I don’t know what it feels like to be loved. That may sound strange, and hard to believe, but the context I am using it in makes perfect sense to me.
I have had people tell me they love me, and I have people show me they love me; what I haven’t had is someone ever try to profess their love to me, I haven’t had somebody try to prove their love to me the way I have always done for the person that I loved.
People can tell you that you don’t have to prove to anybody that you love them, but in truth this isn’t entirely true. Love is something that requires expression in order to be received, and when you take the expression out of love … there’s no way of truthfully knowing whether or not it’s real. Without proof, how do you know whether or not it only consists of nothing but empty words and promises? Love requires a lot more than simply saying: “I love you too.”
I say this because I am a lover – the kind of girl who will give all of me to that one special person, using every day as another chance to make them feel just how much I love and care about them. I give them 100%, and should I not be able to, I make sure they know that this won’t be for long. But … I’ve never had the same thing. I’ve never had somebody write me a poem or a love letter, I’ve never had anybody admit to me that they loved me and wanted to be with me. No one has bought me flowers for the sake of brightening my day, and no one has ever called just to hear my voice. The many men who approached me in the past never uttered those sacred words to me, and the men in the present haven’t either. It makes me wonder sometimes why it is that I must always chase after the man I want to be with, and why he isn’t at least looking over his shoulder to see if I’m keeping up.
Maybe I’m just desperate for affection; maybe I’m just being selfish. All I know is that every time I feel like I may have found the one, my admiration either isn’t enough or it simply isn’t returned. I have to make the relationship happen and I have to make it work. I alone have to make sure that he feels special, wanted, important, worthy – I don’t get the same in thing in return. All of the compliments and admiration I get refer only to my dedication in making him feel amazing, and feel wanted.
I want to know what that feels like.
I hate to say this as an egalitarian, but I sometimes hate feeling like the “man” in the relationship. I’m not saying however that it’s up to the man to make the woman feel special and it’s solely his job to pursue her, that isn’t it at all. But I am often left feeling like I am the protector, the provider, the pursuer, the one that has to be emotionally strong to the point of numbing my own feelings to make sure my lover feels safe and loved. I don’t believe it’s his job alone, but at the very least I would love for him to be equal with me: protect me when I’m scared, provide for me when I can’t, pursue me for once instead of waiting for me to do it all! I will happily protect, provide, and pursue a man with all of my will so why is it so damn hard for him to do the same thing? Why can’t he at least give me half of the effort I put forth for him?
I would like to feel as though I can be vulnerable, but I have hardened myself for so long in order to protect myself that I no longer know how. No one has ever protected me or made me feel safe, and no one has ever made me feel completely worthy or un-judged. I’ve never felt safe enough with a person to show them that is behind the learned survival behavior. There is another part of me that they have never seen. Behind the strong, bubbly girl there is a delicate lover that just wants to sink into your form and give you every last bit of trust and adoration that she has. So few people know who I am completely; they only know what I’ve let them see.
I hope one day that these feelings will either fade and I will come to accept my circumstances or that someone can prove me wrong, because right now, as I quietly yearn after a man, I feel it happening all over again. The lover desperate for love chasing a man to give her all she has, while he is more than happy to accept it, he isn’t willing to give it back.
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