The Looking-Glass-Self

There's so much happening with so many people in my life I hardly have the time to stand back and think about what is actually going on. I used to be so caught up with one particular person for such a long period of time. I would think about this person all day, look at a single picture and make myself fall in love with it. I've always been this addicted to love -or being in love to be more correct. It's like a drug... Feeling those butterflies... And when that would finally get to an end or my heart got broken, someone else would come into my life. Just another person to 'fall in love' with again. A "self-induced amouresness" if you will.

I remember being in my last year of primary school -I was about eleven years old- when I chose a boy from my class to be with. They were always ignorant of this of course but I pretty much just chose a victim. Little did I know I had picked an extremely smart and sweet boy who decided to devote his life to me. When I ended it after eight months he was devastated. It seemed to take ages before he got over it. I felt terrible but I couldn't help it, my love for him -if you can call it that- was over and I felt the need for a new special person.

Now that I'm all grown up and I've learned how to play the game I'm afraid things might've gotten a bit out of control. The thing is, from the moment I hit puberty and changed my childish thoughts about love into a real attention for the opposite sex, I immediately wanted the unreachable. I didn't care about the boys in my class anymore and started to chase the older guys in school. But when I noticed the age difference was simply too obvious at school and scared these guys away I decided to change the scenery. I started to go for the oldest guys in my local youth movement and after that in the youth club, where I was the youngest visitor at the time. Because I was a little more mature and hung out with much older guys than my girlfriends I became a lot more self-assured. At the age of thirteen I already dared to flirt with guys who were about as old as I am now. I just had to make sure they got to know me before they got to know my age. Get them on the hook, so to speak.

But still, I was a very young and fragile girl and at times my "self-induced amorousness" tended towards fatality. One time I met one of my brother's best friends. We started off chatting online and after about a month I got to meet him in person at some book convention. After our encounter I got even more crazy about him and he filled my head with thoughts and dreams. But we lived pretty far from each other and our attempt to go on a date failed. And then he got together with his best friend... This time Í was the one who was devastated. I had only met him once and in the meantime I had idealized this person and my possible future with him so badly that I ended up being depressed for six months. That experience made me discover the undeniable flaw in my method. Making yourself desperately fall in love with someone is one thing, but once you've dropped the trip there's no turning back...

Despite that one big flaw I kept 'using'. I always reached for the unreachable, the guys of whom I knéw I wanted them but couldn't really have them. It was always a game I had to play, a real struggle to get to the cherry on top of the cake. I've come a long way since then, and year by year the struggle got less of a struggle. What was once a challenging game has become more of a habit. After a while I became more interested in the relationships than the chase. I stayed with a few boyfriends and years went by without even noticing it. And then suddenly I was single again. And after being trapped for years I was dying to get back in the game I used to love so much! But everyone knows what happens when you're really hungry...

You overeat.

Here I am. Laying naked on my bed. Mr. X just left. Games have been played.
Was it hard? -The game? no.
Was it fun? -Sure it was...
But my mind doesn't have the time to linger with this one person. There are roads to be driven, places to be travelled. Only a few days ago I was laying in an other guy's bed and at this very moment I'm already chatting with another bloke. Most of the time I don't even sleep in my own bed anymore. I find myself chasing the feelings I once felt for my 'preys' without having the time to actually feel them. Maybe I'm scared, scared of being alone after being with someone all these years. Maybe my self-esteem needs to be pampered continuously in order to forget about being 'single'. Or maybe I really do have commitment issues and therefore subconsciously keep myself from settling again. Or maybe I'm just another young girl with unmanageable hormones...

I sometimes wish I was thirteen again. Too young for sex but naive enough to let oneself desperately fall in love. Don't get me wrong, I love sex. But it kind of ruins my game... Arguing that once you've had it, you can never again have the excitement, the nerves, the chills, all of those delightful feelings prior to eating the cherry! But then again... The anticipation to the deed is needed to successfully play the game. Why else would one play it?

...

I'll just keep screwing around then.