Sunday, September 8, 2013

The Reality of Such Situations


"I've always thought that people need to feel good about themselves and I see my role as offering support to them, to provide some light along the way." ~Leo Buscaglia 

It is a curious thing, love. So easily does it lift one up and yet so harshly can it tear one down. It is what humans crave throughout their lives. Unknowing of the nature of our existence, we constantly look for someone whom we may call our love, our partner, our spouse and our best friend. 

One of the largest hot-spots for romance is a college campus. Incoming Freshmen students look at each other with big eyes and open hearts, now accessing a new part of the world in which they hope to find love. Mistakes are made and lessons are learned but hidden behind the curtain of such stereotypes are a few who look on each other and find what may be the most raw emotions of them all.

In my experience, I have found a good friend, a good lover and he is who I turn to when I need a hand. I love him greatly and spent an entire year with him but he has not returned to college to be with me. There is a distance between us and I can feel our relationship dying. Phone calls and web chatting can not replace what we had and in no way does it provide any sort of an equal substitute. So despite any sense of morality, I have turned my attention to a friend, who could not care less about me. Instead he loves another who would never return his affections. Such is the life of a teenager, yes?

He has told me so much and I have given him good advice. I have held when him when he has cried and tried my best to make it known that I am there for him, and that I am there more often than the girl he likes. Sometimes I think he sees me but then he is in my apartment fretting about the girl who would turn him down. It seems so much of my wisdom and energy is spent on trying to help those who look for love in the wrong places.

It is difficult for me to express any of this in words to my friends because, of course, I still have a boyfriend and I do in fact love him very much. Life has just begun to pull us in separate directions making our relationship strained. While love does have to be true, it also has to be accessible and while I am guilty for this, I believe I have found a more accessible arrangement. But such "arrangement" will never see me the way I wish he would. Instead, I will hold him when he cries, tell him what he needs to make him stronger and hope that maybe someday, it will click with him that I have been nothing but attentive to him.

Today, the girl he would love came to our apartment for she is friends with my roommates. My friend who likes her had been watching TV with us for a bit and I saw him freeze when she walked in. But she almost completely ignored him and talked about a guy she flirted with downtown. So, hurt and insecure, my friend came to me to talk. We talked and he laid on my bed, evidently more upset than his words could ever express. I rubbed his back and stroked his ego, telling him all the things that made him great. He pulled himself together, hugged me and went back into the living room to try once more to connect with the girl.

It's a tad painful in this situation, even though I am aware that I shouldn't be putting myself in this position anyway. To love someone and lift them up at any cost only to have them pine after another has to be one of the most painfully numbing things I have ever experienced. I'm at a loss for what to do so I suppose I will just whisper my secret to the internet and pretend that it is protected for if I uttered a word of this aloud, I fear the repercussions of rejection and judgement that would follow.

~E J Royson