351. Thoughts on Love Part 3

I suppose this is a continuation of these posts (warning: they aren’t very happy feeling):
Thoughts on Love
Thoughts on Love Part 2

I have loved a lot of people over the years.  A lot.  Well over 100.  I have been “in love” relatively few times… like 4.  In love requires reciprocation.

It took me a few years of having these feelings for me to sort through them all.  Which ones were “pure” with no motive of any kind.  Which ones were driven by my desires.  Which ones were driven by silly notions of being a “white knight” that would swoop in and save them.  I won’t try to say that any of these forms were better than others (but some were definitely worse).

What I made the mistake of early on was trying to figure out when I should act.  When I should share those feelings.  When I should keep them buried away from the world.  I was terrible at it.  Just awful.  It was like, opposite day.  Whatever I did was what I shouldn’t have done, and whatever I didn’t do, was what I should have done.

There is one thing that I learned to do through failures, mistakes, and heartbreak:  compartmentalize.  It was like having a filing cabinet for feelings.  If I started falling for someone, I created them a folder, stuffed it in there and filed it away.  I knew that if I didn’t, I would inevitably bare my heart and it would be broken… and they would be out of my life forever.  I knew that the friendships I had cultivated over the years would crumble if I stopped giving sound, honest, and unbiased advice.  I refused to be one of those pricks that did the, “break up with him, go out with me,” thing (not that that would have worked even had I tried it).

I believe I wrote about this in one of the other posts (they seem like ages ago), but eventually it became a matter of who could love me.  If they gave me enough hints, enough signs, and enough encouragement, I would grow tempted to retrieve the folder back out from the filing cabinet and let it fill my heart.  I was still terrible at reading the signs.

What became strange is that I still use this system.  It’s like when I meet someone and I feel my heart tug, I still create a folder and file it away.  It sits there, buried deep within me.  It usually takes a year before anything really grows, but I often created the folder much much earlier.  I don’t know why that is.  It’s like I see some inner beauty in someone that makes me go, “wow, this is a special woman,” and I file it away.  I don’t even know what the feelings are that I’m burying anymore.  I look for the same qualities in lovers as I do in friends.  It’s like the cabinet is labeled, “potential,” or something like that.  I use it to keep my feelings from growing unchecked.  I use it to keep from creating unpleasant situations.

It is strange as hell knowing that at any time there are 5 or 10 people that I could love.  Since this isn’t possible, I keep the cabinet buried away.  It’s safer that way.

I only open it when that love will be “in love.”

12 thoughts on “351. Thoughts on Love Part 3”

    1. Thank you, SG. I still don’t know how to gauge a woman’s interest in me. It helps being a sub in that regards. If she says something like, “I want to sit on your face,” I take that as a good sign.

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      2. To be fair the same would apply in the vanilla world lol face sitting takes intimacy especially for a vanilla woman (in my experience and that of my none kink friends)

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  2. I wish I could tempt you with a challenge not to file away these feelings, but I think this behaviour is too ingrained in you.

    If I could I’d advise you to take these folders out and examine each one clinically. And answer the following questions:

    Where does this person fit into my life right now?

    Are they a friend or, a potential partner?

    How can you tell friend from partner???

    A friend will chat and laugh with you, confide in you, value your opinion…

    A potential partner will do all the above AND touch you casually, look into your eyes longer, sit closer, they may confide less and blush more. They will probably flirt a little or a lot to guage your interest in them.

    When you have re-examined the files I would have you re-label the draws, friends, potential partners, and people no-longer in my life.

    Then the people who have been identified as potential partners… Show them how you feel 😏

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    1. Thank you, SwG. It is pretty ingrained. I mostly just see tings that draw me in.
      If there is any clarity I can see who feel an “older brotherly love” with in a purely caring and non-romantic way. They do not remain locked in the cabinet as they are not “potentials” at that point. In my early days, I didn’t differentiate this. My process has refined and matured.

      Beyond that, I keep it locked away as best I can. I feel that it is too dangerous not to.

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    1. Thank you. I do not have a file for myself. Most of my life was spent trying to be “great enough” to have others make a file with my name on it. When I failed to do that, I didn’t feel like I deserved my own.

      It was only a few weeks ago, while writing fiction of all things, where a character I was writing made a file with my name on it. It caused an interesting stir within me and it involved a lot of feelings that I was unaccustomed to having. I realized that I have established an equilibrium existence based around the idea that I didn’t deserve a file. I am still processing that at this time.

      Take care.

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