an avoidant's guide to love

all i do is run away (and you should(n't) too)

(taken from pinterest)

across my two decades of life, i’ve crushed on at least ten boys. primary school was when the bulk of this crushing happened, and i was innocent enough to babble to my friends whenever i fancied someone new. and like any young girl, i daydreamed about marrying them out loud, looking gorgeous in my white dress and veil, while my girlfriends would be my bridesmaids and audience. it sounds crazy to me now, imagining such a far-fetched event when the biggest concerns of my life were solving math problems and sneaking in more screen time.

one key characteristic of being a primary school kid is an unfiltered mouth. i told literally every girl i was friends with about my crush on this boy, and it somehow made its way to him. i felt super betrayed, but then again i babbled, so i was to blame. i crushed on this boy for a good four years, and my friends applauded me for staying ‘loyal’. he and i became desk buddies two years into the crush, and the whole class cheered for us. chill, we weren’t getting married. yet.

at this stage, boys and girls typically got along with each other pretty well, with no self-consciousness when interacting with the opposite sex. we were just bros. i talked to boys the way i would talk to my girlfriends, and i appreciated their welcome as a girl who played sports. that’s one thing i genuinely miss about being a kid.

one thing that sets my puppy love crushes in primary school apart from the subsequent crushes i experienced was the emotional involvement — my primary school crushes could talk to girls all they want or say they like someone else, my feelings weren’t hurt. that’s because these crushes came from surface-level admiration and whether they were fun to be around. it was like they were special bros, not special boys.

it was only in secondary school did i experience crushes with emotional involvement. everyone was getting conscious about having guy friends, and i did too. following the devastating and probably traumatic friend group isolation incident, i somehow forgot how to talk to boys. rather than malfunctioning out of self-consciousness of being around someone of the opposite sex, i was malfunctioning because bro code seemingly ceased to exist in my mind after my guy friends deemed me a ‘bad friend’ (their attempt to gaslight me or whatever). i could only talk to guys in bro code, so if that didn’t work, how can i communicate? anything i sent to boys without adding ‘bro’ sounded like i was flirting, and i did not sit right with that.

as ironic as life is, my notable secondary school crush was part of the friend group who shooed me out rather meanly. my withdrawn personality limited me to admiring him from afar, seeking his face out in his friends’ instagram stories. as a girl who forgot how to speak casually to boys, i panicked every time i needed to contact him for school stuff. i spent so much time crafting messages that i ended up never sending, failing to look him in the eye whenever i had to collect money for biology notes. and on the rare occurrence that he did respond to my texts, my heart soared but i always waited to respond. i was pushing and pulling, except he wasn’t even interested? most times, i consider what i want to say to the extent i get exhausted and not reply at all.

while crushing on this boy, his pains were mine and i genuinely wished the best for him. whenever he was scolded in class, or when i found out he was dropping certain subjects, i felt sad for him. i would’ve loved to help him out, but i knew it was not my place to — after all, i was just a yearner who forgot how to talk to boys. i did seriously consider confessing my feelings to him after our preliminary examinations, but those plans were foiled with my friends’ discovery that he had been dating a girl since july. i was so disappointed that my friend noticed it on my face even before i told her about it. we were never meant to work out, but this still hurt a lot.

last but not least, here comes my first love (again, i know, i’m sorry). on a scale of 1-10 for emotional involvement, i’ll rate this experience a solid 20. since we knew each other from primary school, bro code still worked with him. except, as i started to like him, it felt impossible to remain casual in our conversations. my heart would deflate a little bit every time he called me bro, because that meant he did not see me as a woman. same as above, whenever he texted, i would will myself to wait for a few hours before i responded. especially during the early days after we reconnected, this boy would double-text on multiple occasions and lead conversations. while it felt nice to have someone interested in my life, i was fearful of what this might mean if he was actually into me. i am not confident in baring my soul to someone who might just up and leave at any moment. so i relied on the delayed messaging to scope out this boy’s interest — would he respond right away? what would he say? the plot twist was i fell for him, and he did not, at all, like me.

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as i’m writing this, it’s clearer than ever what my attachment style has shaped me into behaving — i pull away and overthink our interactions, mistaking general kindness for romantic interest. although it’s more than okay to crush on someone who does not like you back, it’s inevitable to imagine how life would be like if they felt the same. my evaluation of whether they ‘felt the same’ was solely through my interactions with them. while my first two notable crushes made it obvious that nothing was gonna happen, the actions of my first love made it impossible to decipher his true intentions.

i’ve always struggled to distinguish between kindness and romantic interest, which might’ve been why i often misread boys. somehow, that does not happen when i’m observing other people’s love life, which is quite puzzling to be honest.

apart from crushes initiated on my end, i’ve also experienced events that were puzzling for me to decipher. like this one colleague of mine, who i enjoyed working with but gave some indication of interest. talking to him was always easy and i felt comfortable around him, but when he started asking more about me i wanted to run out of the store and never come back again. there’s a fine line between playful banter and serious interest, and i’m already one foot out of the door whenever i talk to boys. its also possible that my heart decides to fancy boys that i know have zero probability of dating me in the future, to protect myself from the eventual vulnerability i have to share with my partner. if that isn’t the case, what could possibly explain my notorious list of crushes consisting of boys who didn’t like me that way?

as much as i love love and want to experience it for myself one day, i’m not confident at all in giving my soul to someone else who could leave at any time. i enjoy the heart-fluttering moments of playful banter, but trust me i’ll bolt out of the door the moment things start to get serious. you’ll never know what’s in store in the future, whether the boy you love will stay by your side, unchanging in his love for you.

how can i possibly trust someone with burdens i told no one about, when i know people come and go?

who’s to say that he won’t be one of them?

i know full well that love cannot exist without that leap of faith to trust that they are your person, and you are theirs, for life. that is simply too much for me to bear. and that’s why i thread lightly, not revealing too much to people because i know they’ll leave eventually. if losing someone i loved was this painful, i simply can’t imagine how much worse it’ll be losing someone who loved me too.

more lightheartedly, i genuinely love experiencing crushes. although all of mine have been one-sided, all the imagining, expecting and overthinking is what makes us alive. while i was losing my mind in silence over a boy, he would have never known he meant that much to me then. i was my funniest and most deranged while managing my out-of-control affection for my first love. the heartbreak aside, crushing was one of the best experiences of my life. while i’m not sure i’ll ever be ready to be vulnerable with anyone other than myself, love is truly, truly beautiful.

as this draft was meant to be a guide, i surprisingly yapped a little too much about my love life (lol). here are two pointers for your consideration:

1. treat the boys/ girls in your life as friends, not potential lovers.

   this one really shook my world when i first came across it. like whoa, caught me red-handed there. there was a period of my life where i saw the dudes i interacted with as my potential boyfriends, which definitely ruined whatever platonic chemistry there could’ve been if i treated them like how i treated my female friends. and also, i was so socially awkward around guys it was impossible to sustain a normal conversation without freaking out and being self-conscious. this could’ve stemmed from my lifelong desire to date someone from my childhood (friends to lovers trope enthusiasts scream!!), and i was very aware that time was running out if i wanted to live my dreams. treat everyone with basic respect, and if it happens, it will.

2. live in the present moment, rather than your fears.

   as a habitual overthinker, i find myself half-submerged in my thoughts of the future and what might happen. the thing is, our present is right here and is happening as we speak, while what we conjure in our minds might never even happen. instead of passing through life with our mind elsewhere, it helps a lot to stay grounded in where you are right now. sure, i might’ve imagined my friends leaving one by one and i’ll end up never dating anyone in my life due to my fear of affection and vulnerability, but right now my friends are still here and i’ve barely even started my life to worry about that kind of stuff. so live in the moment and love with your heart, even if the connection might not last in the long run. it’s better to mourn the loss of someone you loved with all your might than regret not doing more for them while you still could.

for my fellow single ladies, i hope you’ll find someone who appreciates you for who you are, with the gentlest love you deserve.