I Hate Myself When I’m In Love And Here’s Why

Numerous scientific studies confirm that, at family gatherings, it is completely impossible to avoid questions about your unbelievably fascinating love life. As if our tastes in beaus were the most interesting thing about us. No worries: you can loathe those questions as much as you want, but you’ll always find yourself in the middle of an endless interrogatory, and no matter what you try to say, your response will never be appropriate enough.

When they ask me, I usually answer with something among the lines of “I don’t really need a man to be happy” and that’s not entirely fake news. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that happiness comes from the inside and that looking for a person to make you happy is a complete waste of time. But I mainly keep my answer that short because being completely honest would take me hours to explain something I can’t find the right words for, and it would probably hurt a lot too. How frustrating is it, when you can’t even say it out loud?

Even if you knew me personally, you’d have little idea of what I’m talking about, because that’s typical of me. Despite being quite outgoing and talkative, I don’t really like to talk about my personal problems out loud. I cope with my inner self by giving all my attention to anyone around me, because it’s easier than dealing with the feeble voices I have stuck in my head. That’s my distraction. That’s how I avoid myself and how I put my thoughts on pause most of the time. However, every now and then you simply need to sit down and listen to yourself: free your mind and feel your heart. As a professional overthinker I assure you there’s no way to keep your thoughts from floating and expanding: the more you push it away the more they come back.

I’ve recently realized that I love the idea of love, but I don’t really like myself when I’m in love. It’s not really my thing. I don’t like to believe that the love is gone, I do have faith in it, I still trust that the “L” word will find its way back to me and I want it to: only not right now.

Most of all, I hate the way I behave when I’m in love. I hate how I put someone else first, before anyone, including me. I hate how I vanish and become less than nothing to fulfill their needs. I hate how I throw myself at their feet, without even asking for anything in return.

I hate how I don’t respect myself.

I am genuinely afraid of the person I become when I’m in love because I fall fast, and I fall hard, blindly. And I despise that I’m not able to be as selfish as I need to be. Because when I’m in love, I live for somebody that is not me, and that’s not what love is about. Also (and this is the golden key to my broken love life), I hate how I consider myself unworthy of being loved. After all, why would you love someone like me, whispers the tiny voice in the corner of my conscience.

I hate that this fear prevents me from trying. I’ve raised unreachable walls to lock any person of interest out, and at the smallest crack, I run away, to keep my shield from breaking apart. I feel like I’m damaged goods, I’m broken, I don’t function.

Because if you love as much as I do, you’ll never be full again, you’ll leave pieces of your heart here and there, carelessly.

As a control freak, I guess that’s the daunting part of it. It’s like getting lost in the woods at night when it’s dark and scary, there’s no one out there and you can’t find the way out. I stay away from love, out of reach and out of touch, because I’m scared to death. I hold off anyone because I don’t want to get lost and fall head over heels, all over again. I know it sounds immature, and it seems like I’m burying my head in the sand, and I surely am. I’m at an impasse and I’m complaining about a problem instead of solving it with my own hands. I know it all. But keep in mind Rome wasn’t built in a day, it’s gonna be a long journey. And right now, it is okay for me to wait as long as I need to.

As cliché as it may sound, I like to believe that the right time will come, and when it does, I’ll let myself go.