The Man You Love vs The Man You Should Love

The man you know you should love, he’s looking at you now from the across the bar adoringly while he orders your favourite gin and tonic. He’s kind and he loves all the things about yourself you don’t. He wipes your eyes when you cry, even though he doesn’t understand why you do. This is the man you know you should love. He tenderly asks how your day was and he listens when you reply.

You know it should be him. He’s everything you thought you wanted and needed in a man, except for the fact that he isn’t him.

His touch doesn’t command your pulse to race. You don’t wait up until 3am wondering if he’s going to call, knowing he almost definitely has forgotten.
He doesn’t show up to your party drunk and embarrass you. But for some reason it’s him you need. You wonder if your heart will pound and your voice ever waver as it did when you were with him.

Him. Him. Him.

He’s addictive; he’s the caffeine you crave when you wake up in the morning and the Pinot you reach for at the end of a long day. Sometimes the coffee may be bitter and often the Pinot is warm, so why do you desperately crave him when there’s a reliable can of diet coke in the fridge.

It’s because my dear, you are addicted to rush and the drama that an intoxicating all consuming romance can bring. When he’s all you thought about and all you needed, when he was factored into every thought that passed.

You knew it was bad, you knew.

Everyone around you told you to stop, to find a nice guy who will treat you properly, to find a guy who won’t let you down or cause you so much pain.

Maybe you considered it for a while but ultimately nothing can fill the chasm he made in your life when he left you. You convince yourself that the pain is definitely worth the way he was able to make you feel when he chose to. He made you feel like you were something new, exciting, he made you rediscover yourself, he pushed you and tested you and finally- he broke you.

Letting the intoxicating substance leave your body and accepting the finality that the supply has been cut is the hardest part. Will your words escape you suddenly the way they did whenever you saw him? Will you ever succumb to the feeling you got when his hand touched the small of your back, the feeling that weakened your whole body-that wilted you?

You worry, panic, and try to reverse the withdrawal. You know it’s bad for you but you’re so blinded you don’t care, you can’t stop the craving.

The man you know you should love looks up at you and asks if everything is okay, did he get the right gin? He could always change it, he says.

His warm eyes look at you for the love and adoration you realise your eyes commanded from him. You assure him you’re fine, happy in fact and remember this is the man you should love. Even if you do eventually cram the chasm he left in your heart with romantic evenings, lazy afternoons, times spent laughing together at trashy tv shows, there will always be moments where this man looks at you and knows you’re still hoping for the feeling you got when you were engulfed by him.

You’re still hoping that the chasm will be filled, will heal or that another tragedy of a love affair will rush in and consume and distract you for a short while.

The reality is that he is gone, for whatever reason and you know you have to learn to allow your pulse to be commanded by someone new. Yes. You may never feel the way you did when you did with when you were with him, but maybe you needed to be broken so that the right person could help put you back together and make you stronger person who deserves the love he could never offer you.