Reflections on Love: No. 510

I think the worst thing about being in love is when you realize you are no longer in it. In the midst of it, you find yourself so totally devoted to a person that their flaws become invisible. You won't notice that they are completely self-absorbed and only care about their appearance, for instance, or that they judge people for things they have no control over. The aspects of their person that initially pulled you in become magnified and everything around them is bathed in their glow. You become so accustomed to wearing your rose-colored sunglasses that you even keep them on indoors. Every day you talk about this person - you don't actually say you love them, but it's pretty obvious - even when nobody wants to listen. Even when the people around you question why you care so much, especially when it's clear to everyone else that this person you think you love so much can only be using you, and wonder audibly what you could possibly see in them, you cling so tightly to your "beloved" that that no shadow of doubt can creep in and dislodge your grip. 

Things get particularly bad when the objection of your affection stops wanting you. Stops wanting anything to do with you, actually. All this valuable time and energy you're spending on them and they only see you as a nuisance. They tell you as much and it's like they have taken everything you valued about yourself and unceremoniously dumped it in the trash. Instead of picking up and moving on like someone rational would do you become attached. Obsessed, really. The need to be close to this person at all costs controls you and makes you do things you normally wouldn't. You can't see the collision course you're on until it's almost too late, even as others see you spiraling out of control and try their best to warn you through the fog of "love" obscuring your vision that has so quickly dealt your ability to reason a death blow. 

What's the quickest way to kill love?

Fear. 

When your infatuation has become so all-encompassing that you don't know if you can exist without it, when it dictates your every action, when you can no longer isolate yourself from this unreciprocated passion that has become your only purpose in life, this is when love dies. The moment when the object of your affection stops perceiving you as an annoyance and begins to see you as the threat you have become is when the possibility of them returning your affections disappears. Nobody can or should ever be expected to love someone they're afraid of. Whether it's their reputation or something much more critical you've put in jeopardy with your selfish obsession is irrelevant. You have hurt the person you think your whole world revolves around and by doing this you have hurt yourself.

 … 

But I know you didn't do any of this on purpose. 

And neither did I.