Experience or Theory?

My friends say that I say too much about love. They say I sound as if I've been through many experiences about love. They all end up with the same question, "The things you say, is it based on theory or experience?"

The answer is both neither and either. It means I speak from both experience and theory, and from something not of the two. It all started out as theory. All I knew about love was from books and multimedia. Then, when love became diverse for me, I learned from both theory and experience. I experienced the love of family and friends, but not of the more intimate kind of love. I continued studying love, and I was learning about it in the same way you learn chemical bonds from a chemistry textbook. I wasn't contented with this kind of learning, so I had to resort to empathy. I put myself in someone else's shoes. I tried to understand how they felt at different stages of love and relationships. Empathic learning and informational learning set the stage for experiencing the theory of love.

I created worlds in my head. I explored numerous possibilities, may it be tragic or sweet love. I continued to widen my horizon, and expand my paradigm of love. Up until now, I continue to form principles about love and relationships using these two types of learning. But all of these will never really prepare a person for the real thing.

I've never had a relationship with someone else, but I have experienced liking someone for one and half years, and knowing I never had a chance. Well, it wasn't a happy experience. I never liked her the instant I saw her. It was something that developed over time. A feeling that will enslave me for more than year. I can't say I regret having felt what I felt. I guess I just felt hopeless.

Now, people say that all my wisdom about love in a relationship is useless unless I become part of a relationship. Well, my answer is simple. It never crossed my mind to entertain and pursue any feeling/crush I had because I never thought I was good for anyone. Call it low self-esteem or downgrading myself, but that's just how I feel. I'm not good for anyone. I'm very distant from the perfect guy this society has set. Besides, I think I'll just end up hurting or making circumstances difficult for the very same person I harbored feelings for. I don't want that. I don't want to make anyone's life more difficult as it is just because of my selfish pursuit to actualize my feelings.

I guess, unless I break free from this mentality, entertaining my feelings would have to wait. Good thing I'm still very young.

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