I'm crazy.

Well, I have been thinking for a considerate amount of time about love. I never really thought that I would need to do this as I thought it was just a feeling that is obvious to the person feeling it. However, under the recent circumstances, my thoughts have drifted to this subject.

I do not think that there is one person for everyone, as I’ve often heard the term “soul-mate” used to describe. I feel that people can be quite happy with a multitude of other people; it just depends on when in our lives we meet. In many of the relationships that I have seen in my life, I have not seen love; I have seen lust, and that is completely different than what I’m looking for. Since we’ve grown beyond survival of the fittest, as many of the “un-fit” are still alive and well, love is about much more than sex to me. Now that I’ve established that, it is time sex left this writing.

In looking for love, I do not jump to conclusions very quickly at all. I knew Christine for a year and a half, spending all of that time getting to know her better, and it took me that long to come to terms with all of the feelings that I had developed for her. Unfortunately, she was already spoken for at the time so it was another ten months before she and started dating; all the while, my feelings were growing stronger and stronger, affecting many other aspects of my life. After we started dating, things finally felt like they were right in my life and I really did start enjoying everything more. We connected, I felt, on a much deeper level than anything I’ve ever experienced in my short life. But, I went into that relationship with the idea that she and I would be together for the rest of our days on this damned planet. I knew with certainty that I would never stop loving her. She became a part of me. A part that is now missing. My being desperately wishes for that part to return, but I’m becoming more and more aware of the fact that this is most likely never going to happen. This missing piece to who I am can never be replaced, I fear; she will hold it with her for the rest of her life and I will be left incomplete. Having experienced what I did with Christine, I feel that nothing can come close to comparing. I had found a person, in my mind that could fill that title that I thought was “soul-mate,” but I was mistaken it seems.

She found another man that makes her feel, without a doubt, is her true “soul-mate.” This information is exceptionally troubling for me. Having this knowledge forces me to reflect upon the fact that if this guy is her “soul-mate” then that means that I was “just enough” to get her attention. That I never fully received her love and was a placeholder until she found something better. I loved her for our differences, but apparently she needs someone who has those same interests; if I role-played, if I continuously read poetry then perhaps we would still be together. Those interests are the binding between the two of them. Knowing that, it brings me to question what it was exactly that was binding the two of us. Maybe it was my kind demeanor. Maybe it was her enthusiasm about whatever she was doing in her life. Whatever it was, it wasn’t enough.

Donna, what you said about “each relationship being better than the last” makes me want to slap you. Saying crap like that is exceedingly disrespectful to my feelings. If you were to leave Stephen for another guy, would that make the new relationship automatically better than the one you have now? I viewed my relationship with Christine as ending with the death of either of us. That is the only way that I would have ever wanted to lose her; not by her growing apart from me to be with a guy she knew for a month.

I cannot see myself loving another, so I am floating alone in a sea of dead fish. That is for all of the people that say the ignorant phrase: There are other fish in the sea. Relationships, in my eyes, require more than patience and bait.

I’m growing weary of this subject now…