I was in Love

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Love meets reality

Many of us have a romanticised view on love, perpetuated by all the media we watch and all those promises of happy ever afters. But what’s never shown on our screens is the ugly, other side of love. When it ends.

Every wondered what goes through the minds of a couple whose love is starting to deplete? The painfully familiar process of a love slowly suffocating, gasping for breath before finally reaching its inescapable conclusion.

One thing I am always curious about is how people stay in love for decades. How people still stay in love after spending every waking moment together. I’m not a cynic, I’m just a realist. And I’d rather be overly realistic than self-delusional.

He doesn’t know why

The fond nights when you’d rush back just to hear a brief moment of her sweet voice are now replaced with ear-shrieking ramblings on loudspeakers while you’re multi-tasking.

The way you used to watch her eat and wondered how can anyone be so adorable. Now, you nit-pick on her bizarre eating habits and ridiculously slow eating pace.

She used to be your bragging topic, your pride and glory but now you sigh in consent as your buddies poke fun of her.

What love is this, when you’d rather be by yourself than to feel so frustrated around her.

She doesn’t know why

You used to jump in glee at the vibration of your phone, but now, you’re reading too deep into his every word and punctuation, and ‘last seen’ (s).

You used to be truly interested in his daily happenings but now, you’re inspecting his social media for any possibility of evidence that might threaten your relationship.

You get easily affected by the slightest things he says or does, but you can’t speak up, because you don’t want to sound petty.

What love is this, when you start comparing every guy around you with him.

You already know it

Whether or not you choose to accept it as your reality.

The matter of the fact is, when you get too close to someone, you open up yourself to them, you no longer try to restrain the ugliest side of you. It’s not that they didn’t know it before, but they just didn’t know how to deal with it when it’s at such a great extent, or frequency, whichever.

What you need is space. Space to breathe, space to live, space to appreciate everyone else around you and come back to realise he/ she’s all you’ll ever need.

Whether this space actually makes the heart grow fonder or further, fret not, because even if they cheated on you, it didn’t happen because you trusted them too much.

It happened because they finally had the opportunity to materialise their tempting thoughts which had existed long before.

I was in love.

Laura Chan

"The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours” - Alan Bennett