David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

romance

For some of us, loss of trust is a deep existential threat to heart

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I can’t sleep tonight. There’s no physical cause. I just can’t stop myself from reliving an old hurt over and over again.

It’s not something that matters anymore. That’s why it’s so frustrating. It involves someone who’s not in my life anymore and who I don’t even want in my life. But I can’t stop feeling an awful stabbing at my heart with a pain that feels just like a physical hurt.

For years, I assumed everybody felt this way, but I slowly figured out that I have something that’s like an emotional disability — another long-term effect from childhood “programming.”

I don’t trust people very easily. If you got to know me, that might surprise you, because I can be comfortable telling people my darkest secrets pretty quickly. I can judge someone’s character and trust people about pragmatic things — honesty and safety — but it’s very rare when I can trust someone with my inner self.

My real self. My heart. Who I really am.

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Being loved is one of life’s gifts, but joy of loving is even greater

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There is a joy that comes from loving someone which goes far deeper than the corresponding joy of being loved in return.

There are two sides of love. One side is the magic of being loved by someone else. The other is having someone to care for and to do things for and to serve. Many people never experience this side of love, but it’s the most important and the most pleasurable of the two.

Most of the time, when people speak of love in our culture — especially in pop culture as represented by movies and music — the theme is wanting to be loved. The angst and hurt that we associate with love is all about wanting another person to give us attention and lavish us with love.

I know that hurt very well, but even more than that, I miss having someone to love. Until recently, I had someone to love. Someone to hope for. Someone to plan to take care of. But now that’s gone — and its absence leaves a hole that’s worse than feeling unloved.

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Romantic interest no easier now than it was for me in sixth grade

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It was just after Thanksgiving of my sixth grade year. For about a year and a half, I had had the worst sort of crush on a girl in my class named Wendy Ford. When I was 11, she was my dream girl.

I was terrified for anybody to figure out that I “liked” Wendy, of course. And the absolute worst thing would be for her to know it. This is confusing to adult logic, but it made perfect sense back then. Somehow, she was going to “like” me first and let me know — and then I could confess that I “liked” her, too. And then we would get married. Or something like that.

Instead, one of her friends came over to me — in music class — and asked, “Do you like Wendy?”

My face must have turned bright red. I felt as though everybody was looking at me. My heartbeat raced. And I denied it. I assured her that it wasn’t true, but I doubt I was convincing. I just wanted to be anywhere but there.

“You should have liked her,” the friend said, “because she likes you.”

Thursday evening, I remembered what that sort of conversation felt like — and I didn’t like it any better than I did when I was 11.

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