Love is a Battlefield.

Ok, maybe love isn’t really a bat­tle­field, but it some­times feels as though there’s a land­mine field lead­ing up to it! There are so many facets to attrac­tion and then add in expe­ri­ences and cop­ing skills and there are a mul­ti­tude of ways a rela­tion­ship can go off-​​course.
One area I am unsure of is when there is an imbal­ance in how much peo­ple care for one another or express their feel­ings. Depend­ing on the dif­fer­ence, this could be a deal-​​breaker. Maybe there isn’t really a gap in feel­ings, but instead a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive of time and progress.

I met an incred­i­ble man recently and have begun won­der­ing if he is more into me than I am into him. He’s super com­pli­men­tary and thinks I am attrac­tive, intel­li­gent, funny … he’s also super ver­bal in express­ing these com­pli­ments. It’s flat­ter­ing, but I’m not quite at the same stage. I like him a lot and there’s a crazy-​​weird deep con­nec­tion between us already, but I just can’t be quite as ver­bal with the com­pli­ments as he is. When asked, I can tell him why I like him, but I tread water.

If I put my Psych 101 hot on, I am hedg­ing. I’m tak­ing a leap in feel­ing crazy emo­tions and desires, but just can’t ver­bal­ize them because of the per­ma­nence that cre­ates. It’s like the dif­fer­ence between writ­ing in pen­cil ver­sus ink. Think of an address book. Tons of my friends moved fre­quently and before I began using Out­look as my address book, I would write down info in pen­cil. (I got frus­trated with hav­ing to cross out info or use a dif­fer­ent let­ter page.) I feel kind of the same here. There’s an “offi­cial­ness” to say­ing all this aloud.

Although I can’t ver­bally express com­pli­ments and feel­ings as freely as this guy, I am try­ing to reas­sure him of my feel­ings as I believe actions can be just as sig­nif­i­cant as words. For exam­ple, last night while at din­ner he expressed ner­vous­ness and even self-​​consciousness. I didn’t know exactly what to say or even if the lim­ited depth of my words would help so I reach out and held his hand as I spoke to him. For me, there was a great vul­ner­a­bil­ity in doing so as I was open­ing a door to myself I had yet – at least not in that context.

On a much larger scale, I think emo­tions and love cycle through highs and lows. There are times when your part­ner will drive you crazy and irri­tate your last nerve, but faith in that per­son and shared expe­ri­ences can keep you united until the bal­ance and con­nec­tion are restored – at least until the imbal­ance returns or sways!

Related posts:

1. Is Sex the New “I Love You?”