What Love Shouldn’t Feel Like

Love shouldn’t feel circumstantial. It shouldn’t feel as if I love you more than you love me or vice versa. There shouldn’t be conditions, levels or lesser degrees of love. If there are then whatever you’re feeling is something else. Maybe lust, maybe like, maybe comfort – but certainly not love. The effort shouldn’t be one-sided; all of the little things can’t come from one contributor; and if you hurt, your companion should as well.

Love shouldn’t make someone feel like a bother. We shouldn’t be able to empathize with a pesky gnat at a picnic, being shooed away. Love shouldn’t be treated like hard labor, and it shouldn’t feel like it either. It shouldn’t make us sad more often than happy, or lead to bad times outweighing the good.

Love shouldn’t consist of waiting around to hear from the person you care infinitely about. That’s the worst. Sitting by your phone, waiting on pins and needles for something — anything from them. The phone might vibrate, but it’s beyond disappointing when it turns out to be a text from somebody else. It aches your heart to know that they’re somewhere out there, completely unfazed by your absence. We can convince ourselves that the subpar phone service failed to deliver our lover’s text, or prevented their call – but we know the chances of that are slim. And sure, we could just contact them, but when you initiate conversations regularly, it’d be nice to have that attention reciprocated. Love shouldn’t feel like being wide-awake until 3am; wishing, hoping, praying for a measly phone call from the one you adore.

Love shouldn’t keep notes on every blunder ever made. When a mistake occurs, retaliation should never be a thought. The pain felt by your companion’s mistake shouldn’t make you want to get even. If you know how much it hurt you, why would you want the one you love to experience that same agony? Those feelings are poisonous. A desire to exact revenge or document every error is a surefire sign that you’re involved in something other than love. Instead you’ve got yourself a contaminated, breakable link that the Grim Reaper of Love is ominously stalking – preparing for its imminent death.

Love shouldn’t feel like uncertainty. It shouldn’t feel like a battle. It shouldn’t feel like a tug of war, with two people trying to make the other “love” them more. Maybe you’ve mistaken your physical infatuation, or crush at a time of vulnerability for love. Those things are flimsy. Those feelings are fragile. The first storm will either demolish those relationships, or leave enough water damage to rust and wither them away.

Love shouldn’t feel hopeless, because it’s never is. In love, a pair can be down, but never knocked out. Love should make all things possible, even if they aren’t necessarily looking good today.  If I love you and you love me, we will prevail – but if we don’t, we won’t. Love shouldn’t feel like we won’t.