I Don’t Want Love, Just Something Kind Of Like It

I’ve been in love three times. Three different kinds of love that have made me the person I am today. There’s been the aching love, the sleepless love; the hopeless, poetic, unavailable love that comes from a teenage heart that doesn’t know the rules.

There’s the serious love; the love that overcomes secrets and lies and broken hearts. It’s the protective love, the dangerous love, the love that leaves you crying alone at a bus stop at 3am while the world continues to exist around you.

There the consistent love, the long term love; love that withstands annoying habits, messy clothes and a shared bed. The love where you think this must be it, the real thing. The love that makes you feel like a grown up because it no longer sets your heart on fire, but when you look at that person you can see yourself getting old with them.

I used to believe that love was forever, I blame Disney for that one.

You see, time goes on and we never stop evolving. Each day we change just enough that a year from now, we might not even be close to the person we are today. I think what we don’t realise is; as easy as it can be to love someone, it’s just as easy to grow out of love with them, it’s just less accepted. Sometimes love is made for twenty years, sometimes only two months but it doesn’t make it an any lesser love when you’re in the moment. There’s often the assumption that if you say you love someone, then you’re expected to love them forever but forever is a very, very long time. It took me three years being with someone I had grown out of love with to realise it’s actually OK to stop.

Maybe I just haven’t met the right person who’s capable of evolving with me. Who’s able to withstand my constant personality shifts and who allows me to change my mind as much as I change my underwear, but for now I’m fine with that. Some people can go their whole lives never feeling loved, and I’m lucky enough to have experienced it three times.

I still want to feel my heart race again and I still want to go insane with infatuation. I still want long kisses and hours between the sheets. I still want dinner dates and whole days spent in bed watching Netflix and I still want that person I can text at one in the morning just because I’m bored. But right now I don’t want expectation and I don’t want responsibility. I don’t want love, just something kind of like it. I’m not afraid to throw myself in 100% but when that fire burns out, I want to be free to walk away. I’m not scared of love and never will be, but for now I’m happy to fight against the system.