Where are you?

Are you out there? Have I met you? Did we miss each other? I’m sorry I couldn’t hold eye contact. I was scared. It was too much for me, each second escalating so sharply in intensity that I had to let go, as if I was holding a scorching iron. I’ve never found anyone that I could trust to hold my eye contact and handle it with care. I’ve never gotten to see if what’s on the other side is worth the risk. Would you walk with me for a moment? Could we cross the chasm together?

I know I seem a bit austere. I’ve become increasingly entrenched over the years of singleness, always clenching my fists and holding on a little longer. Other people have come along before you, so I’ve had to get really good at saying no. No to six-year, self-destructive relationships, no to masochistic, emotional hookups, no to one-night-stands and everything in between. I never could embrace any of them. It’s not that I’m some sort of bastion of moral fortitude — it’s that at my core, I’d know I was choosing a knock-off, that I was only doing it because I was lonely, because I never found anyone to love me so I had to settle for the next best thing. 

I do sometimes worry all those “no’s” have made me too rigid, that I’m so unpracticed at opening up and chilling the fuck out that you’ll pass me by. At the same time, I worry that the few “yes’s” I’ve said — none of which were reciprocated —have made me too timid.  I experienced each rejection as a heavy defeat, leaving me discouraged and cautious. There were a few occasions I thought that could be you across the room, but I didn’t have any fight left. I didn’t go talk to you.

I’m overthinking things, right? I know I’m probably getting so many things wrong. I know my “hold out” mentality is kind of intense and may even freak you out. It puts a lot of pressure on things, and I’ll probably look back and think I made this much heavier than it needed to be. I know I may be projecting, falling in love with the idea of a girl, rather than the real thing; I’ve done it before. (I’m in therapy, so hopefully I won’t do it again.) I know that my perspective is like that of a child’s— earnest and untainted by cynicism (which is good), but ultimately naive and inexperienced. I’m longing for something I know nothing about, like a kid wishes to be an adult.

Yet for all my intensity and possible projection and certain naivety, I have to be honest—I do believe in love. I’m aching for you. I feel your absence. I’m looking for you, longing for you, thinking of you. I dream of you, write of you, photograph for you. If I could write a love song, I would, but instead I write longing photographs.

I don’t know you; I know, I know. But I know love is worth holding out for. LOVE love, genuine intimacy and depth and quiet loyalty. Passing unspoken glances and lasting, well-seasoned laughter. Unconditional, ‘till-death-do-us-part love.

Writing about love in such lofty terms might seem idealistic or even naive, but there’s a reason every culture since the dawn of man has memorialized its pursuit in word, song, painting, and every other medium at our disposal regardless of time, race, place, religion or orientation. The wisdom of a thousand generations suggests nothing is more invaluable, more fulfilling, more worthwhile, more transcendent. No one has ever offered a viable alternative for meaning or purpose. Love is supremely important for both personal fulfillment and the greater good. It’s everything. And while romantic love isn’t the only way love manifests, it is the pinnacle.

I know things won’t be perfect. It’s so easy to slowly grow apart without realizing it, like two ships setting course just degrees apart. With enough time, you find yourselves in different oceans, leagues apart, and married to an entirely different person than the one you first chose. We’ll have to be vigilant, constantly course correcting. And if there is ever a moment — perhaps in two years, perhaps in twenty — when we look at each other and realize that neither of us signed up for this, that we’ve found ourselves married to a stranger, we have to promise each other that we’ll start again. Promise that we’ll find our way back to each other. Will you remake us with me? Year after year?

It’s not that I have some misguided belief in love for the sake of ideals; it’s that the alternatives are bullshit. Seriously, who wants one more transactional relationship? Who wants to find someone who will bail if you lose your job, lose your health, text back too quickly or don’t text back quickly enough? If you’re playing the game, you’re already losing. Love is the only option worth trying, even if it means starting over and over again.

Until then, I long for you. Trying not to project; trying not to lose hope. Trying not to be naive; trying not to be cynical. Trying to be vulnerable; trying to guard my heart. Trying to put myself out there; trying to be patient. Trying to trust my gut; trying to listen to advice. Trying and longing.

Trying…and believing. I do believe. In love, in God, even in you and me. I believe that something so difficult is still worth undertaking. I believe that being naive doesn’t make me wrong. I believe that one day you’ll lean against the doorframe and whisper through the door, “I love you; when my thoughts drift off, they drift to you.” I’ll open the door, safe to cry, to feel, to hold heart-pounding eye contact for minute after minute without burning, prepared to start an exhilarating walk for two through the gauntlet — frightening and euphoric and precarious as it is — a poignant, life-long risk for something that matters. You have my devotion.