Love and Fear

I haven't had much experience of relationships. Not 'proper' relationships - the ones you think of when you say you're 'in a relationship' with someone. The reasons are many and complicated (but I guess that's the way with most things). Sometimes I worry that I've lost the ability to love - I've just spent too much time being single.

Sure, I have my fair share of friends - good friends who I care for deeply - but whenever I get close to someone when I'm not completetely certain of my feelings it seems that I start doubting that things will work out. I become afraid that when I'm out with this person it will feel like a lie; that things will inevitably end in a short time, and that I will have been responsible for allowing someone to come close to me and develop emotions for me - love, even - that are bound to be shattered, resulting in pain and distress. And what right do I have to take that risk?

But what is the alternative? Some take a pragmatic approach to this issue. Love is imperfect - a functional thing rather than something mysterious. Relationships are needed for emotional well-being; for company, and as a support in times of hardship. My view is different. Love - true love - is something that one can never hope to explain in practical terms. I may not have had experience of relationships, but I have had experience of love; of thunderbolts and of the world standing still. And if a feeling doesn't live up to this, is it really love?

So I wait for my thunderbolt. But my confidence is shaken.

I'm not saying that love can't be something that develops over time. I think I've had experience of that as well. But somehow that form of dependence seems weaker than the thunderbolts. It seems 'less'.

I don't like having regrets, but part of me wishes that I had been in more relationships when I was younger. Maybe when we are teens, it is easier to drop into relationships and not think of the consequences; not to have fears or concerns for yourself or for the other member of the partnership. And then to realise that this is just a part of what it is to share in a relationship with someone, and not to be scared any more. Perhaps I just need to grow up.