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How do you know when you're in love?

The time I now know for certain I was in love, as opposed to crushing like a Transformer in a carpark, I remember feeling a paralysing amount of fear and adrenaline. A friend I really liked hanging out with kissed me out the of the blue when we were watching old cartoons from the 90s and I felt this superior dread, like that was it, we’d fucked it up, we’d ruined it, and I felt fear and some sort of illicit thrill all the time, and at the time I didn’t know what that agonising fear and dread and excitement was or why it was happening, and for maybe for a day after I was so scared of everything in the world that my heart would beat like a rabbit’s when it sees a fox.

Over about a week it sort of heightened to this incredible distilled desire and joy, in this neat arc upwards, and shortly after he asked me if I wanted to be together, as if it was that easy. I’d spent this entire teenagedom feeling like my libido was on fire but totally devoid of anyone hot to get off with and here was a guy who I’d initially avoided all the time because I thought he was way too cute to talk to. (I still do this a lot, I hate looking at pretty people.)

I remember wanting to touch him and taste him and kiss him all the time, like that act was checking to see if he was real. Maybe I just objectified him more than anyone else I’d ever seen. Most of the time we just sat around with no clothes on listening to music. I think he introduced me to The Smiths and The Mars Volta. Eventually I think we were together for about five years, and I don’t remember being miserable for any of it. 

I think about that initial fear a lot though, because I think it comes with the uncertainty of meeting your match. When I crush on someone it isn’t real, it’s infatuation, it’s this uneven, surging thing that is out of control, and it’s so powerful it can’t be returned, because it’s just me, it’s mostly me just reaching. Cruel people can use a crush against you, and this has happened often to me. But what crushes don’t have in the beginning is that fear. That fear that maybe they aren’t into you, or that it might suddenly disintegrate, even if that fear by rights should be there.

With love, in the beginning, the fog of war happens. Your entire world is halted. That’s different from a crush: a crush is certainty that you only later find out was unearned. A crush is all you. Other people can use a crush. But love is really fragile, it’s reticent, it’s a fear of crushing something delicate and intricate and valuable. You proceed cautiously, until you start to understand exactly how the leaves of the book unfold into something beautiful. It can be agonising at the same time as being exciting; love is like gulping down whole pints of water when you are thirsty only to need more the next day.

For me love seemed difficult but wasn’t really that hard at all. A crush never seems difficult, it’s just the ride upwards until the drop that you didn’t envision happens. Love is more like walking through pitch dark fearing for your life, and every so often another person’s voice washes the dark out, and for a short time, you can see the way ahead.

At least it was for me? I am not sure this is a universal experience. I have done a bad job of explaining myself, probably.

I think being hugged and kissed by my best friend, and laughing at our ridiculous in-jokes was my favourite thing about being in love. Living together was fun and interesting and never boring. We taught each other a lot of things. 

I hope that you are in love. I hope everyone gets to be in love, even if it is only once. It’s a nice thing.

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#VIDEO #GAMES #HYPETRAIN #ALLABOARD #TOOTTOOT #FATALITREE

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what is your quest?

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the sobbing woodsman

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"we value not the politics of man; we care only for wifi."