In theory, I, for lack of a better word, love a good love story. Sadly, when reality kicks in and someone profoundly and emotionally professes their love for me I tend to do one of two things, 1. say “Thank you”, 2. Run away. Either way, I’m an asshole.

The truth is, I love, love. I think its beautiful, its fun and its terrifying in every single way. But sometimes it can be like a ferris wheel, let me explain. It looks so exciting and pretty from far away, then the closer you get you realize, holy balls, this is actually a big deal, but you’re feeling tough so you stand in line and wait for your turn and when you’re finally on the ride you’re excited, you’re taking photos, laughing, your hair is blowing in the wind, you look good and then you get scared again as it gets to the top but it calms down and you start to feel safe and then ultimately, you start to feel bored.

Please note that I said, sometimes, I believe in extraordinary loves that can last for as long as you want them too but the catch is, you and your partner both need to want it just as bad. You both need to want to keep falling in love over and over again or else you’re going to get off the ride and only think about the money you lost, time you wasted and that you kind of want to throw up. No? Thats just me? Ok… Awkward.. Lets just move on.

I’ve been single most my life, because as a friend once put it “Amvia, you’re a lone wolf” which is kind of true, I’m comfortable with myself, but I also have nothing against being with someone else, I just have to feel it in my gut or it wont happen. I have been in love once, you know who you are, your friends who read this will know who you are and even my family will know who you are, but for the sake of this post we’re going to call you, Matt Damon. Now, Matt and I got on great from the start, It felt like I had known him my whole life and although we were together for 8 months but only in love for 7 of them, I knew I was in love with him within the first 8 minutes. The reason I knew was because it wasn’t difficult to love him and I never lost myself in us. Now, don’t get me wrong, things weren’t always sunshine, well, actually they mostly were. Sorry guys, I’ve got to be honest! Although, I used to watch dramatic movies and I would want him to fight for me, even though I wasn’t going anywhere… In the movies it looked so good though! So I would pretend to be angry and be all “yeah okay goodnight” at like 7PM and wait for him to text me again. It was childish and dumb BUT one time it went my way because I realized I was being dumb so I apologized, which led to the most lovely text (how 2012 of him) telling me he was in love with me. Now, being the asshole I am, as I said above, I did say “thank you” and then I proceeded to tell him it didn’t count unless it was in person. What can I say, I’m a class act.

Loving him was easy, breaking up was easy, but staying broken up was hard. I knew we were done about a month before we broke up, but I am stubborn. I’m sure some of you have experienced this, when a guy wants to break up with you but doesn’t actually want to do it, so instead he starts acting like a jerk to try to get you to break up with him? Yeah, nice play bro, but I had no shame, I was going to make him break up with me if he wanted it over. When he finally did it was over text, the same way he said he loved me, kind of weird how it all comes full circle. I wanted to be friends, he said he couldn’t and I was so mad, like how dare you break up with me and say we can’t be friends? I’m an awesome friend, he knows this now by the way, I was clearly not very sensitive to his feelings. But eventually I understood and I respected it.. kind of.. I still stayed friends with all of his friends which didn’t help, but come on, I grew to really care about them, still do till this day and I didn’t lose any sleep over it.

Almost 2 years after we broke up he messaged me, drunkenly, but still counts, and was ready to finally be friends again. Till this day I love when I get to talk to Matt and share dumb internet memes with him, but I’ll be honest, it’s a whole lot easier to stay broken up when you live hundreds of miles away. The weirdest thing was, I didn’t even notice for so long that I was comparing people to him, did I feel as safe with his person? Did he make me laugh as hard? Would he hold me close when I told him that I’m afraid of ghosts? That ones hard to find by the way, most people just make of me, but whatever, if you don’t believe in ghosts we’re not going to be friends, thats just a fact. Face it. Finally, when I stopped comparing people, I started meeting really incredible people and my life just felt so much less stress.

The thing about love is it comes when you least expect it and it comes in the form of friendship, family, a pet or a significant other, you just need to have an open enough mind to recognize when its right in front of you. I hope you have the love you deserve in your life right now and I’d love to hear any stories or comments you have regarding your first love! Sharing is caring.

xx your gal, AL