Love is complicated. One minute you hate that person, and another minute you can't stand to not be around that person. When I was younger, I always thought it was a black and white phenomenon. Either you love that person or you don't. But now, I know better.
I loved a lot of people over the course of 18 years. Not all of them loved me back of course, and I never knew the reason behind it. Was it because I didn't have any admirable qualities? Was it because I wasn't attractive enough? Watching my crushes drift away into the crowd with other girls made me think that I wasn't good enough for anybody. That I was destined to be forever alone. That I was always gonna be put in the friend zone.
Guys in the past have always told me I wasn't beautiful. I was more "boyish," having boy traits, boy vibes, and liking to engage in playing video games instead of doing the stuff that girls normally would do: go shopping with friends, get hair/nails done. Imagine having the guys you loved tell you, repeatedly, that you are just another one of their "friends." Someone they would go to you for game advice, homework help, or just advice in general.
But even as these same boys rejected me, I continued to admire them from afar.
Love, to me, doesn't just disappear.
It can be after a couple of days, months, or even years and my love for them wouldn't fade. I see them as the same person, a faded memory, even though they could have changed; that if now I try to look for them in a crowded space, the person I remember them as would not be existent or just merely gone from the system.
Before my 18th birthday, nobody had called me beautiful.
Those boys from my past complimented me as a joke or laughed it off afterward. I wasn't attractive in their eyes, lacking those curves that every boy seemed mesmerized by. Every day, I would look at myself in the mirror and shake my head, looking for the curves that are inexistent. My own family couldn't understand why I didn't love myself, but how could I, when society demeans those that have a long and lean body type? Even though the world applauds the models on the runway, nobody realizes that in realistic situations, those girls with a lack of curves would just be looked down upon.
Discrimination based on the fact that those girls who are too bony, with no womanly traits, are just not desirable enough.
Love is about what you see, and not about what others see.
I am in love with a guy that no one else approves of.
Where I see positivity, love, and sacrifice, others see manipulation, being a creep, or someone who doesn't respect boundaries. What they don't realize is that it is the act of true love.
Someone who would cross boundaries just so they can prove how much they care, someone who would not give up, someone who would keep apologizing and make you feel like the most beautiful person in their eyes. Society should know that people aren't perfect, and even when you keep putting people down like that, they will keep prospering to show their love.