I want to fall in love

Over and over again… Do you remember that sweet feeling of intensely falling for someone? When we are young, it’s easy to fall in love. We can spend days thinking about someone and occupy our minds with little things they did or said. We imagine this person to be perfect in every way and everything just feels so right. We catch ourselves staring at pictures, dreaming up things, being giddy and acting differently. Or we pretend to not care in order to not appear too eager. I can safely bet that most of us have experienced some form of this feeling in our lifetimes. For a fortunate few, this feeling lasts and leads to a happily ever after. For many others, things don’t work out and instead we may be left feeling hurt, rejected and vulnerable. Eventually these sad feelings fade away and we move on and meet someone else. This time around, we are a bit more careful to not fall so hard. If faced with disappointment, we are now prepared to protect ourselves and not get hurt. As this cycle continues and we meet more people, it becomes easier and easier to control our feelings. We learn to date multiple people at the same time and have sex without getting too attached. We make our lives busy, so we don’t have to form meaningful relationships and distance ourselves at the first sign of feeling too much affection towards someone. Overtime, we master these skills and feel on top of our game. While these strategies do work, it’s a pity because they also prevent us from experiencing those intense feelings of falling madly for someone. By limiting our pain, we also limit the possibilities of pleasure our minds and bodies are capable of because the two go together. We are capable of falling in love many times over the course of our lives but very few people we meet will spark that special feeling in us. So when you do encounter those moments, feel them as intensely as possible and make yourself vulnerable despite the possibility that you may get hurt. It’s much better than learning to not feel at all.