This post is dedicated to @omfedor who recently encouraged me to write something more uplifting and personal. He reminded me that being vulnerable is a good thing to do. I had gotten so involved with the Secret Writer project, that I think I was losing some valuable things, hiding my true self inside of strangers' secrets. I was and am living vicariously through other people's pain. I think I am a masochist. That's the driving force behind the Secret Writer project. It fulfills my need for pain, so the secret writers are not the only ones who benefit. Their pain feeds my need to re-experience pain. Their relief, too, I get to experience that as well. It's a good thing, for everyone, I guess.
And even if Steemit were to crash and burn, I'd still do the Secret Writer project. I was doing it for free on Medium even before Steemit existed. Some people go out into the world looking for huge amounts of pleasure. I did this, too. Now, I go out into the world looking for pain.
Many people have asked for my own secrets, so I'm going to reveal the one that broke me.
I'm one of those people who has decided to "opt out" of love for the time being. Like completely. It is no secret that I literally have not been touched in a romantic way for 7 years. I have never dealt with relationships very well, and the whole thing feels too uncomfortable. If I die alone, I feel that I will be okay. I am not terribly worried about such a possibility mainly because I have life missions which are calling me, which are beyond the scope of my own desires. Putting desires on hold is a practice of which I've gotten pretty good at. It's like I'm a nun, but I'm atheist, so I'm not sure how that works, an atheist nun? I've never been a fan of labels, actually, so even atheist doesn't work. I like mysteries, data, nature, art, technology. I like them all and could never choose just one.
So, here is my story of how my heart was broken and how I believe I have never loved this deeply again. Something changed, was hardened after this experience.
I’ve come to realize my experience with romantic love was manufactured from a deep desire to believe romantic love existed. I willed it into existence from the depths of my soul. I have a concrete example of this.
I fell in love very hard with an artist when I was 18 years old.
He was a painter who was three years older than I. He was from Los Angeles, I am from a small midwestern town in Missouri. His family was very hip and his mother was a travel agent whose clients were famous celebrities in Hollywood.
I met him in Tokyo, Japan, when I was an Elite model. He was an artist, very opinionated, witty and had an intensity about him. He was critical, unwavering and yet, he was extremely sensitive, highly emotional. He possessed something I didn’t: raw self-expression. I was jealous of his ability to express himself.
I was a closed-off, secretive person who was afraid of everything. He was the opposite of me.
One time, while we were exploring a Japanese village, we witnessed an old woman throwing down three screaming kittens to the ground.
It traumatized my lover and he ran away by himself, behind some trees, tears streaming down his face. I reacted with stoicism, as was my nature at the time. He couldn’t talk to me for a while, he was so upset by seeing the kittens abused. Sometimes, I felt he was tortured, or at least manufactured being tortured. I was completely overtaken by his emotions all the time. I listened to him with rapturous, hungry ears. I loved his free expression because I was shut off, shy and really didn’t know who I was. I felt like he was my teacher in art, expression and literature. He was always reading a book or two.
Our relationship was romantic, emotional and intellectual in nature. It had all 3 elements.
But we never had sex. We kissed and were intimate, but he respected my wishes to not engage in intercourse. I was a virgin at the time, and sex just seemed too problematic for me. I didn't want to get pregnant and I was ignorant about all the stuff associated with not getting pregnant. But he was the first man I let touch my breasts. That was a big deal to me. So, in many ways, I consider him to be my first love, the first person I let inside my secret worlds. He was the first person who made me feel alive in a creative aspect, who provided me with the answers I had been so much in search of with regard to self-expression and passion and art and creativity.
Even while I was with him, I could feel myself slipping.
I wanted his approval and I remember that his influence over me was powerful. I began to see the world through his tortured, artistic lenses. I felt his pain, pleasure and everything he experienced. My love for him was all-consuming as I had never met someone like him before. He was physically beautiful, too. He had blue eyes and a perfect face. I tried to hide my passion for him for I knew it was too much to be normal.
(he actually looks a lot like this actor)
My contract ended in Japan and we promised each other that we would meet in the USA.
We wrote feverish, ridiculously long letters to each other when we went back to the USA and we arranged future plane tickets and trips.
His letters to me were like his diaries from a secret world. They weren’t overly drippy with love confessions. They were more like his intimate thoughts about the world and what was going on in his mind. Oh, how I loved his curious mind! It was so strange and wonderful to have access to an unfiltered brain! And he could write. His style reminded me of Bukowski, as his wit was biting and his words were not clouded with flowery language.
Our letters continued for quite some time. And our passion was still there. But slowly, the letters became less frequent and after he visited me, being my high school prom date, where he wore a kilt and I wore a tuxedo, our correspondance dwindled.
Now here is where even I don't understand. I never wanted it to die. And I don't even know why it did.
I think I began to dread that he would lose interest in me. When his letters became less frequent, it disturbed me. The thought of him not being passionate about me drove me to insanity. I began to lose my grip on reality. And at this point, I began to shut down internally. The fear took over and I began to see that my feelings for him were not quite there in him for me. This was a terrible reality to face. I stopped eating.
Somewhere in my naive understanding of romantic love, I believed that the artist’s love for me was true.
It wasn’t. I don't think it was.
I have evidence. I think I was a dalliance, a muse. I was an eighteen year-old virgin from the midwest who knew very little of the world. He was jaded, from Los Angeles, in art school and regularly sculpted giant hands gripping giant penises (he showed me his masturbation sculpture later, which shocked the hell out of me.)
In my naive and disillusioned mind, I believed that at some time in the future we would be together. I held on to that passion for years, and it even influenced who I decided to lose my virginity with. I chose someone who looked like him, and who was a drunk poet. I didn't love the drunk poet, I still loved the artist, and the drunk poet was as close physically as I could get to the artist. I used the drunk poet to just get the whole virgin thing out of the way. I was around 21 years old and was tired of being a virgin. The experience was bad. He was drunk, and mumbling his shitty poetry.
Flash Forward to 2016
I looked up the artist thirty years later on Facebook and I think I may have written to him. I'm sure I wrote to him but I cannot remember what I said.
He wanted nothing to do with me.
The reality is as far as I can tell: I was his muse for a short time, that is all. He didn’t think of me in the same way I thought of him. I was a dalliance, a virgin. I was probably an oddity to him. He liked me, I think, but he didn’t like me the way I liked him. This was a sad memory to revisit. And the harder truth to admit to myself: I’ve never loved anyone again in the way I loved him.
I’ve never had sex with anyone I truly loved.
But now that I realize he didn’t love me in the way I had imagined in my 18 year-old brain, it’s really horrible. It’s like death and betrayal. It makes me realize I manufactured the entire experience.
This is the reality of romantic love. It’s not real. It doesn’t last. It’s painful because it’s in the process of ending. Always ending. It cannot be captured, realized or made real. It’s not real. It exists in the mind. It’s a phantom. A hallucination. It’s an idea. A painful idea that experienced usually within one person, not two. One light, going off in one mind. That's romantic love. Or in my case, one smoke bomb, going off in an empty field.
I recently looked through all his Facebook photos and discovered he was involved with a young student (she looked like she was in her early 20’s, he is at least 48). She was very beautiful. I was horrified. I realized he’s still trapped in the hunt for his next young and beautiful female muse. I was somehow expecting to find him with a wife, or maybe kids. Instead, I found him with a young girl, a pretty young thing, and she is someone who could have been myself, from 30 years ago.
I felt sick.
It was at that moment that I released all my memories of romantic love with him. The pedestal I once put him on collapsed before my eyes. I could see that he is a sham. In a flash of understanding, I realized my existence did not matter to this man. He is still falling in love with women a quarter of his age. This is not an attractive man. This sort of man is gross to me.
I have come to the conclusion that romantic love is a mental fabrication and that it possibly doesn't even exist in the modern technological era.
The development of romantic love depends upon two people’s ability to cultivate enormous amounts of passion for each other. In order to develop passion, there has to be obstacles to being together. Technology has obliterated the obstacles. You can reach anyone instantly, no matter where they live.
Romantic love and the cultivation of it require abstinence, longing, desire and an ethereal, ungraspable feeling of connection.
During episodes of romantic love, no one has to do mundane things like cooking dinner unless it’s an absurdly elaborate display of food, prepared for an object of desire. (A Chinese man once made me such a dinner and even though I understand the rapture of doing over-the-top things for a muse, I was a bit revolted by his effusive offerings at the time because I had not developed concepts of romantic love at that time).
Romantic Love has become a fast-food operation.
It will continue to become more like technological fast food in the coming years.
People will increasingly turn to technology to satisfy their every whim, and romantic love will be no exception. But let's just discuss how it is today.
Prepackaged gifts “from the heart” come from Walgreens, Hallmark, Tiffany’s and Hollywood. The “lover” gives nothing of his or her authentic self, but merely purchases a good which is then transferred to the current object of his or her desire. It’s a cold transaction. There’s absolutely no real passion in such a transference. There is the distinct possibility that a majority of adults have lost the self-knowledge required in order to express their authentic feelings of love. Being authentic and expressing real emotions has become passé in the modern age. Most people just buy something, or send a text. Most do what is the fastest, cheapest and the lowest denominator in value. Much like fast food. Also, people are treated like fast food meals, too. If someone has even the slightest thing wrong with them, they can be discarded instantly. People are so easy to access, that an app is utilized, and another person can be found instantly. People are on menus all over the app world.
As a matter of fact, romantic love is normally the initial phase in a relationship cycle...It's based on the illusion that you have found a very special person who will solve, here and now, a number of painful and burning issues that you carry with you since you were a child.... There are very sound studies to explain the "life cycle" of relationships, and the 4 possible "scripts" (which are called collusions) that we can play with our partner :-)
It's clear that I am stuck in the first phase. Thanks for that information, I really had no idea, to be honest.
It normally lasts two years, then things change :-) The good news is that after the "falling in love" stage, couples go through phases called counterdependence, independence, and (if all goes well) interdependence. Eventually, we accept that the other person is not a superhero, but possibly a good fit to our needs...
So, perhaps that experience was a stage, something to form my future with. But, the problem was the no other person since the artist has been able to evoke those burning sensations. It's like I can never go back to eating Sonic meals when I've tasted food from Spago.
There's plenty whales, dolphins, jellyfish and lobsters in the sea.
Perhaps you were so biased and focused by the past, that you've been missing the present and avoiding the future? The fun of hope and passion is that they can sprout in a moment's noticed, with a force that is disproportionate to 'normalcy'.
@stellabelle
We should be taught ....
The Ancient Greeks’ 6 Words for Love (And Why Knowing Them Can Change Your Life)
http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/the-ancient-greeks-6-words-for-love-and-why-knowing-them-can-change-your-life
Your writing style is awesome! Don't lose hope. What you describe at the end is 'love' in commercial society and hook-up culture, but it doesn't have to be that way at all.
When I finally met someone, our initial romantic phase was fine. It wasn't like I suddenly opted into this horrid system. There were obstacles at first because we had to do a long-distance relationship for a while, and busy work schedules, technical difficulties, and time zones got in the way. One of the most romantic things we did together was going to a farmer's market and then making a simple vegetable soup one day. And we never bought each other any of the bullshit gifts you mention. I decided not to celebrate Valentine's Day for that reason. I think it's stupid!
Thanks for sharing @stellabelle. I'm 45 and a grand parent.
I've been pretty picky about relationships my entire life and passed up most opportunities out of being picky.
Things in society annoyed me at an early age.
Seeing a friend who was nice, gentle, and intelligent and genuinely liked a girl be pushed aside for another friend who was a chauvinist, narcissist, ass, time and time again.
It made me seriously wonder why young women so often choose the assholes. Is there some biological wiring? Is it that "if they are an asshole they must be the alpha male, because no one is challenging them?"
That could be why I was approached often. I did not go out of my way to challenge people, but if I was challenged pretty much the challenger always quickly backed down (in hindsight I consider that lucky). So perhaps I gave off some of that Alpha male thing too. Yet I was oblivious to advances or not interested. I never wanted to be with someone that wasn't also a partner in mind, and exploration of the world. In fact that was far more important than looks. I was approached by some very beautiful and extremely shallow or stuck on themselves women. I didn't treat them harshly. I never have been that sort. I simply had indifference and they'd move onto the next person their eyes settled on. I was fine with this.
The alpha male didn't always have to be about being an asshole. It could also be the brooding intellectual. Is the person another Lord Byron, or Shelley? I did perhaps give off a little bit of this vibe, but that was not due to trying to cultivate an image. I viewed myself as a loner and didn't care if I fit in. Early I decided people would like me for who I am or I didn't really care if they did not.
Yes, perhaps a bit of a rebel in societies terms.
So what is my point? You describing your early youth and the type you were drawn to. He seemed a bit of the Byronesque type to me from your brief telling, and perhaps a bit of an asshole too. You see my friends that were assholes and had women throwing themselves at them were not always overt assholes. They were just shallow people, that truly didn't give a shit about other people, short of what interest they might hold for them at that moment. They would treat their "girl friends" like crap and a total lack of respect, and yet women threw themselves at them often.
I am older, over weight, and not like I once was. Back then these assholes often were where someone that cast their eyes on me would end up settling when I showed no interest.
My dalliances have been few but meaningful. By choice.
I respect you, I respect your mind.
If you find someone that you mutually respect, and that mutually respects you then go for it. You are correct it may not happen again, and if it does not that is not the end of the world (far from it). Yet please, leave yourself open to the possibility. Not everyone out there that would be a good fit for you is likely as narcissistic.
I did not detect that he was a narcissist. And he treated me very well when we had a relationship. It was like a dream. But yes, in some ways, he fit the over-the-top artist type who is suffering, or manufacturing suffering. When we lived in Japan and had our relationship, we were inseparable. It was quite like a dream. He treated me good always. He was very affectionate. I suppose I am too harsh to assume it was anything except a nice experience. I don't know why I brood and feel such passion for people. It must be some kind of defect actually. It certainly has not helped in the way of survival tactics. The emotions of humans are flawed to a great degree.....
Yes, my use of the term narcissist is a bit obscure here. I mainly meant someone who may not openly brag about their beauty or how great they are, but they may be a person that everything that happens around them really only matters as part of their show. It is a vague and really wiggly concept I am trying to describe, but I think you know what I mean. I think you referring to yourself as a Muse was one of the things that made me start thinking along this path. I think you were likely right. You indeed were a muse. Sometimes that can be a positive experience IF you are aware that is what you are bringing to the table. It can be quite a different experience (like yours) when you do not see that as what it is, and are thinking it is more.
Emotions are a useful tool at times. The challenge upon all of us is to not let them control us, and actually learning to tell when they are useful and when they are detrimental. That is a constant struggle I think. If it isn't in you, then I tell you it is something I am still continually learning and having new realizations about.
I used to have all kinds of dumb, attractive guys hit on me. I remember going out with a Dolph Lundgren sort of guy who was super hot. After I talked with him for like 10 minutes, I found myself bored out of my mind and on the verge of vomiting. Yeah, if a man is shallow, it doesn't work. Give me someone smart and has average looks any day over a model.
I was very selective in my youth and still am actually. As someone develops more intellectually in time, and goes through a lot of trials in life alone, a certain resilience is created. And given enough time, the person begins to feel whole. This has happened to me in life. At this stage, I guess relationships lose their immediacy because true independence has been achieved. A relationship just becomes a nice addition, not a central need. Being dependent on others has never been quite my cup of tea, though. Something about being needy and dependent, I believe leads to pain and disappointment, as per my experiences. Becoming solid, and independent, well, that feels like the correct path to be on because fear tends to scatter on such footpaths.
I am like you 100% here. I will tell you having children changed my life. It definitely changed my perspective because no longer could I 100% be an individual. My choices now had impact on other people's lives who depended upon me. It certainly changed me a lot when I became a father.
Prior to that I was pretty much fearless. After I had a child I finally understood fear.
I shouldn't say I was fearless. I felt fear. Yet I was attracted to it. I liked the rush of adrenaline that came with fear. So rather than avoiding things I feared I would be attracted to them.
So it is very possible becoming a father saved my life. :)
Wow. Please write about yourself more often :). Your passion and rememberances come out vividly through your phrasing. "Sometimes, I felt he was tortured, or at least manufactured being tortured." I love that phrase,,,,and "romantic love has become a fast food operation",,,lol,,,so true,,,,,,,and last, which is sad, is "I opt out". Look forward to more of your stories.
I refuse to be part of a cheapened system.
Understandable. The evolution of dating and love has been cheapened. Everything is in sound bites. You should opt out of that system. However, don't let that system win. Opt in to you. Love yourself and others will love you for you. We taste you everytime you write. I know I do. I didn't want this to sound corny, so I will stop. Somehow you will figure it all out, I feel.
corny is in short supply. So, lonely people, people who have opted out of society for a while, well, our ears are bleeding in the hopes that someone somewhere will say something to help heal us....
Wow, this was a full on read! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you for sharing. I really resonate with much of your personal findings on the matter of love, especially that of the romantic kind.
We are continually blasted with endless streams of rubbish that attempt to program the stages of love. Addiction has never been such a pandemic of the collective soul, where the force feeding of adrenalin, dopamine and serotonin antagonisers by the marketeers, sales teams and money men, amount to a hormonal hi-jacking from all angles.
yes, and 99% is just that: manufactured.
In the "Art of Happiness" the Dalai Lama calls this "maufactured", "self created suffering" Please listen to this audiobook ... I believe you will love it !
The Art of Happiness is a book by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, a psychiatrist who posed questions to the Dalai Lama. Cutler quotes the Dalai Lama at length, providing context and describing some details of the settings in which the interviews took place, as well as adding his own reflections on issues raised.
I think romantic love exist and it can last long. In modern world or in West, I agree, love has different form and meaning. But I also agree that heart gets broken if you let it to come to that. Thank you for sharing!
How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours. ~Wayne Dyer
I like that phrase! It's so true.
Thank you @stellabelle for sharing that and being so candid about it. I have never been through such an experience, but mostly because I opt out of serious romantic relationships pre-emptively. I know they are unlikely to end well. I have never tried online dating, but I worry where it's headed too.
What do you mean you opt out? Have you never opted in, ever? Have you never loved someone madly?
Thank you for this amazing post. It's a pain, encapsulated in words. Thank you for letting me see you without armor. I thought that you are a local celebrity. I thought that you are too proud, and intoxicated with success and wealth. But now I saw you as a person. Your pain is close to me. Because I know a lot of pain in my life. Your message touched my heart. So I'm writing this review. I feel your inner strength. You are able to rise above the pain and move on. Why? Because you are able to let go of your attachment.
When I love someone when I feel a strong admiration from contact with something, I feel like an invisible thread begins to tie me to that person or thing. And now, if a person starts to distance themselves, I feel that the thread tugs my heart. And I feel the pain because of this.
For me it's always a matter of life and death. I feel I can't live without love even for a moment. I don't understand at all why live if not to love. And often the honest answer is: because too much pain. I hope that I can love and be happy. I need to find an object that is not going to be changed by the world. It is difficult but possible. I sincerely wish you find true love and be happy. You are very brave and deserve to live, not burying your heart under the armor. Good luck and love!
"when I feel a strong admiration from contact with something, I feel like an invisible thread begins to tie me to that person or thing." I know exactly what you mean. No, I am not a celebrity or anything like that. On the contrary, I work hard, am a single mother and have a lot of responsibilities. I've been extremely poor, mostly starting when I became a single mother. I am in fact two people right now: breadwinner and mother. I have had to become these two roles and I am not going to lie, I am tired. I was never quite willing to sell my soul though to make a living and my illness of about 2 years ago taught me a lesson: I cannot exist within a greedy corporate environment and come out alive. My poverty of several years thrust me into desperation and in that desperation, I got a job selling Toyotas at a car dealership. That job relieved my financial worry, but I became ill, all the time. My health deteriorated while my pocketbook flourished. I ended up with pneumonia that lasted half a year. But what sealed it for me was when my child looked up at me one night after I did a 10 hour shift and said, "Mom, I don't even know who you are anymore. You're never here." I quit that car dealership job right after that.
I thank you again. You did not dismiss my comment. As if it was a hindrance. As annoying fly, which sticks to something big and nice. Thank you for taking the time to write your answer. The ability of sincere conversation attracts me very much.
I don't know your life in details, but I think, i feel your spirit. I think that you have intimate contact with your subconscious.
You are a very wise person, you try to find your own path among the many painful circumstances. That is a real power of your soul. You sincerely looking for an answers and one day you will find them. I hate liers. I hate cowards. And I see that you're not any one of them. Because you continue to fight. Many people will betray themselves, because they are afraid of unknown areas of their personality. I believe you will be happy and full of love.
And you will tell a wonderful story about it. To all of us.
Good luck!
Wow... I wound up at corporate and am currently in the middle of this experience. Not one of my favorites, as life experiences go.
This piece gave me a lot to think about and stayed my hand in commenting too soon. There's no denying your allegations, that society drowns in false preconceptions about what love is and what being in it means. The pedestal you built up for this person was built with your soul, even if it collapsed in a misguided misunderstanding of his intentions.
Your energy was part of that closed off duality with this one person. Look at the wondrous effect, your love. If the end cannot justify the means, then perhaps what he truly was is less important than the capacity you discovered in yourself to love and be loved, even if the latter was based on infatuation and objectifying you into a muse.
It's only by such understanding of yourself, your energy, which we call heart, that you could even see the duality of romantic love, and that there is an exit sign. There is love in spades, deeper than any romantic or familial love by itself. That we think we could label the most mysterious magic in the universe, categorize and order it to thus control it suggests that romanticism may never die in the universal mind.
Your sharing is a form of love, so thanks for teh energy
your reply is simply amazing.
This post breaks my heart. Not just because of your story, but because of your conclusion.
First you fell in love very hard and got hurt. And so now you put up a wall and "opt out" to keep yourself from getting hurt.
Your conclusion is just the flip side of the same dysfunctional coin. In your relationship, you had no boundaries. Now, you've decided to put up a wall. But what you need are healthy boundaries and healthy expectations of someone.
So, and this is a bit blunt, but I consider you a friend after reading your posts and will tell you exactly what I'd tell a friend: your conclusions are coming out of a wound, not the truth.
Here's how I can tell:
There's so much more to say, and I'm only able to guess at all these things because of your vulnerability and honesty and lucid prose. So here's what I'm going to conclude with: Read "Facing Love Addiction" by Pia Mellody. It will help you understand how your own childhood set you up for this unhealthy relationship, and how it is part of a very common and tragic relationship dance of the "love addict" and the "love avoider." It begins with infatuation and idealization, and ends in disillusionment and pain.
So here's my conclusion for you: Opt in.
Opt in to understanding yourself. Opt in to understanding the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships. Opt in to becoming a scientist of your own emotions. Opt in to taking responsibility for yourself in choosing him and getting caught up in him and losing sight of who you were. Opt in to growth and understanding and finding your own strength to love again--in a new, emotionally whole way--knowing that the only person who can ever really abandon you is YOU.
I say all this because I've been through it. And I made every evolutionary, logical, and technological argument there was against "romantic love" there is. Very persuasively. But it didn't make me any happier until I spent two years working on healing my own emotional wounds, and came out the other side with a happiness--and a relationship--I didn't think was even possible.
Hope this helps and makes sense.
Yes, you are correct. I self-identified as a love and fantasy addict in 2009 and I went to some meetings where I found people like myself. I wondering, how do I begin? What do I do? How can I heal by myself, is that even possible?
How does one heal a life lived? You do what you did then, and what you do right now, you continue to move through time, forward. Hopefully you get to pluck from the experience and time that flows around you, and find the answers we're all here in this river panning for ;)
Thank you for sharing. There's so much I want to say in response, but really I'd want to have a conversation. "The development of romantic love depends upon two people’s ability to cultivate enormous amounts of passion for each other. In order to develop passion, there has to be obstacles to being together... " - This line jumped out at me of all the rest. Is it true? I think there is a lot of truth in it, but yet...there is still something missing. I don't believe it to be absolute. I don't feel your particular pain, of course, but I have reached a space in my life that I am done as well (hence my Scotch blog). For me it wasn't a single moment, but a life long series of "not-quites" and "but only ifs." I had a lot of self-worth issues to fix, and I did all the work, and have come to a place where I've regained a confidence and self-trust I haven't had since early childhood. It's f*in amazing. In that though, and this last bout of "complicationship," I've realized either I'm cursed or the game is rigged, and I'm done playing the part that ends with me forgiving the ones who broke my heart because they couldn't help but not love me. I have a lot of answers, but not to that one particular question. Anyway, it seems that there are a lot of awesome women in the same boat, and I just wanted to metaphorically shake your hand and nod to you in understanding. Thanks again for sharing. <3 <3 <3
Underneath my story there is probably an unconscious desire to find out if anyone else is in a similar predicament. I too, understand what you mean, as the longer one is independent, the more one realizes that the meaning of life is not defined in terms of coupling. Love is a nice addition to a whole person. Vacillation is one of my key attributes though, as moods come and go. The morning brings about clarity and rational thoughts while the night brings its terrors and longings. I no longer chasing. Chasing feels like a waste of energy and time. Best to be like a rock and feel the water stream around me.
A Poseidan man if I ever saw one. My thinking is yes, love is a mental fabrication but it is also one to him. He lied to himself as much as to you. None of us really understand love or what we're doing. If he's going after 20 yr olds, he's seeking to relive the time he had with you, seeking to be young and in love like he was with you. He keeps reliving the only moment that mattered. Yeah, those letters seemed self-involved but that unfettered intimacy of the mind is something unique to first love, before we learn that self-censorship might make relationships easier, but never give that addictive feeling of knowing someone so intimately, connecting to something rarely shared, something in the raw. That moment mattered, he just could never grow up, or that is my interpretation anyway, an interpretation that would allow me to stand more comfortably in myself and my decision to love who I chose to love. Because who and how you love is more about you and very little about them, unless they're the one who stays. You have to protect the ones that stay with you, including your own Self.
I really enjoyed reading your story. You write really well. But I felt sad for how it turned out. I think it's really normal to be emotionally scarred after being burned like that. Rejection creates a fear of future rejection, feelings of unworthiness, insecurity, being unlovable. I know from personal experience. I struggled a lot with rejection and insecurity. I have gotten past the majority of it, thank goodness. I hope that you can work through these emotional scars so they will no longer hold you back. Real love does exist. I wasn't sure if you were saying that only "romantic" love doesn't exist, or if you were also meaning that real true persevering love does not exist. As @claudiop63 mentioned, "romantic" love is generally more of a phase in a relationship. The "honeymoon" period where everything is new, shiny, exciting. A good relationship that lasts beyond that, though, probably looks a little different. Hopefully there is still passion, but it may look a bit different. And any relationship goes through ups and downs. I have been married for 12 years now to @lukestokes. I love him to pieces and we have an amazing relationship. I really wish more people could experience what we have together. Unfortunately, it seems to be not so common. Being vulnerable with each other, loving one another unconditionally, and committing to work through issues even though it's hard--very important. Good relationships take a lot of hard work. Just the way it is. Maybe I'm rambling a bit, but maybe you'll find something useful in my ramblings. P.S. I also hate the pre-packaged / forced things as well. Luke and I don't feel obligated to buy each other gifts for Valentine's Day, birthdays, Christmas...... we'll give each other something every once in a while when it's truly from the heart. Every couple will find their own groove in this area.
"Being authentic and expressing real emotions has become passé in the modern age. Most people just buy something, or send a text. Most do what is the fastest, cheapest and the lowest denominator in value. Much like fast food." Sadly it is a big true now in the world we living... You could say it louder but not more clear :(
Aren't we all just Muses for men ?
You taught each other important things at the time . I am sure he loved you .
I am lucky in some ways that I fell in deep and mad love at least once and never fell out of it but we never worked things out . Our souls never left each other though. Those intense moments we spent together passionately will last a lifetime .
We both built our lives with other partners far away from each other . That's true LOVE ? Maybe. Eternal love for sure. We probably met once before on some planet and will meet again on another.
Our daughter is now 22 . She chose us .
The kind of love I search for is self love !
Love for our planet , causes and fellow sisters who need nurturing .
Reading most stories , I feel the "secret writer" is your baby and it will help so many giving a hand out of their cocoons. That's REAL LOVE worth to live for . 🍷
You're a great writer @stella-belle , smart and funny - don't give up!
Seriously, we need the smart people to breed more or we're all screwed ;)
I already bred.
Until that time, I thought that almost people on steemit are people of economic, practical mentality. Than I’ve found creative people. Today I read your publications. The first two were like fanfic which my teen daughter writes (but only more adults). But now, this is a very personal story. It’s not easy to share such information. Today you change my vision on steemit as a community of individuals rather than numbers. From all my heart I wish you to believe in people and wish you a good luck.
life is amazing @stellabelle !
life is a journey that is not only influenced by other people but ourselves too!! It's often a bumpy ride but I for one have always decided to see it through and deal with everything it can throw at me with the best of my abilities!! Relationships are complicated but ultimately this is a choice we can make, most of the time. Thank you for sharing.
big article but worth reading
I'm amazed. I'm honored. I'm touched. And I will write a response in the form of a post. A lot I want to say. And I'll definitely say it. To say thank you to say nothing. It's a miracle. It is magic.
We should be taught ....
The Ancient Greeks’ 6 Words for Love (And Why Knowing Them Can Change Your Life)
http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/the-ancient-greeks-6-words-for-love-and-why-knowing-them-can-change-your-life
May you be blessed with oodles of self compassion! Loved your story. I spent a long time not believing in love either, it'll be OK. It already is! :)
Pumping out the secret-writers today:) An old wise man once told me, Love is a misunderstanding between two idiots. What you think about that?
He was being like those people who haven't had success on steemit that complain about those who have
I doubt that, EVERYONE DONT GIVE 2 FKS ABOUT MONEY BUD SOME PEOPLE HAS MORE THAN THAT TO VALUE!
My success is not measured form the cash I make, it's measured form the lives I change for the better. I have plenty of published material that I put out for free and facts!
My love is not measured by old men either!
Do you source your .gif's or create them yourself?
Very rich.
I have emailed giphy an inquiry about using their gifs on my blog. I receieved one canned reply email, but nothing more. I am going to start making my own gifs, as well. I hope that giphy approves of me using their gifs. I read through their legal stuff, but couldn't quite understand it very well.
Can't agree with you more. Always so lovely and caring at first then turn sour after. That is life.
Reading your text I have realized that had not thought about the difficult thing that it can be in occasions for you does the " secret writer ", Because you engage with your works , and they are works about problems, pain and traumas of the people That can affect you personally.
After your history your also you will feel liberated.
So easy to start a relation but so difficulty to keep it up. I guess it's life.
That's not any easy thing to write about. While I mostly agree with you on the state of love in the world, i still hope you are wrong!
I think the idea of a relationship where both people love each other the same and unconditionally is partly inspired by all the love stories created over the ages. Stories like Romeo and Juliet are amazing, but should always be taken with a pinch of salt. Life doesn't work like that, people are mostly selfish creatures that don't really look around to see what they're doing. Maybe I'm just being cynical, because of all my bad experiences over my short life. It's just so much easier to lock your feelings away, than it is to love someone who doesn't love you back. Thank you for sharing a part of your great life story. :)
"Maybe I'm just being cynical,"
You see in the world what is inside of you.
"You see in the world what is inside of you."
I had to read that a couple of times , what a great quote. It makes so much sense !
@stellabelle , opening my eyes every day...
Nice story @stellabelle
Hi, how does secret-writer work?
You were an elite model? You should post pictures of yourself from back then :)
Amazing Story
Romantic Love died outside a gym
Stories of broken heart sells good. There are so many of us in the same boat ;-)
Thank you for sharing. A lot of us are in a great deal of pain so we are never truly alone. Just one big happy club of hurt people trying the best to make it all worthwhile
You didn't manufacture your feelings. They were real.
Things change people change, feelings change, perspectives change and give us the impression that we were mistaken. No, we weren't. At the time your feelings were as genuine and pure as is possible.
I don't know about his feelings and I am in no position to judge him. Or you.
I realize that greater love provokes greater pain and greater pain can result in drastic reactions.
Oh dear, I am getting nowhere with this crap :)
To cut it short. You are here and extremely alive. This is all that counts. Future is here for you to take it.
Thanks for sharing @stellabelle. I respect your courage for doing!
Is that Cillian Murphy? If so, WOW.
I loved reading your story. It was so real, and quite refreshing. Thank you for sharing with us.
Since you are the creater of secret-writer and you help others get relief from telling their secret or getting comments, has it helped you to tell us about your story and why you have opted-out @stellabelle?
I hope you dont lose hope of finding someone you can share your opinions with, who can add something to your life and accompany you. I do however know some women who are happy being single and dont need anyone to fulfill their lifes. So do you. Be yourself and accept yourself as you are. We all deserve some self-love. Thank you for sharing your story.
Oh, to be in love with an artist can be very harsh experience. Since emotions are their fuel, they can fastly get you really high, and then just leave you there, devastated like an empty stage of the rocket, not because they are especially cruel, but just cause they need a ton in a second to ceep flying.
No regrets for that, because every love/romantic experience is out of the comfort zone. It 's kinda like to put on eye lenses - scary for the first time, but then you see the world much clearer.
And I don't think that "being authentic and expressing real emotions" has gone somewhere: technology just gave a possibility to be heard and get an easy attention to the huge mass of people - so you hearing this cold useless noise a lot more, yet, we're all here in a digital space sharing a real stories and emotions - and you're one of us.
Technology is just a tool, like many others, but we are people, we are artists, we are lovers.
Love is painful, but if you feel pain - you are alive.
Romance...is a game. You play. You gamble. Take that Tiffany's necklace.
Loved this post stellabelle
Hello @stellabelle, I'm a man and I can't totally relate on how you exactly felt at that time but as a human being, we love because we were created to do so. Love is always paired with pain because if you won't feel the pain, it's not love at all. Loving somebody will brought so much expectations in return from the person you love and that's the problem with about love. The next time you fall in love, try not to expect too much from him. You mentioned you were jus 18 yrs old during that time and I have a good feeling that in your next time around it will be more fulfilling.
Well written and very thought provoking. Description of the various emotions experienced...........reality.
And now this is a hit post. My favorite post of yours. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this post. Its's about you and not others. I hope you still believe in love and romance. Maybe it was just the wrong people at the wrong time.
I wish I had seen this earlier. But, you may remember I have written extensively about this topic as well. Stayed unattached for 8 years because I wanted to learn how to do it right and studied. I'm still learning from someone I have fallen madly in love with. I'm older now (your age) and I started trying to figure it out a while ago. It made me focused on myself so much I forgot how to deal with a man's feelings. But he told me exactly what it's about and it's about trust and he told me that is what he needs from me. If there is doubt then what is the point? He's a good man planning on becoming a psychologist. He blows me away.