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Valentine's Day post 2025
This all happened years ago when I was younger. The first part.
I once fell for this girl really hard. Thought about her all the time. Like, minute-to-minute. I couldn't eat sometimes, I was so enamored. I used to live my days wondering what she was doing, as if every space she filled were magical. Was she eating? With whom? Was some guy making her laugh? Would it be okay to send her a short message? Sometimes I would then send one on inspiration--a joke, a link to music, something else inane--then ride the buoyant wave of anticipation for a while, until I got no answer and no answer, and eventually my face burned with shame at my own fey sentimentality. Was I not a man? Had I not been raised to be tougher than this weak sniveller? God damn it.
Just being around her, though, was a thrill I had without questioning it, something I felt without having asked for it or willed it. I sometimes saw her from the bus, me riding, her out there walking and my heart skipped--literally I could feel that palpitation. She was a good deal younger than I was--tall, willowy, sure of herself. Beautiful. Her hair was in a popular style at the time, though rare now. When I did see her, time stood still. They say you should plan dates and do fun things--and it is true, you should, you must--but to me, truly just sitting on a bench with her was better than sailing to the Bahamas (which yes, I've done), if she were there on the bench with me. Just staring into air. All very corny. Pathetic even. What I'd warn anyone not to feel. The stuff of saccharine pop.
She left, though, and like a teenage girl I spent my time pining over her. Tried not to show it, did show it when drunk. My closest drinking buddy at the time was sympathetic but couldn't relate and told me just to move on, move on. Cease all communication. I tried. It worked for awhile. Still I'd wonder where she was. I could even stir a perfectly benign moment like waiting for a bus into an existential crisis of jealousy by simply imagining: "What if right now she is with some guy?" I ruined my own day many times by doing this.
I always wondered what it would be like to know her forever, and I actually envied her family--that they might know her for so many years, whereas I would almost surely be forgotten, and soon. It took a lot of alcohol and sinking into shallow self-indulgence to shut her out of my mind.
Then this and that happened and I married her and I left her sleeping this morning with her feet sticking out of the covers.
"Life is a trick. Life is a kitten in a sack." --Anne Sexton
I still remember being struck with what felt like a thunderbolt the first time I saw my wife. I had even been prepared, slightly. I knew her roommate, and so had seen pictures on Facebook. The only excuse I can muster is that the average resolutions back then were so low they gave you what I think is more of an idea of a person.
I was able to stabilize myself for the rest of that night and act normal, even if every conversation with her started with me being a little short of breath, or having the same palpitations you describe. Over the next year or so, I was struck by how funny and kind a woman with this much beauty could be. It didn't hurt that she was dating someone else, so the stakes were low.
When we both had to stay in our small college town over the summer, I brought her tea and aspirin when she was sick. She helped scrub the old green truck I drove that didn't match my personality at all, and we made trashy cheddar bacon fries with meat from the ag department she was part of. When they broke up, I swooped in.
More than a decade later, I still actively give my male friends opportunities to talk to her 1 on 1 in social situations. It's such a great experience that I think it would be selfish not to share it, even if I know firsthand it hurts a little when it's over.
From time to time I have had sudden bouts of insecurity because I never had an experience like that when I met my wife, or when we were dating. So when people talk about “love at first sight” I get uncomfortable. I’m a romantic at heart, and I like the idea of falling desperately in love with someone like that, but that’s not what happened to me. I was not especially attracted to her when I met her, no more than any other young woman. I grew to love her slowly, as I got to know her. I love her deeply today: I would die for her if I had to. But I never “fell for her”, so to speak.
Of course I never fell for anyone else either. There have been three times in my life that I saw a woman and was struck by her beauty. I felt strongly physically attracted to her: infatuated might be a good word. But I wanted to bed those women, not love them. Two of them were complete strangers whose character was unknown to me. The third I had a conversation with, and discovered she was not the kind of person I wanted to have a discussion with, much less live with. It was lust only.
You're not alone. I've never fallen head over heels for anyone this way. I've pined for and creeped over many girls in my youth, but it has always been a gradual and groundless infatuation.
My wife doesn't like to be reminded of it, but I asked her out because I didn't feel this crippling anxiety around her that came with my usual feelings towards a girl.
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While that moment is an incredible memory, it's long ago been dwarfed by the rest of our relationship. I've been a hopeless romantic since I was very young. 99/100 times, it was just a way to get my feelings hurt, but eventually, it stuck.
Many such cases.
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