oh, love.

Today, I realised that I don't think I've ever really loved a boy in my life.

Despite what I think I feel, what I'm convinced I feel and how I think I know what love is; despite my relationships and all the dramatics and pain and heartache that I've been through in the name of love, I really think I don't know anything about it at all.

If you love someone, or if you have ever loved someone, you would want to know how that person is doing. If he/she is well, if he/she is doing well in his/her career. You would want to be in touch with the person, because you genuinely care about the person and you give a shit about his/her life. Even if you are no longer in a relationship with the person, even if you no longer share the affection and intimacy you once shared, you would still care enough about the person to be his/her friend. But the very fact that I am not a believer in being friends with exes; and not only do I believe in it, but I find myself perfectly capable of shutting them out of my life, completely cutting them off and deleting all texts and emails and shoving all their gifts into some box without even feeling a twinge of heartache upon their sight- does this make me an unemotional, heartless bitch? Or does it just mean that I know not how to love?

But I find myself completely unable to stay in touch with exes without feeling annoyed, without feeling like they are trying to one-up me, without feeling resentful. And if I ever really loved them, little things like this shouldn't annoy me. Which just makes me think- maybe that funny little feeling I've been feeling isn't actually love. Is it possible to have been cheated by yourself based on what you think you know? I'm beginning to think that it is. I do not know how to love. I'm not talking about love per se because I definitely love my friends. I know if anyone of them died or something now I would be destroyed. But how much do I know of romantic love? Real, solid, I-want-to-marry-you kind of love?

Today I was talking to R about love, and ex-boyfriends, and there was something about the way she spoke, a softness in her eyes that told of someone who has loved and known love and understands the value of it. I understand the value of love. That much I know I do. Love is a wonderful feeling, of being loved not just in spite of but because of your imperfections, love is finding someone's annoying little habits irresistably adorable, love is a deep emotional connection that cannot be put into words. Love is... what people talk about, sing about, write great poems and plays about, but at the end of the day, love cannot be qualified.

Love is not quantifiable. And love is not qualifiable. It is not viable, it is not visible, it is not tangible. And I am someone who does not believe in anything which I cannot see (the only exception being God, but that's not counted because I can still see what He does for me, which has been nothing short of amazing in 20 years), which is why I find myself unable to work in a huge company where I am but a small gear in the system and I cannot see the tangible final product that my effort results in. It's not that I'm not a team player- I am perfectly capable of working in an SM team, but I am the kind of person who would like to see something at the end of the day that I can say I was directly part of. Which is why even before I found my calling in the world of theatre I wanted to write and I wanted to do publishings, because I could see a tangible final product- the article. This is why I enjoy staging and SM work and making props because I can actually see something, see the show which is something that I have produced out of my own two hands, whether it's calling cues or making a props that's on stage every single night. So I don't know how to love, when loving is based on absolute, blind faith. And I can have faith in God because he always come through. But man? Ha.

Compared to R's affection and wistfulness, when I spoke of my past, it was... dead. It was a dead part of my past that I really felt absolutely nothing, that I felt absolute indifference for. And it scared me. Do I really feel that little? And that shallowly?

Maybe it's the way I'm wired. Maybe I'm just the kind of girl who puts her past behind her and totally, fully, completely moves on.

Or maybe... I just really don't know how to love another human being.