Love Only Exists By Loving Our Raw Selves

I am a believer in lasting love, which is why I’m a hopeless romantic. But I have to be careful not to let my belief in lasting love solely define who I am as a person.

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s easy to get swept away in my thoughts of what love is and is not. It’s simple to mistake lust for love, and it doesn’t take a lot for me to walk away when there is no attempt to get to know me on an intimate, emotional level before physical intimacy comes into the picture. After all, to let someone get to know me mentally and emotionally, the real me, it requires letting my walls down. Most importantly, it requires me being me. The authentic, raw me. The me that admits I can read people with a sense of clarity that most people can’t. The me that admits I can foresee almost every aspect of a relationship before it happens, but also the me that will pop open an umbrella when it’s raining red flags instead of getting out of the rain like a logical person. And to be honest, there are very few people who I feel comfortable being the real me around.

I don't know about you, but for me, in the past, I would put on what I thought was the best version of myself when I started talking to or dating someone. It was all an attempt to manipulate the relationship into what I wanted and thought it should be. It was an attempt to play God.