Relationships between people is what makes the world go round. Relationships between people you love, now that is what makes life, truly, meaningful, but is it all that easy?

Lou Reed said it best when he said “Love is like a dirty french novel. We all want the sophistication and philosophy to come with all the passion that belongs to a healthy relationship,” yet finding someone to live up to those expectations could be an otherworldly task. If you ask me, that type of love is unattainable. All of us, myself included, build up these images of the perfect guy or the perfect girl and think that they’ll magically appear out of thin air to be with us. The fact of the matter is that love doesn’t work like that.

It’s sad truth that we all will have to accept at some point in our lives, but not all hope should be lost. A friend of mine once told me that

Love isn’t a spectacle like we see in the movies, that’s just a product of someone with an overactive imagination and daddy issues. Love is captured in the subtleties and  nuances of everyday life. Love is the little things, anything from a good morning text to sending flowers on sweetest day. Love is always being there for each other, through thick and thin, accepting who they were and who they are and who they are going to be, faults and all.

I always have believed that people are should make their own opinion, think for themselves, and be independent. It’s not the most popular viewpoint, trust me I know, but society, today, tries to sell love as something it’s not. The comedian, Bo Burnham, summed my view on romance in a very precise verse, saying that these love stories are nothing more than a ruse designed by a marketing team trying to cash in on puberty, low self-esteem and a desperate need to feel loved. I tend to agree; love is that strong of a drug. I know it makes me sound like a Don Draper~esque Mad Men antagonist, but I’m not saying love is impossible to find.

Romance is a beautiful thing, and that’s a lesson I learned early. Not too long ago, I found out that my image of what a “perfect” girl is, exists, and I got the pleasure to work with her at my first job I was able to hold onto. If hindsight’s truly 20/20, than I’m not shocking anyone by saying it was a one sided relationship. On the bright  side we still are friends to this day, but through all of my infatuation with her, I had to be realistic.

Even though I was head over heels for her, she was happy being with a mutual friend. It wasn’t fair to her for me to hold it over her head, so we talked it out for hours at a time, and I realized I needed to move on, because her happiness means everything to me, and if she’s finds it in being with another guy, I’m good with it. It was really tough to move on, but it was the right thing to do. She always felt sorry for me, but now, I really hope that she’s just forgotten about me, because she deserves all the happiness in world and I would have never forgiven myself if I got in her way.

I wish I could say that it gets better, but really it doesn’t. Moving on is a battle, it has its highs and its lows, but at the end, you’ll find yourself knowing what you absolutely want and you’ll be stronger for it. Maybe you’ll even find yourself sitting in the backseat of a car, on your way to Clio, writing in your Evernote app, realizing that you don’t really have an end to this story. At least, not yet.

If you want to read my previous 2 posts on relationships, and love, check out my personal blog, Cracker~Barrel Thoughts.