I’ll Always Be a Hopeless Romantic… and This Is Why
Over the last several years, I’ve realized that I’m always going to be a hopeless romantic. While both the physical and health benefits of sex are endlessly appealing — and I obviously capitalize on them, because, well, it’s me — for me, it predominantly lies in the love and passion that arises from a partnership of two people who care deeply for one another.
From falling in love (and the feeling of being in love), having that sense of commitment, and the security of a long-term relationship, it’s all very appealing to me. However, this doesn’t mean that I’m the type of person who experiences a constant need to be dating someone new, or who relentlessly seeks to tie down anyone who shows remote promise.
In fact, I’ve only been in a long-term relationship twice, and both with the same person. The man I’m dating now is the same boy I dated for just shy of seven months when I was nineteen. But more on that later.
For now, let’s go back to the beginning of my life, so that my penchant for romance starts to make more sense.
I’ve always been a hopeless romantic
From a young age, I was always fascinated by love stories. It wasn’t the idea of being a princess (many of my friends as a little girl wanted to be Disney princesses when they grew up), or marrying someone rich and suave, but rather, having that unshakeable bond with someone, a love that could conquer anything. It was the feeling of being in love, truly and unabashedly, that I craved. I think that’s why I’ve always been an LGBTQ2S+ ally; that deeply-rooted connection with someone else is something that I believe every single human should be entitled to.
Maybe it was this desire for love that left me single all through high school, never settling for someone for the sake of just getting those sexual milestones over and done with. My first long-term boyfriend came into my life as the result of venturing to date a co-worker at my summer job. While it was fun and exciting, and I undeniably had fallen in love, it wasn’t that storybook romance where both partners stood on equal ground. I was desperate, needy.
During this time, I learned how love and mental health do not necessarily go hand-in-hand — that is, just because I was in love, it didn’t mean that my delicate mental health was going to improve. As great as being in love is, it should never be someone else’s responsibility to ‘fix’ you emotionally; it’s not up to someone else, nor should you rely on anyone for that. When they cannot step up to the plate (mainly because no one can change you but yourself), you’ll feel needlessly let down. Instead, seek to empower yourself and advocate for bettering yourself for you, not for anyone else.
I once tried denying my romantic nature (and failed)
It was once that relationship eventually ended that I first questioned the practicality of my romantic nature. After allowing myself to get so wrapped up in someone’s life, only to have it all fall through, I didn’t think that it made sense to invest so much of my time and energy into someone again. I’d stick to watching porn, reading murder mysteries, and sexting over having meaningful conversations with potential partners. That’ll do the trick, right?
Except I couldn’t really find it in myself to follow through on these things. Porn got boring, murder mysteries just weren’t cutting it (although, in that time, I did find my now-favourite author, Chuck Palahniuk, and my favourite book, Invisible Monsters), and I felt that I was missing out on too many prospective romances. Not to mention the fact that every time I happened to hear a love story, I’d be all ears — including visits to my friend’s parents’ house, when I would casually ask, “Tell me how you guys met again,” trying my hardest to mask my eagerness to hear the story for the thousandth time.
Ultimately, I put myself into a self-induced dry spell that totally worked for me. Instead of focusing on a romance with someone else, I focused on building a long-term relationship with myself. I practised self-love, took myself on dates. Eventually, I acknowledged that the romantic me I always knew was inside, and it was time to let her do her thing once again. So, I wrote my dating profile and slowly started to put myself out there again, on a quest to find a connection that worked for me.
Falling in love comes easy to me, once I feel a deep connection
As I mentioned earlier, I have only been in a long-term relationship twice in my life (when I was nineteen and at this current moment in time), both with the same person. Long story made short, my ex-boyfriend and I reconnected after half a decade of not speaking to one another and, after a candid conversation, decided that we’d meet up just for casual sex. Within a mere couple of months of being in a friends with benefits relationship (while texting every day and even introducing him to my cousin visiting from Italy), it wasn’t long before I wanted to make things ‘official’ with him.
Maybe it was because I couldn’t help but fall again for someone I had been in love with before, or perhaps it was because it felt like we were having more meaningful, mindful sex, and that softened my heart to him. Maybe it was something else entirely, a ‘new’ version of me connecting with the ‘new’ version of him on a whole new level as adults, not overgrown children with issues still needing to be dealt with.
Regardless of the reason — reasons which I may never completely figure out — our friends with benefits relationship turned into something more and we made a commitment to start dating officially. I’ve finally allowed myself to embrace that feeling of being in love once again.
You’ll find the beauty in the little things
I love how that feeling of bliss comes so effortlessly when you’re in love. For me, it’s the simple things in a long-term relationship like waking up feeling your significant other lying next to you (and, let’s be frank, the slow and more appreciative morning sex that follows). Of the early morning light filtering through the curtains and washing over your faces as you gradually wake up to face the day.
It’s sharing a meal over a casual conversation about how your days have gone. What would have been something done hurriedly simply because your body needed to eat has turned into an hour or two spent together. Now, you’re cooking, dancing around the kitchen, and enjoying one another’s company as you savour the time as much as the flavours coating your tongue.
It’s stealing a moment on a Saturday afternoon to go for a drive, listening to them hum their favourite tunes as you look out the window and appreciate the beauty of the world around you. Or being cuddled up on the couch under a blanket while you flip through the TV channels to find something you both like (but typically ending up deciding to put on a movie you can both agree on, instead).
There are so many things to be appreciated, small conversations and actions that we often take for granted. However, these are the ways that couples can use to strengthen their sense of intimacy without turning to sex, to generally have a better relationship overall; so many of these joys come from the little things in life that we too often overlook.
“It’s better to have loved and lost…”
The truth is, not every relationship is going to last, even if it seems like it’s the definition of perfection in the early months of dating. The sad truth is that many marriages fail too, even when the couple initially seemed like a match made in heaven. While there are plenty of ways to keep the passion alive in a long-term relationship (for example, striving to go on frequent date nights, prioritizing one another, having better conversations, and asking the important questions before marriage), there’s only so much you can do when your partner is not equally invested to the commitment.
While you may experience the need to break up with someone you love, or have to get over a breakup that has happened to you, know that this isn’t the end of the road. While towards the end, you may not have seen eye-to-eye, there’s no point in regretting the relationship in its entirety. Like anything, it serves as a learning experience and teaches us what we want from future relationships, as well as clarifies what any of our relationship deal-breakers are.
As Alfred, Lord Tennyson once said: “‘Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.”
(I’d like to note that this is referencing relationships where both partners drift apart, or where the partnership ends due to a diminishment in effort and love, for whatever reasons. In no way am I condoning either toxic relationships, including abusive relationships that involve one or both partners physically or verbally harming one another.)
With a proclivity for romance and no qualms about commitment, falling in love — and the idea of a storybook happily-ever-after — is endlessly appealing to me. But while I’ll always be a hopeless romantic, I am also a firm believer that we should never disenchant ourselves to believe that toxic or abusive behaviour is okay, hoping that it will get better or in fear of bursting the bubble of (falsely perceived) ‘perfection.’
That said, I really do believe that there is someone for everyone, whether it’s a romantic partner we will have for the rest of our lives, someone we have loved and lost (in which case, the Right Person is on their way), or a platonic support system of unwavering love. At the end of the day, the goal is to be sex-positive and to avoid slut-shaming yourself and others, regardless of what your beliefs in love are; some people are not into the whole romance thing, and that’s totally okay! Everyone has a different perspective on things, and that’s what makes humankind so excitingly unique.
So, would you agree with these statements? Why or why not? Also, I’d love to know if you too, flourish within the feeling of being in love. Let us know in the comments below!
