It was not until I started generating ideas for a novel series that I realized what kind of relationship I wanted to have.  It’s funny how when you really let yourself go and write, you can understand yourself better.  You realize who you are based on what you’re writing about and what kind of characters you create.  It was not until a few years later that I realized I was creating a relationship in my head that was nearly identical to the one I wanted to have in real life.  

I don’t want any unrealistic, phenomenal, sacrifice everything for that one person kind of romance.  I will not belong to anyone, and no one will belong to me.  I don’t want a relationship where it’s essential to post every progress and conflict on Facebook.  I don’t need to announce my feelings for someone to the world, nor does anyone need to be involved.  I’m not looking for months and years of complications before we can fall in love, because it shouldn’t be difficult for two people to simply connect.

You know what I want?  I want to meet someone when I least expect it.  I want us to introduce ourselves to each other.  Maybe we’ll meet in a classroom.  Maybe we’ll run into each other in public.  Maybe I’ve already met this person.  We’ll get to know each other, tease each other, and become friends that genuinely like each other.  We’ll hang out, not “date”, but hang out.  What do I like to do?  Everything.  We can go hang out at the park and run around with our shoes off and get dirty.  We can go eat at some greasy, fast food joint and steal fries from each other.  We can go watch some movie and I’ll complain about how crappy the storyline was.  We’ll do homework together at some coffee shop where we’ll swap music interests and talk about things that are not really important, except they will be important to me, because anyone that is truly my friend is someone I genuinely care about.  We’ll play video games, drive around at night for no particular reason, go out downtown and get drunk - or not, if you’re not into that kind of thing.  It doesn’t matter.

And then we’ll get closer.  We’ll become comfortable with each other, and hopefully open up to one another about the personal things in our lives.  I’ll talk about what it’s like to be an individual with hearing loss, my frustrating relationship with my father, and the difficulties I have with self-esteem and dealing with people in public.  You’ll tell me what you think your flaws are and I’ll simply deny there is anything wrong with you at all, because we’re all struggling.  And I truly hope you’re not the kind of person who forgets what I say or dismisses my feelings.  I hope you’ll care, I hope you’ll be there and shock me that another human being is actually capable of the level of compassion I exhibit that often gets taken for granted.

And though I probably already knew it, I’ll realize that I’m falling for you, and hope that you feel the same.  And it will just happen, gradually and inevitably.  A bond has formed between the two of us without us even realizing it, and hopefully we’ll come to the conclusion that we’re made for each other, that we just click and it works.  You challenge me.  You push me to be a better person.  You’re different from me, which makes things interesting.  You know things I have no clue about, and I can show you how to paint and cook and dance and write like a pro.  And happiness will no longer seem like something a person only reads about in books or sees in movies.  It will be real.  And all of my years of resentment and cynicism will seem so utterly strange.  I won’t recognize the person that I am today, and I’ll gladly close that door and walk through the new one with you by my side.  And nothing has to change between us.  We’re still friends.  We argue, laugh, tease each other, and play like children.  We’re not in any hurry to rush to an altar and get hitched.

That’s the kind of relationship I want.  I want to fall in love with my best friend.

Arthur C. McWilliams IV

The need for physical intimacy and romantic connection is a need that confirms our similarity to one another as human beings.  No one can live in total isolation.  Everyone needs to be touched, loved, desired, appreciated, admired, etc.  And we also need to touch others, love others, desire others, appreciate them, admire them, etc.  It’s the way the world is socially wired, and we could even get philosophical and argue that it’s the way the universe is spiritually kept intact, assuming nothing is purely a random composition of atomic matter. 

Let’s admit that we live in an era where love seems to be the only thing on our minds.  We are bombarded with exaggerated and glamorous notions of love and romance in movies, TV shows, books, etc.  We constantly reblog sappy pictures with a slightly defeatist/desperate tone yearning for love.  We’re always talking about romance, dreaming about sex, and wanting to tell someone how we feel.  IT’S EVERYWHERE, AND THERE IS NO ESCAPING IT.  And I am not talking about love in a sense of loving others because we are all equal.  I am not talking about love in the sense that we love our family and friends, that we love our phones and Nutella and the way it feels when you have an orgasm.  I am talking about flying-over-the-moon-head-over-heels-can’t-get-my-mind-off-of-you-just-want-to-kiss-you-and-hold-you-I’ll-love-you-forever-we-could-be-perfect-together-you-have-no-idea-how-much-I-love-you-all-I-want-is-you-Edward-and-Bella-forever kind of love.  You know exactly what I mean.  And I don’t care how much you may hate ‘Twilight’, you’re just as affected as the rest of us by the mind boggling contemporary notion of romance that’s been a part of our culture since Shakespeare wrote ‘Romeo & Juliet’.

I get it.  But you know what I don’t get?  When the desire for love becomes greater than the individual will to live.  Let me explain - you can spend every waking moment of your life fantasizing, crying yourself to sleep over how lonely you are, stalking your crush from a distance, etc, to the point that you forget all the other things in your life.  You forget your hobbies.  You forget your friends.  You forget your family.  You forget about school, your job, your responsibilities, the things that make you happy that have nothing to do with laying in the sun holding hands.  Love is a strong force in our world, but obsession is even stronger.  You can literally destroy yourself devoting every 11:11 to making a wish that you’ll fall in love.  You can go crazy when the idea of two people together is the only idea that exists in your head.  Where is your individuality?  Where is your will to love?  Where is the you that makes you YOU? 

Stop worrying so goddamn much about it.  Stop building these ridiculous notions in your head that will only leave you dissatisfied once you actually acquire them.  Stop basing your worth on whether or not you have a guy or a girl (or anything in between) on your arm.  No one in this world determines your worth.  Go run every day because you want to make yourself look good for you, not anyone else.  Write, draw, paint, work out, cook, fix stuff, play with animals because that’s what you want to do, not because you hope to impress someone.  Be content with you and build upon your singularity.  And if you attract someone, then so be it, but don’t be so ready to throw away your individuality for the sake of duality.  Choose life.

Arthur C. McWilliams IV

• “I have no regrets”
• “I don’t care what anyone thinks”
• “I’m straight”
• “I don’t love you”
• “I’m sorry”
• “I promise I will never hurt you”
• “It was like that when I found it, Mom and Dad, I swear it was like that when I found it”
• “You’re cute/attractive, I would totally date you”
• “I’ll be there on time”
• “I love you”
• “I’m happy/okay”
• “I’m a Christian”
• “I’m not a racist”
• “Oral sex is not sex”
• “I only have one stick of gum left”
• “I do not have any spare change”
• “I don’t mind being alone”
• “My grandmother died”
• “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before”
• “You’re the only person I’ve told about this”
• “I do”

What do you do when it seems like getting out of bed is the hardest thing to do?  How do you manage when the people that used to make you smile only seem to make you frown nowadays?  Why does it seem like time slows down and passes in lulls?  It’s like you’re merely just existing and floating along, a brief multitude of decades that means nothing in the grand scheme of things.  Your life span is like staring into a raging river flowing downstream, and occasionally you see a tiny pebble pop up at the surface and fall back in, lost in the void that’s raging on continually, creating new ripples and waves.  You are that pebble, that one insignificant burst that comes up for a fraction of a second and then disappears forever.  There will be many more pebbles and sticks and waves that are not you, they are a bunch of other somebodies whose lifespan is just as brief as yours. 

What is love?  What is destiny?  What is happiness?  What is life?  What is pain?  What is death?  What is enlightenment?  What is time?

These questions seem designed to destroy us, and yet keep us in this perpetual longing, this everlasting state of bliss and misery, and it’s the sort of thing you ponder from time to time.  It’s the sort of thing people write about.  It’s the sort of thing people sing about, draw about, talk about when they’re sitting on back porches sipping beer and smoking and gazing up at the stars.  It’s the kind of thing that creeps at you when you’re hanging out with your loved ones, or sitting alone in a dark room staring at the wall.  It’s the thing that makes you human, and know that this thing you feel creeping in the back of your mind, those questions you’re itching to find an answer for, is everything that everyone around you feels.

So how do you get up?  How do you turn your head up and keep walking?  How do you smile and satisfy yourself?  How do you see the preciousness in your short lifespan, and convince yourself that the short time is all the motivation you need?  How do you love if not the great endearment you feel for someone already?  How do you see beauty in the sun as you’re just laying there, empty, soaking in the light?  How do you tune into the voices in your head and laugh at yourself, knowing that although no one else gets it, you do, and there’s something special about that. 

You’re doing it already.  It doesn’t take some great thing.  It doesn’t take some special prayer or magic words.  The sky is not going to part while some light descends upon you.  You might not find a magic key in your drawer that leads to some labyrinth of happiness.  You have to create it.  You have to create your own bliss.  You have to create your own reasons to smile.  You have to create your own love.  You have to learn to satisfy yourself by doing the little things that make you happy.  You have to stop searching for reason, and accept that some things will never make sense.  You have to move, get up, run, keep running until your legs get tired and you cannot run anymore.  You have to scream, shove your head into a pillow and scream until your lungs give out.  You have to jump, jump into water, let your body float there, tune out the world and stare into the infinity that some call heaven, and tell it that you are not afraid.  And if you can do that, the strength to endure, the will to survive, will come through without question if you allow it.

Arthur C. McWilliams IV

I’ll bet you’re tried of reading blogs that have to do with loving someone else.  No, in fact, I don’t even need to bet on it - I know you’re tried of reading blogs about having a silly crush on someone.  You’re tired of seeing pictures and quotes about how painful and desirable love is.  You’re tired of seeing animated gifs from random movies and TV shows dabbling in the dimension of love and romance that seems so ideal and yet too ambiguous to grasp.  Yet you’ll still look for them and reblog them and pass them along.  Can’t help it, right?

But suppose you’re not on that one end where you’re falling madly in love with someone and having to keep it all to yourself.  What if (and I know this is a big WHAT IF) you’re the one that someone likes.  Stop.  Wait.  What?  Yes, I said it.  What if you are the one being admired?  What if someone has feelings for you?  Stop.  Wait.  What?  No.  Go back and reread that.  Seriously, go ahead and take a few seconds to return to the beginning of this paragraph and start over to make sure your eyes aren’t screwing your head over, I’ll wait.

…

Okay, silliness aside, it is quite possible that someone likes you, assuming you’re likeable (meaning you’re not some nasty person with a bad attitude or project an aura to others that you want to be left alone).  So what if you notice little behavioral changes?  Someone looks at you more, closer, you know, in that private glancing way that should be kept between two people.  Say they lean in closer, talk to you more, do little things that make you smile.  Say it’s like you wake up one day and all of a sudden there’s a closeness you hadn’t noticed before, some intention on the other person’s part to get your attention.  You start questioning the possibilities.  Maybe he or she asks to hang out.  Maybe he or she values your opinion on something, anything, maybe personal matters.  Maybe there seems to be a connection that wasn’t there before, and here you are either panicking or trying to play it cool or dying to say, “OH MY GOSH, I LOVE YOU TOO!” 

You know what I think right now?  It shouldn’t be your responsibility to call someone out on his or her behavior.  If they like you, they should be the ones to make the first move.  It’s one thing if you’re crushing on someone else and want to tell them, regardless of how they may feel about you in return.  But if someone’s trying to get your attention, why should you do all the work?  Why should you be the one to figure this stuff out?  Hey, you’ve got things to do, right?  You don’t have time to play games or mess around trying to psychoanalyze every behavior people around you exhibit.  But then there’s that feeling that you don’t want to give off this “I’m not interested” aura, and then, what if you’re totally misreading this person’s behavior and only manage to screw things up even more?

What a predicament, right?  There are no answers to this.  This is merely just to say that sometimes we want the other person to make the first move.  If you like me, tell me, we’ll go from there.

That is all,

Arthur C. McWilliams IV

It’s not your fault, you didn’t ask to fall for someone.  It’s not that other person’s fault either.  They didn’t ask you to like them, nor are they obligated to return the feelings.  And maybe it’s you, maybe someone likes you and you do not like them the same way.  Maybe you’ve tried, and each way only seems wrong and to bring about more confusion because you realize you cannot force yourself to feel what you cannot feel. 

And no one can force anyone else to feel anything for them.  It doesn’t work that way.  And sometimes it has nothing to do with either one of you.  No one is at fault.  No one is an inconsiderate jerk or a heartless bitch.  No one crossed any boundaries or said something they shouldn’t have said.  Sometimes you just have to realize that there’s the fantasy you have of you and that person being together, and then there’s the reality of you and that person not being together.  And there are ways to make it suck a little less, if you just allow yourself to realize some things.

Realize that if you’re trying to impose this idea of a lover onto someone, it may be doing you more harm than good, especially if that person isn’t your type.  It’s fun to think about cuddling, picnics, hiking, video games, whatever turns you on, but what if that person doesn’t do those things or have any interest in them?  Are you gonna force that on them?  Of course not.  Is it bad that they do not like the same things you do?  No.  It’s just that you know what you’re looking for, and you may come to realize that he or she is not it.  Yes, it can kind of suck, but ask yourself this - are you doing this with every girl or guy you fall for?  Are you envisioning the two of you laying in bed joking around?  Are you envisioning the two of you going to art galleries and having late night conversations and just being in love?  Are these visions any different than any other person you love at a given time?  Chances are, they aren’t.  Each person you fall for is different, but if you’re dreaming about the same things with all of them, it could be that you’re searching for something you’re not getting, and once you realize that, hopefully you can accept people for who they are, or who they aren’t. 

This is a blessing and a curse, because now you know what you want.  You know what you want in a companion, the things you’d like to try in bed, the conversations you’d like to have, the places you’d like to go, and how you want to touch each other.  You’ve got a clear idea in your head, so now it’s only a matter of finding that person, right?  The way I see it, there are two ways you can go with this - you can either keep on looking for your dream love, because chances are, if you want something specific, someone else out there wants that too, or you can learn to adjust, you can learn to change, not giving up who you are, but learning that love comes in different forms, and that perhaps you can be satisfied with something different, something you never quite envisioned. 

And maybe you can step back and look at this person you think you have feelings for and ask yourself, “Do I really even want this person?  Do I like him/her for who s/he is right now?  Am I content with them not changing?  Can I genuinely see myself with this person?  Do I want this person to love me?”  If you’ve answered no to any of the above, chances are you’re not really in love.  You’re infatuated.  You’re creating a fantasy lover out of the guy or girl you’re attracted to, hoping there’s a possibility of a deeper connection there, and who can blame you?  We all want that connection, and sometimes we’re so blind we cannot see that this guy or this girl isn’t the one for us. 

And no one is at fault here.

Arthur C. McWilliams IV