So you can understand my hopes that when I got back to the UK, I would be deluged with phone calls, emails and loving texts, telling me how much he missed me and planning our next visit together.
Day 3 of being home and I’d heard nothing from him. So what did I do? Unlike perhaps a more rational person, who might think it best to leave it as a holiday romance and move on, I pushed it. I texted him, saying I wanted to speak. When I didn’t hear back from him after several hours, I began to pace the room, looking at my phone and willing it to signal his reply.
In those moments, I craved his attention because I told myself I needed it; I needed to know that he cared about me so that I would feel good about myself, safe in the knowledge that someone out there loved me and could fill the emptiness I felt inside.
I’ve read many books and listened to people say “love yourself first” and for two years I remained single, proving to myself that I could do well on my own and I did. But the moment I got involved with someone, all that unhealed stuff came up. I even found myself saying “I can’t live without him” to a friend. Blimey! I didn’t even know him for the first 41 years of my life and I lived just fine without him then and have done since! And having spent just a week with him, I didn’t really know him on a day to day basis; being on holiday gives you a rose-tinted view of someone, but what was he like at home? He may well be a complete pain with annoying habits, but no, in my mind at that time, he was the one. I smile when I think about that now.
Herein lies the problem: I wasn’t seeing the reality, and I wasn’t taking the feedback, which is that he had enjoyed our time together, but he was offering no indications that he wanted to take it further, even though my head had already walked us up the aisle!
The lesson in this story is this: don’t push something that isn’t going to give. A wall is a wall, not a door. Listen to the feedback that’s being shown to you. Don’t stop and wait and try if you’re not invited; move on, and fast. Each valuable moment I spent waiting for him took away from my openness to meeting someone who really was available and wanting to be with me.
I give thanks that the relationship didn’t continue, as it’s given me the opportunity to truly learn that I am enough, as I am, with or without someone. Love is always available to me, I know that now. I didn’t then.
Dear Sahera, I love your story, and can hear and feel your truth and vulnerability and the realisation of the situation Just a niggling thought….did you ever hear back from this man to say that he didn’t want the connection to continue; even shared friendship …or am I being too naive?! Sending you love Annie xx
Hi Annie, thank you for your acknowledging comments. No, I did not. But I later wrote to him to complete the relationship and thank him for the experience we shared. Always important to complete, for ourselves.
Yes, a true lesson. Learning to love oneself takes a long time, especially when that message is misinterpreted from childhood brainwashings. Until recently I understood loving oneself to be selfish, vain, the sin of pride manifest. Tell us more about loving ourselves and what it entails, and why it is so important.
Darling Cathy, I am so glad you realise this. In response to your question, firstly, love can never be selfish, nor is it a sin. In my experience of loving myself, my heart expands so that I can more easily love others. Secondly, what is self? In truth, we are not individuated, we are not separate, so when I love myself, what am I loving? Not ‘me’, not ‘you’, but all. We are one in truth. Love is the natural expression of our essence as One. No shame in love.
Yes, there’s no shame in love. It helps to love wisely, though. In his book “Act like a lady, think like a man”, Steve Harvey explains how and why men and women often interpret the same situation quite differently.