Dating : Love Never Looks the Way You Think it Will

Sometimes love is perfect. Love is a hand on your leg and a kiss on the top of your head as you go for a long drive. Love is chasing each other through a grocery store. Love is laughing so hard in the middle of sex that you have to stop for a minute to catch your breath. Love is making out on an airport escalator because you just can’t wait. Love is dancing to a Meghan Trainor song on your way to Denny’s late at night as cars fly by. Love is silly and nerdy and everything you never knew you needed. You never thought love would look that way.

Sometimes love isn’t enough. You want it to be. Oh God, you want it to be so bad. You’ve tried everything to make it enough, even ignoring bits and pieces of yourself along the way to try and make it work. But you can only compromise yourself for so long before it all falls apart. The pieces of this particular puzzle just don’t fit the way they should. You never thought love would look that way.

Sometimes love isn’t love. You want it to be. It looks kind of like love for a minute. You want it to be love because it’s comfortable. You want it to be love because it fits. If you break it apart, it’s definitely there. You know you love that elbow and the top of his head. When you put it all together though, it’s not quite love. Sometimes it’s anxiety, or excitement, or trauma bonding. Sometimes it doesn’t quite have a definition, but it’s still something; something great. Maybe the biggest problem is it looks like it’s supposed to. And love never does that.