Reasons Why I Cannot Love You

i love this. brilliant.

Wow, that was amazing.

Love, love this! All of it!

Love, love this! All of it!

Feels like it was written for me, I wonder how many persons will feel the same…

Feels like it was written for me, I wonder how many persons will feel the same…

I really didn’t like how you shifted from saying you’re caught up in the past to saying you’re healed from a past relationship. If this were more consistent, it’d be better.

There should be a movie about a fantastic guy who falls in love with an amazing girl but the problem is the girl doesn’t love him in return. Oh wait there is, check out 500 Days of Summer.

I hope Mr. Right finds you eventually! I love sincere writing

You begin to demean your own existence when you tell yourself you’ve seen it all, especially when you haven’t.

Also I think you’ve said the spread-eagled underpants crispy bacon thing before, unless that’s just, you know, habitual.

I loved this except for that one little line where you said you were healed. In this article at least, you might be somewhat but not totally. Still, loved it!

You’re not a bad person, being selfish is good sometimes and then bam! You randomly fall in love. Hopefully.

I recently wrote something similar to, though not quite as eloquent as, what you have here. It went something like this…

He will always be the one you compare all others to, but
he’s not the only one. Every time you love and lose, there will be someone else
to put on the pedestal until your expectations have become so high that you may
never be able to love again. How could you find someone good enough to compete
with what they had as a whole? What makes it worse is that what you remember
does not match reality. Your memories serve to deceive you, since they were
muddled by love-struck eyes. No one will ever be good enough. 

“I don’t have another heartbreak in me…”
Although the whole article resonated with me, that line is what did it. I really do not have have the heart/guts/patience/time/tears/space for another one.

Kat, I see you for the ugly, pungent parts of your guts.

Kat, I see you for the ugly, pungent parts of your guts.

“unless that’s just, you know, habitual” – made me snort diet cola onto my computer.

I LOVE THIS TEXT!!
Incredible.

real love is when you both can eat crispy fried bacon in your underpants together.

very thought provoking.
time just gets away from us…
it’s like rollins said: experience is a well dressed curse. maybe, maybe not.

very thought provoking.
time just gets away from us…
it’s like rollins said: experience is a well dressed curse. maybe, maybe not.

Woah man.. fuck man.. that was an amazing read and i totally relate to that in my life right now. Expect I don’t have that other person, sometimes I question myself and wonder if I would be happier in your situation or my own. I would take yours.

Woah man.. fuck man.. that was an amazing read and i totally relate to that in my life right now. Expect I don’t have that other person, sometimes I question myself and wonder if I would be happier in your situation or my own. I would take yours.

I can’t love you because I love the girl you used to be far too much. I wish I could.

Love it!

that is the best piece of writing you have ever done.

I actually love that you are inconsistent… That you claim you’re healed, and yet you compare everyone on a yard-stick. The reality is you don’t really know. One minute you’re happy being single, and haphazardly you pass by Union Square or a restaurant in SoHo, and suddenly you miss him again. I guess, for the meantime, you will always find yourself swinging between healed and unhealed… Until you find the right one who will cure you completely from the past.

It’s not supposed to be consistent. That’s the real beauty of this essay. The piece circles around and around the cluster of reasons she can’t/won’t/doesn’t want to love, and eventually spirals in toward the real reason, and then sort of skitters again. It’s nicely done. 

Selfish is the new black. Get it.

WOW. That’s everything I’ve been trying to write for the past 2 years. 

WOW. That’s everything I’ve been trying to write for the past 2 years. 

Sounds like every western world girl out there. By the time you’re in you’re early thirties, past your sexual prime and father time taking hold, you’ll wonder why every guy you meet just wants to pump and dump you and “where are all the good guys?” Well, you just wrote about him.

Rub your cats bellies for me would you!

first of all, inmyprime is an asshole. second, i lovvvvee this. it’s a great piece of writing that i totally relate to.

…wtf, you are me.

That was beautiful Kat. Well done. Well written, from the heart and something that I think a lot us can relate to.

Once again, what you’ve written resonates with me 100%. Thank you :)

What a scared little girl.

#RUDE

Sounds like Kat needs some intense psychotherapy. Get over it

Sounds like Kat needs some intense psychotherapy. Get over it

You always seem to write my life, and I just love your writing. Keep it coming!

i used to feel like this, like i couldn’t move on from this one person that supposedly changed everything. sometimes i still feel like that, when i hang out with people that don’t “get” me. i don’t know. a lot of people have that one person from their past that stands out. it’s kind of sad, really.

This reminds me of that song by Everclear… ahh nostalgia for the 90s

He’s everything you want
He’s everything you need
He’s everything inside of you that you wish you could be
He says all the right things at exactly the right time
But he means nothing to you and you don’t know why

Listen, I 100% agree that you need to be selfish in order to ensure your own happiness. There is nothing wrong with that. It’s good that you try to move on from the past instead of simply sitting back and saying I’ll never find Mr.Right. He is out there… and when you two finally meet there will be lots of bacon and underpants kinds of days

“Every movement you make, every tiny word you utter, I pick up and hold towards the sun to see if you’ll turn transparent and I’ll see him inside your skin. When he’s not there—and he never is—I know I’ll never be able to love you.”

I’m super creeped out by how you just put into words what I’ve been unable to for the past six and a half years.

that’s not Everclear.

I feel like the point of the whole thing was to show inconsistency. The writer can’t decide why, and doesn’t want to decide why.

Tears in my eyes.

This was actually difficult to read from the perspective of the person you are speaking to, knowing and trying to accept what you wrote as the truth.

#dark

So, so beautiful. Honestly made me want to cry.

Keep it up, Kat.

Vertical Horizon

Amazing.. just wonderful! 

a thousand times yes, BC.

i have a theory that we continue along as a ho hum speed because not every relationship with be as wonderful/intense/___ as “THE relationship” you had with “Them” or else we would be even more messed up. You always have that one person in the back of your mind, even a little bit, until you find the next love to fill that last little crevice that appeared when they left.

kat george, you embellish the truth with talent.

I really hope your theory’s wrong, although I get the distinct feeling its not. Which is such a shame… it just means people like me will keep missing out on the good ones because we’re still so hung up on a past that was probably not even as great as we made it out to be.

Believe me, it was difficult to read knowing exactly how she feels. I almost teared up. 

Don’t wait too long, Kat, Else it becomes “I can’t love you because it’s been so long, I’ve forgotten how.”

Ive read some Dear John letters in my time, but this would completely gut anyone

Wow.

bravo! great piece of wisdom right there.

Yeah. Classic case of the girl who was hurt once. Deeply cut by the first heartbreak. I’m living through this now. I don’t know if I’ll turn out selfish/self-loving in the end…

love the bacon in the underpants part, hehe. great article

Way to bring me to the verge of tears AT WORK. I feel this way about most relationships I’ve been in recently. Dear God..

Incredible. Love it.

I can’t believe i ended up really liking this.

the last sentence was a dud.. 

the last sentence was a dud.. 

the last sentence was a dud.. 

lol
 

WHY DOES EVERYONE HATE KAT?

i like you, kat. 

I think you should always give it a chance and give it your all (none of this whining about all the things you don’t like).  And if it still doesn’t work, move on.  Because no one’s getting any younger and you may be missing out on a chance to find someone that you can love.  

I love this. I love how this feels like my thoughts exactly. It’s kinda sad.

Future spinster

@kat_george:twitter absolutely stunning piece, your narcissism is beautiful. you have given all of us a thing you do not rightfully possess–a hope beyond hope that we can control our love, that we are complete. I consider this to be profane: that your confession can ooze with such empathy amounts to loving each of us, despite yourself. In a remarkable way, it works not in spite but because it is so solipsistic that it is about each of ourselves.

Because she is a narcissist and her writing is juvenile 

I am in love with this girl.

I wish I had the guts to show this to the person I can’t love.

what writing ISN’T juvenile? I’m a writer, and i’ll openly admit my work is fundamentally childish. Most of the stuff on thoughtcatalog, the huffington post, the new yorker, the NYT and the WSJ are downright juvenile – albeit cloaked in the veneer of maturity. At least this woman has the balls to say how she feels without beating around the bush.

We hate in others what we can’t stand about ourselves.

Her writing is so poor that I feel like I am reading through a teenagers diary. And you are a “writer.” Lulz. Who isn’t? What do you write for, Bard College’s student newspaper? Just face it you are terrible and nobody reads anything you do. Woof!

Her writing is so poor that I feel like I am reading through a teenagers diary. And you are a “writer.” Lulz. Who isn’t? What do you write for, Bard College’s student newspaper? Just face it you are terrible and nobody reads anything you do. Woof!

And people who write old sayings in TC are cunts

you will die alone and with cats. oh the cats you will have. but really you sound like an awful person to be in a relationship with.

REALLY?

“Why don’t they act more adult?” But I feel that people who act like adolescents—they are the interesting people. Everything about being an adolescent, well, almost everything about it anyway, is the interesting thing about being a person. You feel you’re on a process of discovery towards something. And you have things that you really love and you organize your life around things you really love. If you’re lucky, and in a situation where you can. And when I think about the writers who I know who I’m close to, who I work with all the time, they all, there’s a huge part of them that is left over from when they were 12 or 13 or 14 that’s still completely intact. Really it’s unusual for you to find a writer that doesn’t have a huge part of themselves that’s still around in some form. I don’t know. It’s like a pleasure-oriented part of themselves.”" – Ira Glass
And hey, the man knows a LOT of great writers.

This was very delicately written to hit that nerve many of us (man or woman) are too aware of. Don’t mind the fools rambling about you needing to get over it or how it’s because you’re “a Western woman.” It’s sad for me to say and it’s horrifically trite, but you need to enjoy yourself before someone else can take precedence. It’s quite true, and people mistakenly ignore it and rush into a relationship that leaves them feeling devoid of a sense of self. They run, hurting someone in the process, because they never gave themselves a chance to exist as a single entity. Good for you. You’ll get there… or not. As long as you’re content, who can judge?

Wow…these thoughts are all too hauntingly familiar.  Just yesterday I realized that the reason I’m unhappy with the men I date is because I’m subconsciously comparing them to the one that I lost. Damn. 

#LOLIMUSINGHASHTAGSTOO

I. Love. This.  So raw and pure. I feel like this was written for me..

love you @kat_george. you have helped me work through so many of my own thoughts.

I absolutely love the poetry of this piece.

It’s funny but I think every reason that you, Kat, want NOT to be in love is the exact reason I WANT to be.  
Life is waves. Funny.

These are the self-impressed, self-indulgent writings of an emotional teenager, and not the deep and meaningful insights the author seems to think they are.

I am not surprised that quite a number of people liked (or were moved to tears, or whatever) by this; many people never become emotionally mature.

actually laughed out loud

Wow so deep, i’m sure this guy gives zero fucks if he’s hitting it

kat (: you’ve done it again. cheers. 

what writing isn’t juvenile? what the tumbling fuck? do you read ceqli? CAN you read?

 Shame on you, harmful.

Sometimes I worry about the unhealthy number of cliches which seem to awkwardly flutter around in the dark, inside that pretty head of yours. Smashing against the walls and each other, over & over, until you write your next TC article. But here i am like a dirty little crackhead loyally reading them.  as i had every lukewarm page of my sisters early highschool diary. I know this is damaging my brainthing. i know i’m robbing myself the time i could better spend writing haikus for sean penn or mid morning ballads to the hotdog i dropped on the pavement. i know if my family found out about this habit i would be shipped off with a copy of anna karenina  to be rehabilitated or possibly locked away forever. i just cant stop.  You win again, Ms George.

i wonder what the reaction would be if some guy wrote a piece about hooking up with some girl, and just telling her all this shit about how he loved her even though he was doing it just to fuck with her head so he could get sex anytime he wanted without the effort, and that girl turned out to be some writer for an internet blog, and then he went around showing his friends how ridiculous the pieces she writes about him are, and then it just got real graphic about the sex, then back to some more fucked up shit about the stuff he tells her… anything she wants to hear then maybe a little more sex

 philistines

 rnt u dead soc

I read Ceqli’s entire comment and determined it far more valuable and interesting than this rubbish you’ve thrown up here. 

the problem is she doesn’t want to get over it. she could though.

a woman’s sexual prime is more like 30-40.

so basically it is like flushing a piece of shit down the toilet.

it was as great as you’re making it out to be. if you are comparing someone to something and the person in the past was better, then that is that.

I’m filing this one under “white people problems”

Yes, non white people are too busy to be introspective about love…

I’d love to write this in Spanish, flows better.. Well, the thing is that eventhough I found it juvenille, this piece is something I can totally relate with. I don’t allow myslef forgetting my ex, who wasn’t the best guy in the world, but I don’t want to and I don’t know why! so odd, and I find myself loosing interest in the guy I’m dating since May, he’s a good guy, way to different in comparison with my ex, but there’s something I’m blocking that doesn’t let me appreciate it- him- Selfishness? have no idea what it is, can’t give it a name. I’m tiptoeing on the same feelings and thoughts. 

What exactly does being emotionally mature entail?
I never understand when people say things like “grow up”, “be mature”. Is being idealistic about love something you can grow out of? Would it be something you would want to grow out of?

I have met so many women who are exactly like this – especially the “you adore me too much” but it all rings true with modern single Western women at least between the ages of 25-35.  They all seem to feel this way.  Now write an article to get around this problem!  :)  Good stuff.

This is one woman voicing out her various persona, and ultimately speaks for half of all the women in the world.

you nailed and that’s exactly why therapy needs to be intensive for her.

Sounds like you are so far gone not only can you not love but you are a bitter wench. At least Kat has addressed a flaw she has. Your condescending energy will not only keep you from loving Yeahok but it will keep you from being loved.