I rather hate being in love.
This is mostly at this particular moment, when the bitter part of the bitter/sweet paradigm comes into play.
Fuuuuuuuuck. I very much dislike going through most of the downsides of this emotion without experiencing the things that make it really worthwhile.
Actually that's only mostly true. Small things still count. Things that can be put firmly in the realm of friends and not misinterpreted.
Small actions, words, stuff like that. Inconsequential really. Yet when I look back at them in my memory, I shudder in want and affection and disgust towards myself. And I pretend it isn't taking place on the surface. I'm very good at pretending, no doubt about that, probably the best in the surrounding several miles at least, but I've been doing it for so long now. I get weary.
And it just gets harder the longer I do it. I'm getting worse all the time. I can go through the instances in retrospect where my facade slips just slightly and I express a fraction more affection than would theoretically be socially appropriate for a friend. They're increasing as the months go on, and the degree of the slips is getting worse.
It's ... the emotion I'm suppressing and internally screaming at myself to not feel/let show is unequivocally good from most perspectives. Affection, caring, excessive fretting over her condition, unnecessary devotion, enjoyment of her company... you can't outright say that those are bad, harmful things, and most people would likely call them good on their moral scales. But they fucking hurt from lack of reciprocation - not even really that, actually; the fact that I'll never be able to receive what I feel for her back to me obviously sucks, but it's more that I can't even safely express it. It feels like I'm a garbage bag with stuffed animal dolls shoved into it until the seals are straining and ready to explode. Sometimes it even translates into the physical and my heart - the actual organ, not metaphor - literally feels like it's going to leap out of my chest. Physical ache.
Probably has to do with how secret I'm keeping this. Only other person that knows is a relative of mine who knows me so well she knew I was in love before I did. Everyone else got no damn clue and I have to keep it that way but when it gets too much I just want to shout my lungs out and let everyone know what I feel. But that's not gonna happen, my walls of self-control are too thick. I mean, I got drunk as shit for the first time tonight and not once did I even come close to confessing. Didn't even let it get to my lips, let alone past them. I'm sure there's going to be situations in the future that test my resolve far more thoughrouly than that, but there aren't many.
It affects almost every aspect of my life too, which is the worst part of it. I can't listen to much if any music because almost every fucking song is a love song and my brain is all too eager to interpret those cases that could be argued as a maybe as a yes. Work sucks because her and I work at the same place except now we're on different shifts so all I can really do with my mind while I go on autopilot is pine for the times when I actually fucking had fun at that place which is now so bitter to my mind. Every place I go I can recall having been to with her and the memory stings me. Going on social media is obviously a slow drag over a fire because I can constantly see her portrait just tempting me to go say something really fuckijg stupid. Even a lot of the food I eat nowadays I started eating on her recommendation, and from time to time I realize that and lose all my appetite. Only two things really have any freedom from her influence, I think. One is forums like these, which I mostly hang around the fictional sections on because if I go to the real life segments you get sprawling rants like this. In the myriad worlds others and I create and inhabit I can escape the unfortunate reality I'm in for scant hours. The other thing is karate, in which I can really just hone my mind down to a sharp blade focused solely on one task, that of physical self-improvement. When I'm training, all that matters is perfecting the moves I need to practice, to push myself to do just one more burpee or keep the form of my jumping jacks perfect or get better snap on the punches - I'm merely an instrument slowly getting closer to perfection rather than an unfortunate fool stuck in an unrequited love that he can't get out of or relieve by expressing to anyone because telling anyone at all would blow the cover of it because it'd spill to people little by little and she knows so many people she'd find out inevitably and then I don't fucking know what the fukcing fuck would happen. Would she hate me for ingratiating myself so thoughrouly with her despite feeling the way I do? Would she feel the surprised and confused pity I've postulated I'd likely feel were our situations reversed? Would she not care?
The possibility that frightens me the most is that she might reciprocate. It's the most infentisimal possibility there is, but it's there, even if only in the most far-flung depths of theory.
But if she did ... she loves someone else already. Has for three times longer than I've even known her. And that infinitesimally theoretical reciprocation would tear that love deeply, possibly even break it. What fucking right do I have to even contemplate indirectly damaging something like that? To want for that to happen?
Because I do. I shun it with all my conscious and as much of my unconscious mind as I'm able to but in the back of my mind I know there's a part of me that wants for that to happen so I can be with her, even though that's not really how it would play out at all. That part of me disgusts me to even contemplate but I can't suppress that faint shudder of want when I contemplate the possibility.
It's the trouble with emotions like these. They feel so damn fucking good when they work that they blind you to the negative repercussions of things.
Why couldn't I have just not fallen in love with her? That's actually a fucking stupid-ass rhetorical question, I know exactly why the seeds of infatuation got planted as readily as they did. I met her approximately at the time when my infatuation for another girl was fading away, creating room for opportunity. I had no friends at the time and through talking at work that expanded to talking outside of work she went and hung out with me with no real preamble. I was befuddled, I hadn't actually gone and interacted with a friend outside of work or school for about 4 years at that point. So I was blindsided by what I now see was just the friendliness she possesses but perceived as ... I don't know what I perceived it as. I just know that I appreciated it immensely and the process of falling for her started from there, just as I was resolving to not go through that shit again. But how could I not? There's ... it's ... I couldn't not. Even in hindsight I don't see any way for me to have become friends with her and not fallen for her behind completely unpredictable variables.
Feels good to vent. Even though it ain't gonna fix it at all, it'll prevent me from punching my own self-esteem any lower into the dirt.
In case you guys couldn't tell, Xantalos got drunk tonight and because of the minor slip in his mental discipline that resulted from that is now spewing forth a wave of repressed feels. It's an unfortunate process, and I'm sorry y'all had to witness it.