Why do we go off at the people who like us?

 Everyone is craven of love; and that includes me. Pointedly, every time I felt my feelings reciprocated by the admired, it seemed as though they weren’t the same person I quite imagined them to be.

Ostensibly, we all want love. Though, oddly one of the hardest things to do is not to hold it against someone who actually turns around and reciprocates our feelings.

It can be immensely hard not to feel that those who offer us love are in some way weak, mistaken, needy, craven, revolting or defective. It is easy to be left queasy by their touch, repulsed by their wish to hold us and caress our face, by their tender words and their capability to find the minor things that we overlook as endearing.

It was quite easier when our love was unrequited, when our primary occupation was the rushing and thrilling dread that the admired person hadn’t even noticed us and whether, they even know we exist and process strong feelings for them but when there’s finally no doubt anymore regarding their feelings; when it is really clear they do like us and soon, something troubling has arisen…

We’re feeling a bit sick.

We’re tempted to say we got them wrong that they can’t be the amazing and admirable people we thought of them to be but the issue isn’t to do with the other party at all rather it’s lies somewhere else entirely, it has to do with our relationship with ourselves.

Their affection may seem suspicious, skeptical, incomprehensible or maybe a tad bit repulsive because at some level, this isn’t what we are used to. Essentially, it doesn’t tally with our views of ourselves.

Love can be incredibly hard to receive when we are not convinced of our own lovability.

We may spend our time seeking out those who make us suffer in ways that are familiar to us. And when a kind lover comes our way, it is quite natural to assume that our lover has missed something and perhaps then, we try to behave in ways that are revolting and disgusting ways just to make sure they understand that we’re really not who they thought of us to be. Therefore, this would strive to a lesson where they would leave us in painful yet psychologically gratifying ways.

In short, how could someone be so great and so wonderful if they have the bad taste to think well of someone like us?

But we have to allow ourselves to be kind and entertain another option that perhaps, this affection were on the receiving hand of is not a sign that our kind lover is weak or wrong or facing a midlife crisis. Perhaps it’s a sign that they’ve seen something in us which tragically we don’t yet see in ourselves and have never been allowed to believe in by figures and people in our past; that we are deserving of love.

There is hope in all this. Hope that we can come to trust our lovers more than we trust our first impulsive, self destructive, nervous callings. We can try to interpret their love, not as a sign of their loneliness, delusion or weakness but as evidence of an inherent lovability in ourselves.

We don’t invariably have to hold it against others when they see a point in us, even when most days we fail to see it in ourselves. That we are indeed, deserving of love.

Update: I think I found the love of my life. #winning. But truly, this summer has truly taught me so much and brough so much joy and affection in my life. 

Hope you have an amazing school year!

-Sahana