I have had two very complicated relationships for a very long time. The first is with myself and the second is with a boy. The relationship with myself was often muted living with Peter because I knew he always loved me and always would. I never really had to confront my self-esteem issues because Peter did it for me. He told me I was beautiful. He told me I was valuable and I believed him because his actions showed me these undeniable facts. The other relationship is with a boy. I love this boy. I am also in love with this boy. When we are together, I feel all of the things that love makes you feel in my heart and in my body. However, he doesn’t love me; at least he doesn’t love me in the romantic way. He loves me in a “friend with benefits way.” He loves me in a “Vegas weekend trip way” and this fact crushes me.

I have never not been loved. I didn’t realize this concept could ever exist, someone not loving me. I have chased this boy while he loved his wife, chased him when he was heartbroken from not loving his wife and finally chased him once he was single. I convinced myself that he would eventually love me if we could just be on the same page at the same time. If he could just see how much I loved him, we could be happy together. During our vacations together, I would contort myself into uncomfortable positions to prove that I was indeed lovable, never quite being my full self, always doubting I was attractive to him, always trying to hide parts of my naked body that disgusted me and was sure to disgust him. I mean he’s fucked models in Europe for God’s sake.

If I could prove that I was his perfect companion, he would love me. My contortions did not work and he fell in love with another. He fell hard, in his words and I fell apart.

I began to compare myself to THE women he loves. I search pictures of her and stared, looking for clues that make her better than me. In my opinion she is gorgeous. I know that I am smarter than her but being smart has never gotten anyone on the cover of Maxim magazine. THE women he loves has a better body than me and I begin to focus on that, while I dissect her Facebook pictures. He loves her because she has a bikini body and I do not. I have a ring of fat around my tummy and I know that is the leading cause of his lack of love.

I decide that I need a massive overhaul, massive plastic surgery, to be enough, just like the women he loves. If I can just make myself look more like her then maybe, he will love me like I love him. The plastic surgery part is easy. I just need to find the time and money and doctor to achieve the look of perfection. My obsession with perfection feels empty and shallow but I know that once I become a better me, he will love me and we will be happy. My life continues as the boy and I chat but it becomes harder and harder to hate myself in preparation for him to love me. As we talk he tells me once again that he doesn’t love me in the marriage way. He also mentions that we are great friends and I should be happy that we have such an amazing friendship. I am not happy.

Maya Angelou says that if someone shows you who they are you should believe them and now I finally do. He doesn’t love me and he never will. It won’t matter if I lose the perfect amount of weight and get the perfect amount of plastic surgery. It won’t matter if I take up killing shit and become a walking hockey almanac. He will never love me the way I love him. To him I am just a friend and no amount of pressure I apply to him or myself with change that fact and I am finally ok with that. I am not really ok. I am devastated but I will be ok. Heartbreak is tough and saying goodbye to love is tougher. I have never been fine with myself but I hope someday I will be.  I never really learned how to love myself because I was too busy loving Peter.

I have now accepted that the boy that makes my heart beat faster and my palms sweat, will never feel the same way about me. It’s time I look inward and learn to love blah, blah, blah… I hate blathering on about self-love and acceptance. I would rather just do it than talk of it. I am still working on my self-esteem and it is an everyday struggle. I am still going to get plastic surgery because, ya know, the ring of fat thing. But I am no longer frantic to look like someone else. If you’re wondering about the boy, we no longer speak, not because I am mad at him or trying to make him prove his love with some grand gesture. We don’t speak because I now accept the fact that I can love someone from afar and soon I hope that love will fade to fond memories without the strong emotions attached.

I haven’t really found a way to deal with the fact that I am not loved by him but every night I try some other self-love, self-soothing technique. They all involve reminding myself that he doesn’t love me and I am ok. Some nights, when I get really lonely and want to escape into the false romance of my relationship with the boy, I remind myself that he has already expressed that I am not what he wants. I would hate to disgrace the memory of Maya. I then comfort myself by saying “if a boy not loving you is the worst thing that has happened to you” But wait…it’s not.