I love love. Giving it, receiving it. I can’t get enough of this feeling. The first time I fell in love, real love not the kissing in the playground kind, I fell hard.

They’re right when they say you can’t choose your nature. My first real love had been a friend, who then became a friend with benefits. We knew before it even started that we wouldn’t work as a couple. He was looking to settle down, start a family as soon as he finished at Uni and got a job. I wanted to travel and had already been working full time, I was saving up to travel the world, a grand adventure. I didn’t (and still don’t) want kids and this was a big thing on his list.

We got together after I had just been dumped and was looking to enjoy some sex without worrying about getting rejected again. He had only ever been with one other person and wanted to get some experience. It felt like it would be simple and fun.

I should have known it’s not in my nature to be casual about sex. I give everything and don’t hold anything back. I don’t know how I thought I would be able to keep my emotions separate. Such an innocent idea.

I fell hard. As we spent more time together, I got to know him more. He was fun and interesting. He would give me his full attestation and take his time in everything. I thought about him all the time and knew I was feeling too much. I kept telling myself I was being silly and knew we saw different things in our futures. I hid my feelings from him, I just wanted to try and stay in that happy bubble for as long as I could.

He told me about this one girl who was in his class. He had been working on a project with her and thought it might be something. When he asked her out he was up front about not continuing our arrangement. I let him know I understood, of course he would want to spend his time with her. It turned out that she hadn’t felt the same way though and they only had the one date.

I stupidly allowed myself some hope. I’d daydream about how we could make it work. Maybe we could travel first and then move in together. I was kidding myself and I knew it. I didn’t know it would be the last time I’d be with him in that way we had been over the previous 8 months. We messed around and had sex, I left his house and for what seemed like no reason at all I cried all the way home.

I know now that I was crying for what I would never have and the person I couldn’t be. We still spoke and emailed occasionally over the next few weeks. Then he told me about this girl he had met online. He said he’d never felt this way before and that he wanted to really make a go of it. He wanted to end our arrangement and start dating C. I hadn’t seen it coming at the time, I was still daydreaming of how we would start dating for real and become a real part of each other’s lives.

I couldn’t hate him. He had always been honest and a real gentlemen. We would plan our catch ups, it was never just a booty call – even though it was – which is I think how some of my emotional attachments happened. I cried and felt like a reject. I wanted to tell him how unfair this was and how he wasn’t giving me a chance. But how could I? I’d covered up my feelings and always made it clear this wasn’t going to be a relationship.

So I wished him well, I told him I understood that he needed to do what he had to do. I let him know I’d be his friend no matter what.

So my first real taste of love felt like a bit of a disaster. While it doesn’t feel like a success, I learned so much about myself and what I want from my relationships. To this day I know that we wouldn’t have worked out and I know we both made the right choices in the end. I still wish I had been true to myself. I wish I have of been open about my feelings and not smothered it all so that it wouldn’t mess things up. Because it did even if he didn’t know it.

xx