trysts. flings. i think kids these days call them situationships. those brief encounters lasting a few weeks, maybe a few months. we crave them, we curse them, we’re wholly consumed by them. we swear never again—until never happens again.
on paper, they’re idyllic: no real expectations, no emotional baggage, no arguments about whose turn it is to take out the trash. they start suddenly and unexpectedly—a mutual friend’s birthday, an empty seat on a train, a casual-but-vaguely-flirtatious dm.
is this happening?
it’s happening.
it’s fine, though. he’s got a plane to catch, she’s taking the promotion, the clock strikes twelve, and everyone turns back into pumpkins.
i get it. fun is fun is fun is fun. and part of the beauty of short-term connections is their ephemerality. it’s summer camp: all highlights, no long-term logistics. so you kiss rather than critique, dance rather than nag, embrace rather than keep score. you become the self you always wanted, the version you deem worthy of care, attention, and love.
but what happens when the tents come down, the friendship bracelets fray? when you’re chugging the carton of milk the night before it’s set to expire?
me? i’m heaving on the bathroom floor.
the older i get, the more weary i become of these whirlwind romances. it’s probably why i only book direct flights now, too. layovers are liminal spaces, suspended between arrival and departure, and i’d much rather be at my destination than half-asleep on the terminal floor.
sure, it feels nice—if only briefly—to be loved through a filter, to bask in the inflated versions we project onto each other. but after a while, the sheen dissipates, leaving behind what feels like an endless loop of small talk at a party you never even wanted to attend.
to be loved for who you are not is to not be loved at all.
to be loved is to be seen—multitudes, contradictions, messiness, and all.
but this kind of love requires risk: a reckoning with oneself, a leap into the abyss of uncertainty. this is the price to play. but in return: a love that is weighty, rooted, and real.
i think i’ve had enough of the ember. i’ve outgrown the remnants of what once billowed and blazed—now only a dim flicker, subsumed in ash.
i want the whole damn fire.
Fire is mesmerizing, but it devours. Maybe it’s not about finding the whole fire, but learning to tend to the warmth without burning down the house
I feel like so many people are afraid to just be themselves that they look for any sort of relationship to fill that void, and once’s that is gone the cycle continues. It’s so hard to find another person who is also on your level with being confident in what ever weirdness they bring and want to see you at your worst as well as your best, to hype you up just as much as you want to be hyped up, to just be excited to experience all the boring and mundane that life has to offer with you. Hell one of my favourite activities with my friends is tagging along with each other to just run errands, I want someone that is just as excited to do what with me as they are for date night. Unfortunately, I am still looking for someone like that, so I feel you.