Devastating Love
DEVASTATING LOVE
It had been more than two months since Rafael and I had started seeing each other. Do you know how long it had been since I’d dated someone for that long? We first met on 16 February. I remember mostly cause I didn’t wanna be cliché, appear desperate and ask him out on Valentine’s Day.
Then we met, and after I saw his smile, I didn’t care much about seeming desperate anymore. I have to admit, it wasn’t the best first date I’d ever been on. Mostly cause it had been months since I’d been on a proper date and I felt anxious. He was anxious too, but, as he repeatedly told me, that was normal for him – unlike me. With every awkward silence, I felt as though I were making a fool of myself, and I was certain he’d eventually stand up and leave. But he didn’t. In fact, after dinner, he suggested going for a walk. I gotta admit, the town he lives in is quite a nice place for a midnight stroll. It’s also a nice place for a first kiss. Any doubts I had about the date not going well quickly disappeared. Wow.
Meeting him again after that night was a no-brainer. In fact, it was all I could do to remain focused on my daily routine without becoming completely distracted by the thought of when we’d meet again.
A Smile, a Sunset and a Plane Ticket
Finally, the time for our second date arrived. We went to this gorgeous spot by the cliffs and enjoyed one of the best sunsets of my life, all while munching on a platter he had prepared for the two of us. Then the stars lit up the sky, and everything felt perfect as we lay beside each other.
Our third date was a rushed dinner after work. We were chatting – the awkward silences now considerably less awkward, though still frequent – when I told him all about my upcoming plans to visit Jordan. In the heat of the moment, I asked him whether he’d join me, to which he said yes. The following weeks were fraught with anxiety as I realised I had jumped the gun and that going on a two-week holiday with someone I had only just met might be completely insane. Would we be compatible? Would he be a decent travelling companion? Would this make us or break us?
The trip, as I have now written about in far too much detail, was a blast. By the end of it, Rafael came away feeling as though we were a solid couple. And I don’t blame him for feeling that way. During that one trip, he completed his first multi-day trek, visited a desert for the first time, learnt how to dive and had his first taste of canyoning. So many firsts on just one adventure!
Anyone could fall in love with someone who introduced them to all those experiences and opened up their world to such adventures – at least, I probably would have.
An AI-Assisted Text
But did I feel the same? Throughout our trip, we barely had the time or energy to dedicate to each other as a couple. There was little intimacy, and despite being together for two weeks on end, it felt as though we were operating on two different wavelengths. I loved sharing Jordan with him, but more and more, I felt like his travelling companion rather than his partner.
He was an amazing travelling companion, granted, but it didn’t feel as though he could be more than that. There wasn’t one dramatic moment when I realised something was missing. It was far more subtle than that. We could spend hours talking about the trail ahead, the next dive or where we were going the following morning, but whenever the conversation turned towards us, it seemed to lose momentum. Even the silences felt different from the ones I wanted in a relationship. They weren’t uncomfortable anymore, but they never became truly intimate either.
Some evenings, after spending the entire day trekking, diving or rushing between places, we would finally find ourselves alone in our hotel room. Those should have been the moments when we turned towards each other. Instead, I often found myself wanting to shower, write my notes and fall asleep. It wasn’t that I disliked being close to him. The desire simply didn’t arise naturally, and the fact that I kept noticing its absence eventually became impossible to ignore.
By the time we came home, I knew I would have to break things off with him. If spending two whole weeks together hadn’t made me feel something stronger, nothing else would – or at least, that was what I thought. Having to repay my debts to my colleagues after they had covered my shifts, I would be working for three weeks in a row without a single day of respite. I wanted to end things face-to-face, but at that point, I realised I might as well do it as soon as possible rather than continue leading him on.
Call me a jackass, but I also had very little time to compose a proper message that would honour whatever it was we had shared. And so… I asked ChatGPT to generate the sweetest break-up text possible. To my credit, I did edit it and give it a more personal touch. To ChatGPT’s credit, it didn’t need much editing. Crazy the world we’re living in…
Extraordinary Love
His reply was not unexpected. He told me that it had come completely out of the blue and that we should at least try to make things work. By then, however, I had made up my mind.
You see, as much of a realist as I am, my idea of love isn’t realistic at all. I grew up watching all these soaps and romcoms, and they shaped my understanding of love permanently and irrevocably. No matter how much I date, how many relationships I have or how many experiences I share with people I come to love, my definition of it hasn’t changed one bit.
My definition of love was captured perfectly by something Olivia Pope once said during an intense scene in Scandal: “I don’t want normal and easy and simple. I want painful, difficult, devastating, life-changing, extraordinary love.”
It was a line that had resonated with me from the moment I heard it. And I know. I know it sounds completely illogical, insane and crazy. Who wouldn’t want normal and easy and simple? Who wouldn’t want to be showered with affection and made to feel like the centre of someone’s universe? I felt that with Rafael. We might’ve spent only a couple of months dating, but he did make me feel that way.
But… it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t what I was after. Perhaps my idea of love was flawed and dysfunctional, but I couldn’t help it. Deep in my gut, I knew that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted painful, difficult, devastating, life-changing, extraordinary love. The kind that breaks you, destroys you and then somehow rebuilds you. I wanted more.
Chasing True Love
Breaking things off with Rafael meant I could finally continue looking for what I hadn’t found with him.
Even though what had been missing before him was still missing while I was with him, his absence felt like lifting the lid off a boiling pot. All those feelings came rushing back in a wave. As happy and fulfilled as I felt on my own, I had been craving the kind of love I’d seen in films and fairy tales all along. To find ‘the one’, to fall in love at first sight and to live happily ever after.
All the people I had dated, all the relationships I had been in and all the experiences I had shared with people I’d come to love… I thought they had taught me to become more of a realist – to accept love in whatever form it might take. But deep down, despite all the progress I thought I had made, I always knew that doing so would feel like settling for something less.
For the first time in my life, I allowed myself to let go of my pride and admit that I wanted that kind of love – the kind promised by films and fairy tales. As unrealistic and childish as that might be, it was the kind of love I wanted. And until I could actually feel it, I wasn’t willing to settle.