The opposite of love.
Just for a moment, let us put The Younger Man on the back burner and focus on The Counselor.
Our world often makes me feel that I should apologize about the fact that I actually do want to get married, and that I should apologize for having strong feelings towards men. "I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not in my nature" ( Northanger Abbey). I feel strongly about people and have very rarely felt the unnerving twinge of indifference. I either like a person or I do not. And if I like a person, I generally like them greatly. This applies as much to my daily life as it does to my love life. Some see this as one of my greatest faults, and to be certain it has brought me some grief in my day, but I much prefer my strong feelings to those of a simple indifference.
But in the case with The Counselor, I allowed my own strong feelings to blind me towards his obvious indifference. Read the signs, Lady. Read the signs.
I imagined that after this summer of EFY, The Counselor and I would return to school and have a whirlwind fall romance. And maybe, just maybe, we would fall in love, graduate our respective grad programs next spring, get married, and be the powerhouse couple I always imagined. This wouldn't be the first time that my active imagination led me astray.
All I really wanted was for The Counselor to buck up, be a man, and court me as I thought I deserved. Or at least to tell me to beat it if it really was not something he wanted. When that failed to happen as I had imagined, I was given piece of advice after piece of advice from numerous friends, family members, fellow EFY counselors, and even a beloved former BYU professor who exhorted me to be bold. I can be flirtatious, but such boldness scares me to death. It is blunt and unflinching where my flirtatious nature is flighty and anything but honest.
Nevertheless, I knew The Counselor would not give me the satisfaction of an answer unless I was direct (at least not anytime in the near future). Following one of our regular hours-long conversations, I got up the nerve to tell The Counselor how I really felt. Of course he wasn't oblivious to the fact that I had been deeply interested in him for the past eight months, but all he could say was "I don't know." For an hour. All I got was "I don't know." He hemmed and hawed and told me he wasn't good enough for me, and that he wouldn't make me happy, but that he couldn't fathom not having me in his life. The bottom line was "I don't know," but I would rather have a certain "no."
Because I feel so deeply about people, I cannot easily let them go. But I am determined to move on from this. I cannot bide indifference, and I should have recognized that sooner. The Counselor and I may be able to talk for hours on end about any subject, we may have a lot in common, I may find his stupid sweater vests adorable, but if he can't feel about me strongly, I cannot force that or pretend that that is okay. I want more than indifference. So much more.
Con Amor,
The Lady
2 comments:
You have no idea how perfectly this applies to my own life right now. Total parallel situation. Thanks for sharing; I really needed to read this today. <3
You deserve more. Don't settle, Lady. Also, "I don't know"?? What is that supposed to mean?
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