![\"couple](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/EbL8vInWsAE-Op3-Copy-696x405.jpg\" "\\"couple")
<\/div>\nI\u2019ve never been in love. Well, actually\u2026 that\u2019s kind of a lie. You see, I have never told anyone that I love them, romantically. It\u2019s something that I don\u2019t think you should say\u00a0until you really, truly, 100 percent mean it.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve told myself that I will know love when I see it. Meaning that when I\u2019m with someone that I love, I\u2019ll know it for sure without question.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve begun to think this is because there have previously been two men in my life that I thought I loved. On two separate occasions, roughly a year or so apart, I met two different men that I casually dated for an extended period of time.<\/p>\n
They gave me butterflies and made my heart tingle. After a while, I thought to myself, \u201cCould this be? Is this love I feel?\u201d There have been plenty of other men and romantic interests in my life, but those two stood out.<\/p>\n
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I was convinced that it was. But due to the nature of our casual relationships, I didn\u2019t tell them. Lying next to either of them in bed, I felt like I was home. They were home.<\/p>\n
I loved these guys, and at the time, I thought I could and would love them forever.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s the thing about love. Once you start really and truly loving someone, I don\u2019t think you ever stop.<\/p>\n
And when they left, I was shattered. I was\u00a0convinced that I had just let my soulmate slip away\u00a0and no one would ever make me feel that way again.<\/p>\n
But then eventually, each one of these guys did something truly terrible to me that I just couldn\u2019t forgive them for\u2026 and just like that, my \u201clove\u201d for them was gone.<\/p>\n
I felt so much hatred for both of these guys. I look back now and think, that couldn\u2019t have been love because I don\u2019t feel a goddamn thing for you now. And I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
I honestly do not give a single s*** about either of these men now, and I\u2019ve since cut them both out of my life.<\/p>\n
When you love someone, you get to know all of their quirks and flaws, and you eventually begin to love those too, because it\u2019s essentially what makes them, them.<\/p>\n
You see each other at your best and your worst, and it\u2019s both the highs and lows that bring you closer together. It\u2019s those moments that seal that bond.<\/p>\n
When you really love someone, they could break your heart and you still wouldn\u2019t hate them. You\u2019d still wait to see their name light up your phone and you\u2019d be ready to take them back in a heartbeat. And even if you had to leave the relationship for the better, your heart will still ache for them.<\/p>\n
Even seeing them so many years later, that spark might not be there anymore but you\u2019ll still feel something. You\u2019ll look them in the eye and remember\u00a0what it was like to love them because you won\u2019t have to try very hard.<\/p>\n
Even if it\u2019s no longer a romantic love, the love is still there. It doesn\u2019t go away just because you\u2019ve stopped seeing each other every day. It won\u2019t be the same intensity that it once was, but it\u2019ll still flicker there.<\/p>\n
I think a lot of us mistake feelings of lust and passion for love. I know I do. They\u2019re hardly indistinguishable, especially when you\u2019re looking at someone through rose-colored glasses.<\/p>\n
Because when you look at someone through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags, and you feel that lust and \u201clove\u201d simply because you want to feel it.<\/p>\n
When you think you\u2019re in love, you\u2019d be surprised how quickly you realize you\u2019re not in love. That first earth-shattering fight, and you immediately realize you don\u2019t care if it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re not in love anymore.\u00a0If you were, you\u2019d fight for them.<\/p>\n
The first time you hang around for one of their depressive episodes and you can\u2019t stand looking at them on the couch in the same sweats for the fifth day in a row, so you disappear as much as possible and hope they figure it out on their own.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re not in love. If you were, you\u2019d be there with them.<\/p>\n
Loving someone when things are rainbows and happy faces is the easiest part. It\u2019s when things get really s****y is when that makes loving someone hard.<\/p>\n
My point is that when you start loving someone, you don\u2019t stop. Not for the fights, not for the ugly sides of mental illness, not for the hairy situations you don\u2019t want to be in.<\/p>\n
And if you wake up one day and find that you no longer love someone that you thought you once did, really ask yourself if you ever did love them.<\/p>\n
So\u00a0no, I have never been in love. I have never uttered those three little words to anyone, nor have I had the privilege to hear them from someone else.<\/p>\n
But I think I\u2019m lucky to have experienced \u201clove\u201d in the way that I have, because one day, I\u2019m not going to miss it when it\u2019s right in front of my face.<\/p>\n
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