a personal piece on love

Written by Lizzie

What is love?

I love to love but I do not think I know what it is but I am sure love is not a fan of me. I love romantic movies, I love seeing videos of people in love and I do listen to love songs a lot. But I do all this from a distance. There was this post I saw the other day when mindlessly scrolling about how love is beautiful when you experience it from afar, and I resonated with that greatly as I thought of these two men.

Maurice

This was probably the first man that made me realize that I had been receiving breadcrumbs from other men. I met Maurice during my first week on campus. At that time I was obsessed with this white blazer that everyone kept making fun of how it looked like a lab coat but nothing would have stopped me from wearing it and of course, when I met Maurice I was wearing it. He had been late on admission and thus lacked class notes and requested if he could borrow mine. We exchanged contacts and we did not talk until the week after as he thought I had an eventful weekend that he did not want to interrupt me. This would be the start of a love that I did not think I would ever experience. It was not romantic love but it was the purest form of love I had ever experienced, the best friend one the ‘bro’ one.

He would buy me things, solve my problems, play with me, love my jokes as much as I loved his, listen to his playlists, talk till 3am, spend quality time. It was beautiful. We went to class together, gallivant together, cooked together and even lived together and yet I had my own place. But he was my home. That phrase about a home not being a place but a person, yeah.

All was well until Maurice started dating. I loved the girl for him. I gave him time to spend with his girlfriend and that’s how we started to fall apart. I tried to mend our broken pieces but at some point I got tired because I could not keep on stitching us together when he was actively tearing us apart. I recall there was this time we met and talked for hours and he promised we could meet again after two days. On the said day, I called him twice and texted him ignoring me. If it had been my other friends I would have given up then, but I did not. I kept on calling him with him not picking up. It has been almost three years since we talked 6-7 months apart and, sadly, we are reduced to hi, how was your day to a response such as ‘good’ or ‘nice’ and yet at some point in our lives a response to how was your day involved three paragraphs, a couple of voice notes, pictures and sometimes even videos.

The other day he made a joke of how I should slow down for him to catch up and that he will run after me till we are fifty this should be good, right? But I kept on running because there was nothing to stay back for, I lit the fire, but he kept on adding fuel until there were just ashes left and I could not start again.

Masher

When I said that Maurice started dating I did not mention that I also started dating Masher. I met this guy in 2014, and we have been friends since then, I had a crush on him and I dated him after high school which did not work out but then meeting him again on campus it felt like it was our second try and for sure it was. Ladies and gentleman, I was in love. I loved him the whole of him. We had our bad days for sure but we knew how to put those days behind us. Probably our problem-solving technique was what broke us. We would give each other space and go back without apologizing or talking about it. For me, it was a strain because I am a communicator, you do well, I congratulate you, you do badly, and I reprimand you. With time, I realized that love was not enough and we broke up. Initiating a breakup does not mean it will be easy for you because I loved him almost three years post-breakup and even as I write this I won’t lie and say that there is a day that goes by and he does not cross my thoughts. I faked that I was no longer in love until I made it so that when I talked to him and he told me about other girls I do not get that knot in my throat that I used to get. I see Masher once in a while and every time I realize how much easier it is to love him from a distance, where I do not know what is happening in his life and from a point where I do not want him to reciprocate my love. My love for him is not as intense as it was, but it is still there when you look closely at the ash of what used to be us.

I have experienced most probably the variable types of love; romantic and plutonic. I have never been the chosen one, a maybe, probably and sometimes definitely but never the one.