Re: "....One Last Disguise"

Response, not imitation, is the highest form of flattery. This one's for you.

I have never understood it, not from the time I was a child and it first emerged, nor even last night when it forced me down on my knees to cry for the thousandth time; the need to be loved by someone who doesn't have to is great indeed.

The first boy who ever said he loved me proclaimed it in the middle of Sungod swimming pool after dating only two days and knowing each other not much longer. I remember laughing in his face, and barely being surprised when I found the reason behind his heartfelt declaration: he wanted to have sex. That day. I was 15 and already so jaded. I have no idea where that attitude came from or why I carried it so close to my heart, but it has been a permanent fixture in my life since it surfaced six years ago.

From that moment on, I was never alone. If I didn't have a boyfriend, I had a "someone." I learned quickly from the first boy I ever "loved" (I use quotations because manipulated heartstrings aren't tuned to love someone, but at that time I definitely believed it would never get better) that I was not worthy of being a man's sole (or soul) desire. To hold one down, to have him completely enraptured in me was too much to ask because I was not the kind of person who deserved it. Our dating pattern went something like this: get together, fall in love, he cheats, I end it; get back together, have always been in love, he cheats, he ends it; still in love, get back together, he falls out of love and cheats, he ends it. Etc. And every time, I was the one who got the crappy, crappier, crappiest end of the stick. I let it happen because I was terrified that if it wasn't him, no one else would ever want me.

The summer after grade 12, I had a classic summer romance. Poetic, right? I had no expectations on his character or anything else because by then I knew what men were and what they were incapable of being. They were dishonest, cheating, controlling and unfeeling. They were completely incapable of showing love without strings attached, or of expressing any emotion that might actually hint to who they were under the facade. So to me, this "summer fling" was exactly what the phrase intones: a no-feelings, no strings, flighty and fun escapade to waste away my summer days. And when he told me he loved me, I said this: "You don't have to lie to me. I've known boys like you my whole life. Let's just leave this at what it really is and not try to pretend it's something it's not." He nodded his head in agreement and that was that. In essence, I had become exactly like the men I hated: hard-hearted and dead to real love.

That was when I took some time off. For over two years, I stayed away from anything even resembling serious friendship with a guy because I knew that having them in my life had ruined me. I didn't know who I was or who God wanted me to be; I was lost in a sea of being something for someone. God changed my heart, opened up my eyes and began teaching me that I am worth something in His eyes, and immeasurably beyond worthy to be loved. Occasionally I would slip back into the old patterns of The Need, especially when the date passed that I had always wanted to get married on, but God redeemed.

And then He showed me what genuine love looks like. I'm not going to go into details, but the best I can do is to say that I had never before experienced an equal, giving, no power-struggle relationship, and it was beautiful. And through it, God was finally able to break through my stone-cold heart and show me His love. Incredible.

So here I am, alone again, and reading a blog by a friend. He is asking about this need we have to be with somebody. This is my response (probably lengthier than necessary). I don't know why I have this need, why it's so strong, or where it comes from. All I know is that for a very long time I found my worth in what boys thought of me, and occasionally I still get dragged down to that place only marked by pain and destroyed self-esteem. God is the only antidote, the only one who can look me in the heart and tell me that I am complete and beautiful in His sight, even without a man's love.

And this I know (because it's been written on my heart since the day I was born), when the day comes and I am finally ready, He will bring someone into my life who will compliment my soul perfectly, and that man will mean it when he says he loves me.