I once dated this guy, and he was everything. That sounds silly, and overly happy and wonderful, but it was true. He was everything good, and a fair bit of bad. I think he taught me what real love was.
We started out in a hard place that only got harder, we met towards the end of the relationship I was in before I was with him, and he helped me get through that. We were long distance, and met through a mutual friend, we'll call her Kelsey. He had a crappy laptop with no webcam, and phone calls made him uncomfortable. But we talked endlessly online.
It wasn't long before I fell for him. I fell hard, and fast, and so easily. And he was everything. He made my world spin a little faster, and my days look a little brighter. We talked about everything. About plans to spend entire days together, and cuddle and watch movies. We'd spend all out time curled up watching Pingu or Romeo and Juliet, sealed with a kiss (An animated romeo and Juliet story about seals). And cook for each other, he would always complain because I don't eat veggies, and cooking for me would be such a hassle. He told me he wouldn't kiss me the first time we see each other, because more than likely I'd be with family at the airport and he worried he'd have a hard time stopping and he didn't want to give a bad first impression. We talked about all the things new couples probably shouldn't talk about, politics, voting, world problems, and what ifs.
Have you ever felt the kind of love that leaves you glowing and smiling for hours after you last spoke? The kind where people just look at you and can see that you're in love without knowing a thing about you? That's what it was. He taught me how to depend on myself, how to be strong, and confident. He taught me what I wanted without even trying to. Everything about us was perfectly flawed. And it didn't take long to find out why.
Everyone has a love story to share. And most people share theirs, they're happy stories, or inspiring stories. For the longest time I didn't think that I had a love story to share, I was wrong. I had a story, I just never wanted to share it. His name was Seth, he was a stage actor. And he had a stage name - Ben. Seth didn't have a facebook, and when I accidentally happened across his stage name I unraveled the real reason as to why. It was my best friend Kate who thought to look him up by his stage name on facebook, she did it out of curiosity claiming that "everyone has a facebook" It turned out that she was right. Ben had a facebook, and a girlfriend who wasn't me.
That night when Kelsey got online I told her about it, I was trying to make sense of it in my head, because it didn't make sense, I thought he was better than that. How come she never knew? When she called she told me the truth. She didn't hold back, or beat around the bush. Seth didn't exist. Kelsey had a personality disorder, that I no longer remember the name of, and had based Seth off of the real stage actor Ben. I was horrified.
For a long while I didn't understand why it happened to me. Or why something like that would happen to anyone. Over time though I realized that there were lots of reasons that it happened. I didn't know what love really felt like, I didn't know the kind of relationship that I really wanted to be in. I wasn't a confident person, or know who I was at all. It happened to shape me. Just like everything that happens shapes the people it happens to, that shaped me.
And it's been a year now since it all began and Seth's been on my mind, and something told me that it's time to share my story. And where better to share it, then here? Here where I feel safe, because it's my own little zone. So here's to bad situations, growing, and being shaped. And to moving forward.
...And to unimaginable love stories.
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