Are you even listening, am I talking to myself again?

"It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages."

— Friedrich Nietzsche


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We always find a little ourselves in everybody, that's how we get hooked onto them.

Some of us, like my naive self, tend to be slightly more gullible.

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I don't know how it happened, but I managed to let myself get hooked onto the idea of love.

I never believed in it, and perhaps throughout the years of growing up through horrible relationships, I never failed to convince myself that love is like Santa Claus and it's just some fairytale make-believe.

In fact, I've never grown to grasp the concept of love.

Even today, I still ask myself the same question — what does it feel like to love someone?

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I lie to myself every single time that maybe this time I'm in love; but I never am, or am I?

At least I try to convince myself that I have feelings towards someone; when it doesn't get reciprocated, does that equate to a heartbreak?

I force myself to believe that I'm a hopeless romantic; but am I hopeless because of the romance—or lack of it—or am I just hopeless?

Somehow I confused myself about how someday someone might come up to me and I'd naturally learn how to love; when it does happen, would that person teach me all about love then?

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 Love is a fallacy. Not sure where I've heard that phrase before, though I highly doubt I made it up on the spot. Just like how someone someday somehow could have stumbled upon something and fabricated—I mean, constructed—the word "love" and somewhat managed to spread the message about it and make the world go around it.

I wonder what being "out of love" means, or feels like. Does it take one who's been fully immersed in some sort of love-filled relationship to fully understand the loss of it?

Grieving about love to me currently feels like I wouldn't be nicely presented with love. Rather, I'd be thrown with shattered pieces of a glass heart that I have previously nicely presented to someone else I thought I loved.

If it helps, I'll add on to it by stepping on the shattered pieces barefooted to alleviate and numb the pain a little. If it continues to help, I'd eat it too. Tom Hansen, you fictitious piece of work that so accurately describes all the negativity and tunnel vision I feel towards love after the Sun set and it started to get cold.

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"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up."

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Like I mentioned, we all get hooked onto something. We somehow always see something in someone that resonates with us and that's how our conversation would carry on.

Or else we would be too darn bored to even be bothered with that person. So does this mean that the longer of a time one spends with another, the higher the addiction to that person?

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I'm going to confess, once again, about a truth of my addiction to human beings.

This isn't about how I eat them because I'm obviously not cannibalistic.

I love having people around.

I know I'm throwing the word "love" out like it actually means something to me, but pardon me for that in this context.

I love people so much, I'm addicted to conversations.

I love having a text conversations, although I usually go the extreme ends of informal text conversations of short messages and a one-shot-settle-all formal message.

I love the idea of people texting me, and me making them laugh by simply just talking in coherence with what they are saying. At the same time, if I feel that I'm on the frequency with someone, I usually can't be bothered to respond anymore.

I rather be upfront mean than be a hypocrite. I've even told people off through text that they are insanely horrible to speak with; no excuses, but those were when I felt the need to voice out so people who annoyed me could read about their flaws and stop talking to me. To me, it's a win-win, but I've stopped doing that to people I don't care about because now I just blatantly ignore them.

I gradually learned to not be so reliant on text conversations. I still love people, nonetheless, but I've moved on to a greener pasture. I prefer meeting people to have face-to-face conversations.

I can't deny that I'm socially awkward. Darn, I hate myself so much for it. I sometimes blush for no reason, crack nonsensical or inappropriate jokes, and sometimes even get annoying with my natural psychotherapist responses of rephrasing, reflecting, and reframing.

I have this love-hate relationship with socialising. Yet, at the same time, I'm addicted to people so much I ask myself if I love every single person.

I obviously don't love every single person.

I know it.

I don't hide the fact that I get confused easily, wondering if I'm getting misunderstood or misinterpreting the mixed signals respectively sent or received.

I like to think that I make people smile with my responses. A little ambitious, but I've had some positive responses from people reading my jovial replies.

I lie, sometimes. I get upset easily, and I cry a lot too, recently; but I don't ever show it to anyone, especially​ when I'm physically present around someone I care for.

I retreat a lot. I prefer days in bed, watching Joseph Gordon-Levitt movies on my own with my 3rd or 4th cup of coffee and a subsequent cup of Milo with some Hup Seng biscuits. I've re-watched (500 days of) Summer so many times I can quote directly off my favourite scenes, I swear. It never gets old, and I'll never quit coffee.

I rather that, than talking or texting people and making them feel sour about their day because I'm a downer about my own. It doesn't mean I care any less about your problems or exciting news that you want to share, I just didn't want to add on to the burden or be a wet blanket to something that requires legitimately thinking-straight kind of advice or sincere celebratory remarks of encouragement.

I prefer to do all that when I'm not in a bad mood. Not because I want to be noble about it, but because I want to be at my best towards everyone at their times of ups and downs.

I just want to be there for everyone, but I can't.

I can't even be there for myself, and a million times I've heard everyone who cares for me tell me, nag at me, advise me, and scold me about how I need to love myself before others.

I got to admit it, I'm now questioning "love again". I'm back at it again, darn it.

I still enjoy people, despite a somewhat unhealthy addiction to companionship to some extent. I suppose, one thing that keeps people around is that I listen. Lightly using the word, I love hearing what people has to say for me, and so much so that I sometimes get neglected.

I let people talk, I get forgotten or unappreciated at times. Not because I barely get to talk—don't get me wrong about this—and my presence seems easily forgotten, but because I don't know how to talk about my feelings.

I don't know what my feelings are, but I'd like to talk about them. Or at least, I'd like to try to talk about them.

I'd like to lie down comfortably, and share my preferences, opinions, experiences, and thoughts about everything. And perhaps for once, I might actually be appreciated. For once, we could watch (500 days of) Summer together, and I'd cry at the end because this time I am certain of what I wasn't sure about previously.

I wonder if this is what love might actually feel like. I always wonder.

I think I'm in love with this feeling, though.

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"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close."

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M.

 
And I know you don't owe me your love.
And I know that you don't owe me nothing at all.
Ain't no way I'm giving up on you.

Don't leave me here in the dark when it's hard to see.
Show me your heart, shed a light on me.
If you love me, say so.