The Way I'm Supposed to Love You Back

I hate the pre-packaged North American notion of "love" that's spewed through the media and perpetuated in conversations I have with my female friends.

I think the Silverchair lyrics describe my thoughts on this perfectly:

"I love the way you love

But I hate the way I'm supposed to love you back"

Whether we like to think about it or not, there is a set route that we are expected to run. We're supposed to meet, like, date, love. What you do after this point is your own business. My issue is at the dating stage.

As a person from a non-North American culture, I find the tactics surrounding this emotional courtship dance entirely puzzling. Dating, in my view, is this vague stage of "getting to know". I think of it as a test drive that can go on for an awkward amount of time. What's more, it's more like a test drive where both parties are salespeople. Each is selling a vehicle but spending so much time trying to figure out whether to make a payment on the other person's vehicle that the process drags on and on until eventually somebody broaches the awkward question: "So... where are we going from here?"

And that's if things go well. If things go badly, one might walk by the lot, jump behind the wheel of some shiny car, drive it off the lot and completely total it. Other times what we have is one person walking unto a lot, meandering around and scrutinizing one vehicle in particular then for incomprehensible and completely unarticulated reasons, opening a door, slamming it shut then walking away.

To bring it back to the lyrics I quoted, I hate this test driving stage. I hate the uncertainty it inevitably clouds everything in. Even before you start dating, your entire interaction with that person of interest is tainted by the possibility. And I can feel it. I feel the scrutiny, the trying to decide "if", the playful tugging of the maybe in the back of his mind. And it colors everything. And it's not so much that I hate the scrutiny, although I do. It's more so that I hate the way I'm expected to engage in this force ripening process. I should be scrutinizing right back. I should be entertaining that maybe. But I do not want to.

I want a clean interaction. I want to interact free of the burdens of "maybe". I want to think of exploring a relationship as an open landscape rather than a tunnel that branches into two routes: stay friends or become more than friends temporarily and less than strangers afterwards. I don't want this mutual simultaneous test driving. I'd much prefer to have my car gifted to me. Hitchhiking is even better.

I want my relationships, all my relationships, not just romantic ones, to be beautifully co-authored works. I'm not a fan of ridiculous mad lib-esque premade scripts where I simply plug in a value and watch it weave my tale. I crave authenticity more than simplicity. Of course the script can be fun and entertaining but the story you pour your self into, no matter how silly the plot will stay with you for ever. And your co-author will always seem to strike some secret chord in you.

I want to unlock all my secret chords so I can compose a sublime collage of song from all my loves.