Truly, it will come out of nowhere. In my case from a place where I’d least expected it.
-don’t seek out a specific kind of love, sometimes having close friends you can emotionally connect w and support is so so important for your wellbeing. And more often than not romantic love can sprout from the platonic sort.
-keep growing and healing and being the best version of yourself u can be being yourself is so insanely magnetic esp. to those who are going to mesh well w u
-be receptive to your own emotions and Know that love will come out of nowhere and hit u upside the head
Jun 7, 2024
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now i am a very lucky person because i am in love with some who was once one of my best friends. (sadly this rec probably isn’t universally applicable but contains good lessons i hope!) i’d met him during the first week of freshman year of college, and we immediately became close. hung out a ton and related on a lot of issues/values but our interactions were always platonic.
by wintertime we were being seen together around campus a ton, to the point that our acquaintances started asking whether we were a couple. we’d laugh at the idea, even joking about it ourselves. oh how oblivious we were.
spring rolled around and i suddenly caught feelings. for a couple weeks i tried to convince myself i didn’t like him because i was so afraid of losing our beautiful friendship. i thought it impossible that he would feel the same as me. yes, pretty torturous!! alas, my Emotional Suppression didn’t work. thank god, because one night when we were hanging out in my room he finally kissed me. i had been so afraid but instantly i knew it was right. the risk was worth it.
we’ve now been together for almost two years and he is truly the love of my life. he is the best risk I’ve ever taken. yes this is so platitudinous, but sometimes love comes when you least expect it and appears in odd places!
more generally, i think
- looking for people whose values align with yours is a wonderful place to start establishing intimate and long-lasting relationships, both platonic and romantic.
- it’s never worthwhile to force something to work out if your gut tells you it’s wrong — you’re worth more than that. love doesn’t thrive when it’s fed by obligation and pressure.
- don’t be afraid to present yourself in your full authenticity to others. if someone else has a problem with You in your Grandest Expression, they’re not worth your energy. love is meant to affirm and expand who you are, not place boundaries on it.
- go on self dates and explore what it means to have a loving relationship with yourself! you, as a singular self, are already whole and enough without having a partner. you are complete as a baseline regardless of your relationship status; a partner is meant to complement and embrace this wholeness!!
love is ridiculous and hard and beautiful; trust it when you feel it!!
Nov 10, 2024
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This is annoying advice but love has always come to me when I’m not looking for it. When I get very active in things I’m passionate about (usually leftie organizing but also art and history stuff and also just spending time with friends a la the friends of friends rec) I meet new people and find interesting, aligned folks.
Apr 5, 2024
đź’–
Sometimes I get caught up chasing ideals of love. Growing up with immigrant parents in the US, I wished my parents showed me love the way my friends' parents did. My parents seemed cold in comparison to the affection I saw my friends receiving. I fell for best friends who did love me but never enough and never in the ways I wanted them to.
Nowadays I have grown to appreciate the ways in which my parents do show me love -- when they ask if I've eaten or when I dye my mom's hair as she peels me oranges. Friendship to me no longer needs to be tied up in such rigid binaries. It's not the label of a relationship I'm after but rather just the intimacy of knowing other people. I try not to focus so much on how I wish to be loved by other people and instead pay attention to all the different ways I am loved. Acting with a mindset of abundance rather than scarcity. And in that way, everything feels enough.
Disclaimer: Establishing boundaries is paramount. Love that is corrosive or manipulative is not love.
Feb 1, 2024
Top Recs from @phianeversleeps
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To start—> I don’t want this to come off as trauma dumpy, I am v happy with the person Ive grown into. Who I wouldn’t be if I didn’t have these experiences:)
I’ve moved around so so so much especially as a kid. I used to feel v guilty bc there were a lot of friends I left behind bc of circumstances beyond my control. This pattern became a trend that continued throughout my life. Went to 4 high schools; was going thru a lot, and was referred to as a ghost.
Having someone you didn’t even realize knew who u were say “omg! It’s been a year! We thought you’d died, wow, how are you? Yk a lot of people tried to reach out…etc” completely changed my perspective on the world. I didn’t even realize the possibility I was really noticed outside of my immediate friend group.
Another case happened this year at university. I was chatting w someone from a class, their friends walk up to say hi, and one says “your name is Sophia right?” I said yes and assumed I’d just met her while drunk at a show. So I apologized, and asked her name/ where she was from and all that jazz. It got more awkward when she said we went to the same school growing up, same class and everything. I didn’t recognize her at all, but obviously she knew me, it was so bizarre. Continued to see her around campus nearly every day for the rest of the year Lolz.
It didnt all actualize for me until recently, and still makes my head spin. I can’t imagine how many people I unintentionally became a ghost to :// being perceived is crazyyyy
May 24, 2024
In this regard, to what I like to call a funk.
I feel très dookie. Lots of change in my life, and in times of instability I tend to fall off the horse- in a major way. Like many ppl. This past go round I have been excessively hard on myself over my general lacking in… well almost everything. Ive come to the conclusion that there are times you have to give yourself more grace than you’d like to. Maybe the pity party can last a couple more days than usual. I won’t go into details, bc as those of you reading who have dealt with mental health struggles, it can be sort of gross. Sure. There’s a ton I could be doing to put an end to my funk. Make more of an effort to dig myself out of the hole. But, at the end of the day I know I will come out of the funk in my own time. Faking myself out, and convincing myself I’m feeling better serves no one.
Making yourself feel worse over feeling bad in the first place is just wildly counterproductive. Just keep moving forward in time. There’s a lot of it <3
Jun 2, 2024
May 29, 2024