Why Am I a Glutton for Love?
Let me count the ways
Let me count the ways
∘ Teenage Years
∘ Experimental Phase
∘ Consequences Phase
∘ Adult Phase
Is love real? Do I feel love? How do I know what love is between people? Is love just for one person or more at the same time?
Have you ever known someone who can’t get out of their own head? That’s me. I think all the time about everything. My family noticed my lip muscles twitch whenever I’m intently talking to my self. I don’t know if this is a new physical trait or if it’s been occurring for years and no one told me. Leave it to kids to tell you the hard truth.
Teenage Years
Growing up with a physical disability meant most people just didn’t know what to say around me once we hit puberty. They weren’t mean, but they didn’t want me at parties or to hang out either. Even my best friends in middle school grew apart during high school and forgot about me.
My older brother, who was two years my senior, also wasn’t doing me any favors. I asked him years later why, when he noticed my friends were at the same party, did he not ask why I wasn’t there or invite me. His answer? “I just thought you didn’t want to go.”
And after those two paragraphs, do you really think dating or sex was an option for me? Nope. I had convinced my self that those parties you watch on TV for high school kids weren’t real, but they were. I just wasn’t invited.
So after seven years of having no social life and no luck with girls, I was determined to change my fortune after high school and I did!
Experimental Phase
The first time I was in love I was 19. I had worked for months to have the girl I liked commit to a relationship as she liked this other guy at the same time. I think she just enjoyed having two boys after her at once and I can’t blame her.
When I eventually “won” it only lasted for three months and she dumped me the same week my parents announced they were divorcing. This set off a crazy period in my life where I just didn’t know what to do.
So I tried everything.
If your 20's are supposed to be about experimentation then you can tattoo that on word my forehead because I was all-in. You name it, I tried it. Everything from cigarettes to swinging. I grew up sheltered where Mom and Dad didn’t drink, smoke, or swear (unless at each other) and we attended church every Sunday. So when someone told me to go live in a co-ed building with 400 other, mostly attractive, young adults with little to no supervision, I did anything and everything I had always wanted.
A one night stand? Done. Get high, or drunk, or drunk and high at the same time? Done. Be an asshole to a girl just because? Yep, did that too, unfortunately.
And you know what? I still couldn’t answer what love actually was! Did my last girlfriend love me or did I love her? Maybe not because she just disappeared. Did my parents love me? Well my Dad vanished and didn’t seem to care about the last 21 years, so maybe not.
Even thought I didn’t know what love was, I did discover there were terribly real consequences for all of the bitterness I was putting into the world.
Consequences Phase
By the time I was 23, I had been dumped by every girlfriend, nearly failed out of college, lost a best friend, and had a rumor spread I was a womanizer around campus. That rumor would follow me for years because one girl, a friend of my first lover, made sure of it.
This whole time I analyzed every aspect of every relationship. What was this girl to me? Could I lose her and go on as if it didn’t happen? How was this relationship effecting my friends? Was I too attached or not attached enough? My mind didn’t quit running. But the real wake-up call was just around the corner.
When I was 24, with less than a year until graduation and leaving Texas behind forever, my 19 year old girlfriend discovered she was pregnant and it was my baby. We had been together for six weeks when it happened and three months when we found out.
Now did she love me? Did I love her? Did I love her only because she was pregnant? Do we stay together? If we stay together are we only together because of the baby? What if someone else comes along and we break up? How would that work?
Adult Phase
After 12 years of marriage and two additional children, now I must have all of the answers about love, right? Nope.
Is she attracted to that woman or just think she’s pretty? Am I raising my kids to overthink everything about relationships too? Does my daughter need to date the same person all the way through high school or should she date around more? Open or closed marriage? I could write this list all day.
Get to the Point
So, for all of the young people reading this who feel like you don’t have all the answers, remember what I told my kids the other day.
Adults make it up as we go. Split second, knee-jerk reactions are how we live, just like you. But our reactions have consequences for other people too.
So, don’t be down on yourself. If you find you’re like me and jump from one question to another when it comes to your love-life, I’m right there with you.
Forever, apparently.
