Tag: Unlove Me

Editors are always looking for ways to tie ideas into the larger themes that sweep through our lives. It's not so much an impulse now as it is a habit: How can I add to the conversations? In the weeks leading up to Valentine's Day, I was thinking about love a lot. I think about love every single day, but as I thought of the holiday, my thoughts darkened. I hate Valentine's Day and...

Patience may be a virtue, but there’s a special kind of humiliation that comes from waiting for someone to care about you — an effect amplified by the amount of effort you put into being worthy. Last year, I whittled myself down, desperate to fit into the pocket of someone I nearly fell in love with. I will never do that again. -- On our first date, you showed up just past six, already a little...

As it tends to go when you're perpetually single, I've been racking my brain trying to figure out why I'm stuck in this position, to understand some root cause for my lack of intimacy that can be easily justified, explained away, fixed. I've never had a boyfriend, never been in anything approaching a long-term relationship, never been in love. Some days, this terrifies me; others, it doesn't. I'm still young; you'll find someone eventually, they...

I used to think love was a thing I could only do one at a time, like putting quarters in a gum ball machine. I used to think love was a competition that hinged mostly on never being more vulnerable than the other person. I used to think I needed to comb out all my own tangles before I could love someone sleek and glossy, like a perfect blow out, only natural. Since loving...