Thoughts on Love at 1am

When I was younger, I watched Family Matters.  Funny enough, had a crush on Jaleel White.  Not so much the guy underneath the glasses, braces, and highwaters, but on Steve Urkel.  Glasses, brains and all.

Yes, I am weird.  To add to the long list of guys I crushed on as a child,  there was Tom Hulce, Raoul Julia, Jeremy Brett, and, in my later years, Martin Csokas.  While I enjoy this little trip down memory lane, the purpose of this is not to talk about boys, but about love.

When I was in middle and early high school I didn't date.  Partially because I was too young, and partially because I had bad timing.  I often times found myself interested in people who didn't like me, or did like me but had girlfriends they literally dated until the last day of high school.

Much like Steve I was desperatly infatuated with people who had absolutly no interest in me.  And then boobs happened, but that, once again is not the topic.  I watched Steve for a long time and absolutely loved how he saw things.  No matter how often Laura rejected him, it never got him down.  He was always desperately in love with her.  He gave her a ring at a very young age and said,"no strings attached, just the ones to my heart."  So sweet.

Yes, most people saw him as obsessive and creepy and nerdy; someone who needed to give up.  I saw him as someone desperately in love.  To me, it was the episode he let her go on the dates and held her when things didn't work out that were the most beautiful.

Over my life, I have loved many people.  Some more desperately than other, but I always loved.  And, what confused a lot of people about me, is when I was most in love with someone and they didn't want me back,  I didn't call them a jerk and leave.  I didn't blame them.   I became their friends.  And you know what?  That was good enough.  I wanted to be able to be around them, not to wait until they loved me back and wanted me desperately, but just to be there.  No strings attached.  I didn't need to kiss them, or hold them.  Them being there was enough.  I was simple that way.  If I was in like with a friend and he had a girlfriend, I never came on to him, or told him I liked him.  I just hung around.

Unlike Steve, I wasn't waiting for the moment when they would leave their significant others to be with me.  I never expected it to happen, and it never did.  I simply found my happiness for them and with them.  It became more important that I was able to be around them.  So when I got older and people didn't want to see you ever after a breakup I became confused.  You mean when you break up with me you don't want to see me?  Why, we had fun together.  The only thing you seem to have a problem with is us dating, we can still hang out right?

There really are only a handful of people I care about to the point I can never see them again at all.  Takes alot for me.

My biggest thing is, I have been told, by more than one person recently, that I have never been in love with someone who didn't have the same feelings back.  That's incorrect.  I have.  Far too often.  And yeah, it kinda sucks to like someone who is taken.  But you are never alone in feeling that way.  Everyone has felt it.  It's how you deal with it that tells people who you are.