Why Do We Fall In Love With The Ones Who Hurt Us The Most?

In my lifetime, I am confident to say that I have fallen in love twice, and both stories ended the same way. Both guys had similarities such as being from the same primary and secondary schools, had good looks, or at least that was my definition of “good looking”, had lots of female attention, including mine, and last but not least, they broke my heart.

I fell in love at a very young age. You must be thinking that how can anyone at the age of 12 know what love is. Well, I knew that was love because it took me 5 years to get over this guy, my first love. We knew each other when we were 10. We fought a lot when we saw each other, we could never get along and we never hesitated to get the other into trouble. 2 years passed and things changed. Many would say it was puppy love, young kids are starting to notice about the opposite gender and feelings of alienation change to fondness. The “bullying” still continued but the motive was different, more like to attract the other’s attention. He did it very well because I fell for it. Mobile phones were not readily available at that time during our age and it was fun, seeing him making the effort to call me secretly, walk me out after our lessons, joining the same activities together so that we could spend time with each other in discreet. As much as I wished for it to be a ‘happily ever after’, along came a tall, tanned and very pretty girl, who happened to be one of my closest friends at that time, managed to capture his heart and that was the end of us. My heart broke and I cried frequently to sleep, dreaming that he would return one day. 4 years later, they broke up and time was not our side as I met someone new, someone that reminded me so much of him.

I enrolled in college and I met someone who was very much like me, who was fun and was very charming. He was a guy who could talk. He had a tongue that could talk his way to a girl’s heart. He had eyes that could mesmerize someone just by making eye contact. He could sing and serenade one with the guitar. He was smart and he knew how to play with feelings. I was aware of how he was like as a person but I still wanted to be with him. However, he was attached when I first knew him so time was not on our side.

A year later, they broke up. It took me a couple of months later to tell him how I felt. I remembered it being scary because it was my first time telling a boy how I felt about him. I recall after writing him an old-school letter, his reaction was broadcasted with a tweet, as he thought it was an April Fool’s joke. Well, I did not blame him for that because I did send it a couple of days before 1st April 2012. At that time, I realized that he did not share the same feelings as I did for him. Who could blame him as he had just broken up a couple of months before but I was indeed heartbroken because I thought we had a connection. Days later, he contacted me and asked me out. We started dating and it happened.

Sadly, good things always come to an end for me. He thought my intuition for cheating was not strong enough for me to pick up that something amiss. He was seeing another girl and texting her behind my back. The same thing was happening all over again, just that this time, I was older and I was more emotional than the last time. I cried myself to sleep every night for months, and I could comprehend the reason for me to feel like this again and again.

Falling in love taught me a lot. However, it made me think and question myself why I let myself go through the same cycle twice, knowing that it brought me so much pain the first time. After much thought, I found the answer to my question – why do we fall in love with the ones who tend to hurt us the most? Well, I realized that I can never run away from the fact that I am constantly seeking for that love and that perfectly imperfect relationship that has blinded me from coming clean with myself that love is not what I thought it was. Falling in love and being loved by someone is much more than just being patient, kind and forgiving. No, I am not implying that one should blame himself or herself for everything that has gone wrong in the relationship. I am saying that I keep falling in love with the people that are not right for me and vice versa. Perhaps the first lesson was not hurtful enough for me to learn much from it. However, the second time round, it taught me that I let these guys hurt me. I was vulnerable to hurt which should not have been the case. I need to first find myself and know myself so that I can prevent all these from happening, then I’m ready to fall in love and to be loved by my other half. Only then, I have truly know who and what I want in a relationship and be contented with myself and not demand so much from the other.