Here’s Why You’ve Never Been In Love Before
Sometimes I wonder if I loved too hard in the past and that I kind of just used it all up, like a tank of gas.
By 
Mary McMahon
You’ve never experienced the kind of love that moves mountains, the kind that changes your life, the kind that cannot be understood by anyone except for the person you share it with. You have never really been in love before and it makes you question the idea of whether or not love will even exist for you in the future.
You question every single feeling that you have ever had for another person, because at this point in your love, you’re not sure if you’ve ever come close to loving or being loved by anyone at all.
You find that you never quite liked them too much anyway, as soon as they drift away. That spark, that excitement, that glow that you had when you were younger, or when you were with a different person, beamed far brighter than when you fell for this person, and the person after that, and yet again, etcetera, etcetera. The little things when you are first beginning to know someone don’t excite you as much anymore, because they are things that should happen. It all becomes so routine with date after date, question after question, person after person, fade away after fade away. The expectations just suck the fun out of it all, don’t they?
After being in and out of a variety of relationships over the course of the last ten years, I honestly don’t know if I have ever felt it – true, deep love. Sure, the feelings were there. Sure, I had envisioned a supposed future with them, even if it just meant grabbing drinks in the next week. Sure, the devastation of the relationship ending hit hard (or sometimes it didn’t). Sure, the general empathy for another person was there, but I have the age-old question of “What is love?” staring me in the face.
Perhaps it’s because I have not been in love in a very long time. The very thought of falling so deeply for another person just seems so distant to me, even though it is something I do want so badly in the long run. And while I consider myself someone that falls hard and fast, it is so strange to think that I could ever fall in love as deeply as some of my friends and family members have with their significant others.
Or maybe I haven’t loved before and it was just intense emotion poured into another person until it completely exhausted me time and time again. I am jaded. I am jaded and I am just hoping recharge while I think about all of the lessons I have learned so that I can give all my love to someone who is worth it.
Someone I once knew had told me that they believed that no one was ever too young to fall in love because when you love someone or something, it is the most love you have ever felt before. And perhaps I have felt love before, but it’s become a pattern of buildup, climax, and downfall. And I’m left picking up the pieces of what you left of the relationship. Trying to glue, tape, and hold together my heart.
Your heart is a gluey, taped up mess, but you still push on because you still believe that love is real and it exists. You can think about the last time you met someone and how they made you feel. Were you excited, were you apathetic, were you constantly comparing them to other people and other feelings you had felt in the past? Do you tend to feel like you are just sticking your hand in a bowl of folded up pieces of paper with names on them, waiting to pick one that might turn out to be “good enough”? Were you just adding on more tape and glue hoping that maybe someone can make your heart whole again?
You know you have never actually been in love when you take a step back from when you are talking to someone or entering a new relationship, and wonder if this is how it’s supposed to feel like. You think that something is missing. You make excuses for why you have this feeling and just piece together your reasons for why this person is perfect. Sometimes you step back from when you decide to end it with them and wonder if you really felt anything at all. Isn’t this supposed to hurt more than it does now? Shouldn’t I care more?
Sometimes you wonder if life would just be easier if you had settled with the first person you deemed “good enough,” but I don’t think that’s fair for you or the other person. I don’t think that dating someone for the sake of being lonely, getting laid, or just deeming them “good enough” is a solid good use of your time, because what is going to end up of a relationship if there isn’t truly, groundbreaking, mountain-moving love behind it? Is it worth it to settle with someone in which you wonder if this is as good as it’s going to get? Is it worth it to be with someone if you’re questioning whether or not there is a greater love waiting for you? Maybe that’s why you’ve never been in love. Maybe you’re just waiting to move mountains. 
