It's September 2023 and I'm still fucked up about love.
To be honest, I just don't understand why it's so hard for me.
On good days, it's simply something everybody struggles with.
On bad days, everything feels like it's set up against me.
Today's a bad day.
As I said in my last post, my sex life is as gratifying as it's ever been, but there's still no love.
I wonder if anybody will ever see me past my body.
Throughout my adult life, I've been able to not depend on love to be able to live.
I understand that I'm not the only person in this position.
But that doesn't make it better, not by a long shot.
And I know that I'm worthy of romantic love. I know it.
But it just gets very hard when time and time again - I'm only seen for my body.
It makes me feel bad about my face, my facial hair, the lines around my mouth.
It makes me (just slightly) want to jump in front of a train, or off a building.
I'm not sure how real these rare suicidal thoughts are.
I get out of them much easier than I get into them.
But why is it so hard?
At this point, I'm convinced it's not me.
My Croatian friend told me that bottom line, there's no way to find a relationship in Berlin.
When I think of the friends I have who are in long, committed relationship - admittedly, they all met outside of Berlin.
So is that it? I can't imagine it being any easier at all in Sydney.
I wish Sydney's gay scene was different also.
It took way too long to realise that the things I accepted, the things I got used to
Shouldn't have been.
****
It's August 2024 now.
Funnily enough, right after I wrote this last thing, I met this guy who fell in love with me immediately. I didn't know that until recently.
He was a tourist in Berlin. He lived in Spain, and worked in under-developed countries. He was a good man, and he made me feel like I could be loved exactly as I was.
When he went away, we didn't establish anything really.
I subconsciously stopped dating because I really liked him, and dating is still really hard here.
He saw other people while he was in Nairobi, and in fact, the woman he was seeing is now pregnant with his baby.
I can't really write much on this right now, because I'm completely devastated.
Almost a year later and I'm in the exact same position I was before.
What hurts the most is that even though this relationship never started, I was so happy...
It was in our goodbye voice notes that he admitted he was already in love with me.
I think back to the moment I chose to meet Linus in Berlin while he was still in Europe, instead of going to him. At least then, I would've felt what love would feel like.
I think what hurts more is not that I loved him (in a way), but that in my first experience of feeling loved, from someone I really liked, the universe said, "no." And I'm alone again.
I want Jorge's impact on me to be that at least now I know that I can be loved and be my authentic self.
I can't help but feel the opposite though.
I feel so so sad, and so alone.
