Romance is a place
A wee introductory note
I've ever been this vulnerable in public as I'm going to be in this post, and I might as well end up regretting it later and thinking it would have been better to keep this in my diary. But at the same time, I think it's okay to show your vulnerability sometimes and let people know exactly what's going on through your mind, and understand why you do this or that, or why you behave in different ways.
Grian Chatten once described "romance" as a strange illusion that we have been forced to believe in amidst the world's depsair, one that we somehow find necessary in order to carry on and, thus, survive. A mirage that exists within an idyllic world, making us feel alive, as well as beautifully vulnerable (neither like a hermit nor like people behing a shield), whilst in touch with that fantasy and with the escapism that life somethimes offers us too.
I've always been fascinated by the world of romance and love. I've always enjoyed watching how people fall in love with one another, whether as friends or as couples. Slowly, like in a slow-burn, or at first sight. In different situations and places. In real life or in fiction. That moment when they realise their feelings for each other. When they touch for the first time, that delicate bursh of their hands. When they hug for the first time. When they kiss for the first time. That shyness as they realise what's really happening. To me, it's such a delicate, beautiful and hopeful world, that, in my mind, it seems unreal and belongs to a completely different world from my own. A very distant and unknown world. That world that i so often find in tv series, films, music and books, into which I always lock myself just to feel something. To slip into the shoes of fictional characters who feel things and I have never felt in my own life, and that I would like, one day, to feel ā that being the only way I can come close to that idyll.
Anyway, I don't think I every really gave this topic much thought until I got older (or at least i never wanted to think about it). A few years ago, I got to the point where I felt I couldn't even watch teen dramas because it hurt to watch them (and i also felt they just weren't for me anymore). Then, I realised that I didn't watch any teen dramas when I was young either. I never had a romantic relationship as a teenager. Nor did I have a close group of friends. I suppose seeing all those things we've all longed for at some point reflected on screen just tortures me even more, and makes me overthink bringing back memories of that past.
At this stage in my life, I only watch, read and listen to content centred on adults. Because it gives me hope. Hope of finding what I long for so much, of getting to know that world which is unknown to me. And although I said recently that I'm growing less and less keen on watching rom-coms, I wasn't in my right mind. I apologise; it was just the heat of the moment. It's just that i see them differently now: when i finish a rom-com I like, even if I'm left with a good feeling and a sense of happiness, I always think: But when will it be my turn? When will i feel something like that?. And the next second I think I'm the most bitter person in the world and that I should change my mindset straight away.
Although there is always a glimmer of hope within me that one fay I might find something like the people around me and fictional characters do, it is inevitable that, as years go by, that hope will gradually fade away, bringing me even closer to despair. As my dear Edith from Downton Abbey once said regarding the phrase Being tested only makes you stronger: I don't think it's working for me.
For some reason, i often feel completely unable to show even the simplest gestures of affection towards other people, perhaps because I think it means showing vulnerability to others. or perhaps I'm embarrassed to show affection towards people. At some point, I'd like to get other my fear of this and start hugging the people I love and tell them the lovely things I feel about them without feeling embarrassed or blushing straight away. It's the same when I receive affectionate and flattering comments towards me: I never know how to respond to them because I've never really been used to receive them.