Friend + Romance = My Future Lover

A friend of mine said this tidbit about my life sounds like my next post and I figured why now. I downloaded Tinder two Monday nights ago right after telling the guy I was into that the second he decides to date again I have to be the first to know. One of my mentors recommended it. But I realized I had done it for the wrong reasons. Again.

Last time, it was because I was bored and lonely. This time, I thought it would distract me from all the possible pain that would come in the end if I ended up not getting the guy, because I was afraid I was going to get hurt trying to further pursue the guy I was into. Am into.

I realized that too. Or worse, hurt him…

That Thursday night, I don’t know what it was but I saw his face and I realized I was still falling and was going to fall no matter what. So Tinder was useless. Hitting up my old crushes using excuses like “oh, that new profiled pic is sexy” and “I play piano too now” was useless. Even daydreaming about Jagapathi (Jagapathi!) turned out to be useless. (Well, it was still a little fun I suppose… But in the end, Raj, the manifestation of my beautiful subconcious, ended up shaking his head at me, wondering how long it would take to admit that I was falling and falling fast and hard and in truth I didn’t want to stop myself. I just didn’t want to get hurt. Again.)

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking to answer a question that he – not Raj, the guy I’m into – asked me a while ago. To answer a lot of questions. And I came to this conclusion…

A friend with whom you have a romantic connection is a lover. Maybe you’re stuck in the friend phase, maybe start dating, maybe you get married. Who knows? Labels are labels and irrelevant.

Sex is even more irrelevant.

Because for the gazilllionth time, sexuality is different from romance.

So then what defines romance?

Candlelit dinners? Maybe.

Roses and chocolate? For some people some times.

Laugher? I laugh with all my friends.

Kindness? God, I hope not. To say that people aren’t kind unless they have romantic feelings is terrible. We’d all only be nice to a one or a few people.

Maybe it’s none of these. Maybe it’s something else.

But all of these are tangible.

These are behaviors. These are things. These are actions. These are thoughts.

What about emotion?

What is the emotion we say defines romance?

Especially if almost everything is a human construct?

But what if romance is the human label for a real feeling?

Not friendship. Not love. Because love is the basis for friendship. You could love your dog or cat or domesticated lion. But you’re not marrying them. Well, I don’t think anyone’s marrying their pets… unless their pet turns into a human at night or something. You know – if the Beast from Beauty and the Beast was real. (Side note: not gonna lie, always shipped Jasmine with her tiger). And you love your family but that’s different.

So romance is a type of love, but it something else than the conventional love.

And after years of loving, I think I finally understood what’s different this time. With a true romantic love. And I’m not discounting all the others – I loved them. I probably was in love with them. But it wasn’t a romantic love. My Bestest Friend and Best Love were a best friend kind of love and I’m only now realizing that. That one was half my soul and the other was the person I admired and aspire to be like. They are family. Like a handful of other friends and family friends in my life. They are the Maiden/Matron of Honour and Best Man at my wedding. My Best Man, not my husband’s – if it’s a husband and not a wife or spouse.

To be honest, many of the people I’ve claimed to have loved as a romantic love are more so people I’ve either admired or who have saved me.

When my Best Love asked me what was different about the Boy in the White Hoodie, I said it was that he was the first in a long time that didn’t save me in anyway. But that’s only what made him half different from my Best Love. I admired the Boy in the White Hoodie just as I admired Mr. Perfect and my Dancing King. Admiration – that’s a type of love. But it was not romantic love…

And I don’t know why it took me so long to figure it out. Maybe because it’s only after you experience a thing that you can identify it certainly against all else.

So…

It can be a million things. But above all else it is a feeling. And what is that feeling? Did you ever feel like your heart might beat out of your chest? And the thought of a person not in your life makes your pulse go weak? And even if they’re miles away, the idea that you are thinking of each other alone is enough to make your heart beat again? This is how it feels for me.

Truth is, it’ll be different for everyone. Romance is subjective. All of this is subjective. And I can only tell you my experiences and opinions.

But I know this much – I’m in love, I love, a friendship kind of love and a romantic kind of love, and he makes me happy. And my happiness is not dependant on him and I can survive without him. But I’d only be surviving. Not really living. I’d feel a loss that would make me want to go numb until who knows how long and how or why things would change. I’ve stopped trying to predict the future. I still think about it sometimes for fun, as inspiration for my stories. But no more predictions. There are too many possibilities.

I can only control what I do or say in this one moment. Plan for a while. And let life happen.

But I cannot control how I feel. That’s the one thing no one can control. You can give yourself the chance to experience and process and explore how you truly feel, like I’ve been doing for a while now, but you can’t actually control how you feel.

And for once, I don’t want to.

I don’t care about getting hurt anymore. I don’t care about fucking things up. Because for once, I trust that things will actually work themselves out for the better with honesty and communication and vulnerability and reducing overthinking and thinking rationally and all those other good things but above all else, just feeling.