground constructs in a park in my neighborhood. I watched my friends in relationships and consoled them during their breakups, realized for the first time that relationships are complicated and messy. Love, lust, and feelings could hurt, but in my mind it was always worth it. However, I realized relationships are an investment, and should be treated as such. Nothing to be hurried into, but rather something that grows slowly and is fostered by communication and a mutual acknowledgement of commitment. It was still everything I wanted.
My next relationship began during the summer before college. I eyed him from afar throughout my senior year, noted our subtle flirtations but thought nothing more of it. I chanced upon him at a party and before I knew it, we had a movie date. My mind and heart moved in a whirlwind of excitement. I thought this, fleeting though it would be, would be the romance I’d waited for all these years. However, it was from this that I learned lust can be absent from love. I learned the fun of casual, but I also taught myself one universal truth: all boys are the same.
As I began college, I also began my serial hook-up career—a slew of non-committal sexual relationships that lasted anywhere between 5 minutes to 2 hours and resulted in anything from a drunken make out session to more serious physicality. Ironically enough, this is what taught me the most about love. I always believed that exclusivity was a right, not a privilege. Instead, I learned that exclusivity at this age is the greatest commitment you can give. College co-eds, we’re all the same. Despite moving past puberty, we are still teenagers with raging hormones and an even more-raging sexual curiosity. I learned not to expect more.
I find my slow education of love ironic as it parallels my actual education. In my youth, I was naïve. As ready as I believed myself to be for a relationship, I knew nothing of them. I was not ready to experience pain or heartbreak. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned the art of patience, the importance of commitment, the meaning behind these words. And yet, as I’ve matured and prepared myself, I find that this is where it stops. Relationships become rarer and rarer and instead it seems like the term “hook up buddy” has replaced “boyfriend” or “girlfriend”.
It seems as we discover the true meaning of love and relationships and the burden they bring, so little of us are willing to give ourselves to it. It seems that as the weight of the meaning has attached itself to relationships and exclusivity, we’ve become too frightened to face it. I find that as much as I long and desire for love, at this age, and perhaps from here on forth, very little are capable of giving it.