I don’t know why, but even today, I find myself waiting.
I have tried so many times to break free from all of this. Every time, I told myself that I wouldn’t think about it anymore—that I wouldn’t obsess over someone like this again. Yet, I always find myself trapped in that same place.
Sometimes I wonder, is nature itself deciding all this? Or are my mind and heart controlling me?
I try hard not to do this, not to think so much about someone, but then, unknowingly, I start doing exactly what I don’t want to do.
You might be wondering what I’m talking about.
I am talking about falling in love. Giving your heart to someone. Surrendering your very soul to another.
But over time, I realized that perhaps I wasn’t in love with them as much as I was in love with the stories I had created in my own mind.
#The First Stage of Love – When Only the Heart Rules
How strange is it?
We go crazy over the person we want. We become ready to do anything for them. At that moment, it feels like if I could just have this person, I would be the luckiest person in the world.
We get so lost in love that we could spend the entire day with them. We want to listen to everything they say. We are ready to do anything for their smallest happiness. Even if they ignore us, just being near them gives us a joy that nothing else can provide.
This is the early stage of love, where only the heart is active.
Our ability to think or reason almost vanishes. We feel that whatever we are doing is right. And slowly, we start believing that the other person is just as crazy about us as we are about them.
#The Second Stage – When the Mind Starts Crafting Stories
Now, we talk more. We share our secrets. We start looking for hidden meanings in everything they say. We find excuses to sit near them. We end up memorizing their daily routine. A single smile from them makes our entire day, and being ignored ruins it.
But in this stage, something else is born—doubt. When they talk to someone else, questions arise in the mind:
Who is this?
What are they laughing about?
Am I the only fool here, thinking so much?
Slowly, we become hungry for attention. We want every look, every reaction. We constantly need confirmation that they like us as much as we like them.
#The Third Stage – When the Person Becomes a Habit
With time, that person becomes a habit.
We post things on social media that only they can understand. We imagine scenes of our future together. We write entire stories in our heads.
But the biggest question remains—"Should I confess?"
And this question never gets an answer.
The fear of losing the friendship stops us. We stay silent, and time keeps slipping away.
And then, one day, we see that person happy with someone else. Their life is going well. And we are still standing exactly where we were. At that moment, it feels like we have been betrayed. But who truly betrayed us? That person? Or our own expectations?
*This happened to me many times.*
It didn't just happen once; it happened five times. Every time, I liked someone. Every time, they became a habit. Every time, there was attachment. Every time, there was lust. And every time, everything ended without a word being said.
At the time, I thought I had lost in love. But today, I realize I wasn't losing in love.
I was living in a world created by my own mind. I loved the stories connected to those people more than the people themselves.
# The Biggest Realization
Today, I realize that not every attraction is love.
Sometimes it is loneliness. Sometimes it is emotional attachment. Sometimes it is mere imagination. And sometimes, it is just lust.
I understood that I was making the same mistake over and over again. Instead of seeing people for who they were, I was crafting stories about them. And when reality didn't match those stories, my heart broke.
#There is a Fourth Stage -
The first stage is attraction. The second is attachment. The third is heartbreak. And the fourth is awareness.
It is when a person realizes that a huge part of their pain wasn't caused by the other person, but by their own expectations. I think I am at that stage today. Today, I feel that it is good that I never confessed.
If I had, maybe even the friendship would have been lost. I went through depression, I cried, I broke down. But I didn't leave myself alone. I reached out to my own people. I talked to them; I unburdened my heart. And slowly, I understood that when we are sad, we need people the most.
But we do the opposite. We move away from the world. And when we are happy, we go around telling everyone.
Perhaps we should do the opposite. When there is pain, we should go to people. And when there is immense joy, we should sit alone for a while and feel that happiness. Because that is where true peace is found. And perhaps, that is where true love is found too.
Love is found when we stop asking for it. When we stop trying to hold onto it, and just feel it.
And then we realize that there is something even more important than love — respect. And in my life, respect will always have a place before love.
I said in the beginning that I still find myself waiting, but now I understand that the wait wasn't for someone else. I think I was always waiting for myself. After all these experiences, I finally found the one I had been searching for all these years. And that person wasn't someone else—it was me.
Perhaps the purpose of every incomplete story is not to find someone else, but to find ourselves.