_:n9017a52279f7421a9654fbb0c39d5adbxb0
<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Like a parasite, it sticks. The idea of you two together.After weeks of putting myself on mute, I still couldn’t let go of the idea that he was ‘the one’ - the one I could be the happiest and best version of myself with.And yet, in the end, I was left shaking my head at the very audacity of this deep love, deep lust, deep longing, deep yearning. I had assimilated the idea of ‘us’ into my system. My mind was so clogged that I needed a triple-espresso lobotomy to free it from what has been, for way too long, ingrained in my thinking. But am I (still) in love or just distracted?One day, I exhaled and understood why it didn't work: I had always felt uncertain. The broken-hearted are often denied luxuries like clarity and closure. Luckily, for me, the fog started to lift and light finally seeped in. Society tells us to go for gold when it comes to love. We want to get drunk on a cocktail of attraction, connection and shared common interests. If we see it on Netflix, it must be true. But so often we find ourselves preoccupied with these ideas and miss out on those wonderful partners who could’ve been. The slow but sure connections that could have formed if we had only been patient enough.We don’t give people the chance to reveal themselves to us. To flirt their way into our hearts, to seduce and to tease us with the parts of them that we’ll like and the flaws that we’ll ultimately compromise on and accept. Even if they hate hiking, are vegan or prefer rooibos tea over having a cold beer. Because we’ll grow with them and don't need to love a copy of ourselves. We’ve allowed a no-second-chance culture to see people less as partners and more as pawns.\n\nWe marry to have a wedding day. We date the stand-up startup guy who is so wrong for us. We actively swipe only on people who share our interests, but then they cheat on us. We fall head over heels for the one who remembers Valentine’s Day but look past his delusions of grandeur, hoping he’ll change. Don’t fall in love with potential.\n\nThis is when we look past the kind ones who truly see us as we navigate this love-sick haze. The reality is that when the love fades away, we're left with sick on our shoes. When we distract ourselves with new ideas, we might just find monotony slipping away and receive more than we ever imagined. Entertain distractions that take time to develop, are flawed and feel comfortable instead of connections that wow but feel uncertain. Stop blaming time for not giving you what you want at that exact moment and rethink the very idea of what you want and how you want to feel when it comes to experiencing another's love.\n \n\n\n(image from @textsfromyourexistentialist)"
<https://ourbestregards.com/blogs/blog/am-i-in-love-or-am-i-just-distracted>