How do we fall in love?

I remember when I was a schoolgirl and everyone was in love with somebody – except me - I wanted that ardently! “Why can’t I fall in love? What’s wrong with me?” This was the very thing I was thinking about when I bumped into that guy in the corridor. I knew something about him because a friend of mine was once hopelessly in love with that guy, but he was never interesting to me except for that. On that day I fastened my eyes on him and noticed he was cute. “Then maybe he?” This is how it all started, my unrequited love of 3 years for a guy who never knew about my feelings. The feelings faded away with the course of time after I could no longer see him on a day-to-day basis.

Now, looking back on those days I realize it was not love (though of course it was my “first love”). It arose from my desperate wish to fall for somebody which I totally succeeded in.

Falling in love for the sake of falling in love doesn’t work.

When being a freshman (freshgirl *lol*) I met this sophomore guy, head of Student Union of our faculty. Freshman group monitors were asked to gather for instructions at the long break. And there he came in his favourite brown suede jacket. I liked him so much immediately that my knees failed me. I kept on liking this guy for almost a year. We talked to each other from time to time and I guess we could have got cozy (at least have a number of dates resulting in sex), but I knew he would never look at me the way I wanted him to. I would be just another girl around him. Besides as time went by I realized he was too light-minded and primitive, even silly, and my interest in him perished.

Falling in love with the appearance doesn’t work.

When all of a sudden another man walked into my life - as a triumphant despite his young age for such a success, he stunned me. It stunned me. I see it clearly now that I was liking him for his achievements, for his status. Very often I was catching myself at the thought that I would like us to appear on some party together or sit in a bar or a restaurant, but in my dreams there was always someone else to notice us, discuss us with the others and maybe even envy us (me). I never imagined us being just together. I believe this is why I fell out of love so quickly, after 3-4 unpleasant situations, having got totally disappointed with him as a human being.

Falling in love because of something other than good looks doesn’t work.

I try to recollect what I felt exactly every time I fell in love anew. What did I feel then? What do you feel when you fall in love?

Last time it happened, more than a year ago, it was neither ‘my own kick’ nor a sudden ‘hit’, it was something different. I was acquainted to this guy for about a month by that time, we didn’t talk much and I knew very little about him. Once I was in a canteen with friends, we were having lunch, laughing and gossiping about somebody or something – as usual; he was on his way to the table to lunch with his friends. And when he was in the process of sitting down on the chair he noticed me. It’s funny; this scene which lasted a couple of seconds is still one of the brightest moments I’ve ever experienced in my life. His eyes got fixed to mine and he stood still half-bent ‘coz he was intending to occupy the chair, with the tray in his arms. Finally he recovered, joined his friends, but I was constantly catching his look. This was the first time our eyes met, and at this moment I felt that everything is different now, my whole life changed somehow, all of a sudden, but irreversibly, and unbelievable joy and tenderness filled my heart.

A lot has happened since that day. A lot has changed. He got married to his longtime girlfriend, became father of a baby girl, I got to know him better, well enough to know his nasty temper. We had a number of quarrels which resulted in not talking to each other for a long time. Still there has always been an invisible string between us. It’s like talking to each other without talking at all. And something else which I cannot explain. It hurt – then. Now it doesn’t. I seem to have got accustomed to live with it. I meet with other men, I know many of them like me, I spend a lot of time with my friends, I’m not lonely. Those friends of mine who know him think he’s a complete sh*t and I can understand them :) Did it change my opinion about him? Certainly, it did! Did I get disappointed with him as a man? Certainly, I did! Did it change my feelings? No! It’s not like having feelings for a person because how one can’t have feelings for him when he is so handsome or so decent. It’s having feelings for him as a person the way he is, having feelings for him despite of all his vices (and he is full on them believe me!). It’s only now that I realize the meaning behind a famous quote: “One loves not because of, but despite of something”.

I’ve recently read a funny Taurus horoscope and found a brilliant phrase there: “Taurus is characterized by unbelievable loyalty to people sh*t, this is why he is often unhappy in love” :)))

Just falling in love doesn’t work either!

Or maybe it does, and it is my problem that I want too much from it for myself. Someone wise once said, “We all want a love that we don’t deserve”.

How should one improve to deserve at least a tiny bit more mutual feeling?

I wish I knew it…