I’ll never forget the day I met Matthew. It was a pleasant surprise to actually go on a first date that seemed almost too fortuitous! At first glance, he made up the perfect man in my eyes when it came to aesthetics. That was a good start, especially when you meet someone online. If he hadn’t been so handsome, it certainly wouldn’t have been the first instance in which I’d met someone who looked like Tom Hardy on Tinder, but Chewbacca in person. So yeah, he’d nailed it. The eyes, the beard, the smile, the bod. It was all going on, and at that moment, if Matthew had said jump, I would’ve said how high.
It only got better from then on. There were no weird conversations, no awkward silences and no pre-planned emergency phone calls from my friends to give me an excuse to escape. I didn’t need an excuse to escape. I was, for once, having a great time with someone I’d only just met, yet somehow I felt like I’d know him forever. There was an immediate chemistry between us, we could see it and I can only assume that the patrons in the bar around us could’ve figured it out too.
That wasn’t the end of it either. We went on from that first date to dating for a good few months, and they were the best. We soon started to discover that we had a lot of similarities, similarities we’d never found in previous relationships, which made it all the more exciting. Boy, did we date. Whether it was dinner or drinks or days out, we dated in style. Always going all out to make the most out of spending time together, and I was loving it. Loving it, and the sex. Oh, the sex. I remember the first time we got between the sheets, it was so passionate but that little voice at the back of my head was whispering “C’mon Naomi, prepare yourself, you may have to fake it” but I didn’t. In fact, the complete opposite. I could only assume that our sexual chemistry positively correlated with our matching personalities, and fuck me, it was fabulous. It wasn’t just the dating and the sex that was exciting, it was everything. Matthew had slowly become a man I felt both emotionally and physically attached to and for those who know me, this was an extremely uncommon sensation.
When I dated in the past, sure I’d find guys attractive, and I don’t just mean hot, I guess I’m a sapiosexual to some extent as well (for those of you who don’t know, that means we find intelligence sexy!) but never emotionally connected. Matthew was different. I felt myself feeling stronger about things that never really bothered me before, and I felt I could tell him things I couldn’t tell anyone else. Why was everything just so good, what was the catch? In such a short space of time, my emotions went through a whirlwind as I finally found that bond with another man that I never really thought I would, then it all fell spectacularly to pieces.
Over a few weeks, we seemed to grow distant – not spending as much time together, not talking as much, not getting that feeling of butterflies. The sad part is I still felt elated but I knew he didn’t, and it hurt. All I was experiencing was sheer ardour, yet I felt an overwhelming sense of foreboding as our relationship seemed to edge towards to friend zone. The feeling wasn’t mutual any more – it killed me – and I couldn’t help but wonder, was I in love or infatuated?
Naturally, due to an emotional disconnection, we ended our seemingly short-lived relationship to move on to bigger and better things, but I was in pain. I’d never felt this before. Sure, guys have upset me or angered me in the past, but not once had I felt a feeling of grief for something so brief. Obviously a relationship is a two-way street, so if one party is vacant, it won’t work and I can accept that. What I can’t accept is that I have now been left tormented with songs that remind me of him, places that bring back memories, and other general emotional bullshit that I thought I was immune to.
I got to thinking: the feeling of infatuation is when you’re inspired with an intense but temporary passion for another. This could be it, I thought. The moment will pass, the feelings will disappear and I’ll be back to square one, but then again, I’d never been in love, so how was I to know? Had I lost the only man I’d ever loved, or was I simply experiencing a short-lived admiration for another?
I guess until I meet ‘the one’, I’ll never know.
If you find yourself in an emotionally confusing situation such as this, don’t do it alone. There’s nothing worse that wrapping yourself in a duvet and tucking into tubs upon tubs of Ben and Jerrys, racking your own brain for answers you’ll simply never find (trust me – I’ve done the leg work). Talk to your friends, your relatives, anyone you can trust and put yourself out there. Maybe sharing scenarios with others will give you a clearer perspective and ultimately, an outside point-of view.
Sometimes, we’re so involved in our own lives and relationships, we just can’t see what’s really going and that’s fine, in fact, it’s completely normal. Unfortunately, our feelings can confuse us more often than we’d like but as the old saying goes, a problem shared is a problem halved. So get the wine out, turn the TV off and have a good ol’ gab. Believe me, sometimes all it takes is a bit of conversation to bring clarity.
