The Romantic Monster In Me

Here's really what I've been feeling lately. All that "hormonal" talk in my last post and the reason why I have not written for some time now.

We have been together for 2 years and 3 months now. I know for some people, that may seem like nothing. But to me, I have never been in a relationship that long, so it is quite a big deal to me. We have learnt many things from one another and it is with him that I truly show myself, ugliness and all.

But as with most long-term relationships, you tend to fall into a rut. You get so comfortable with one another, see each other everyday, laugh till milk snorts up your nose, fart at lunch, that in the end, you give up that effort to woo the other person and in turn, stop being wooed at too.

For those who have been loyally following my blog, you would've noticed me saying a while ago that Asrul successfully converted me from a hopeless romantic to a carefree girlfriend. But now I know that you can't just give up life-long fantasies with a snap. I still want all that romance. That tingly, heart-skipping-beats feeling when you see someone. That tongue-tied experience. It may come as a relief, at first, when you get to stop all the courtesies of wooing someone, but after awhile, I am craving for that feeling that the early phases of love offers.

I can't pretend anymore. I want candlelight dinners. I want roses and chocolates. I want late nights out at the highest point of the city. I want to find little love notes tucked into an unexpected page of my book. I want him to tell me of a love song that reminds him of me.

I want all that, and more.

To be fair, I am expecting an awful lot from him. We are two people, existing on completely two opposite ends of a pole. I'm impulsive, he's deliberate. I'm outspoken, he'd rather keep his opinions to himself. I demand attention, he would rather go unnoticed. You get the drift.

At first, I tried to think positively. I believe God created everything in pairs and He made these pairs as opposites. Male, female. One soft and emotional, the other hard and inexpressive. Sky and earth. One high up, the other way below. Things like that. So it made sense that my soul mate would be my opposite. But then I realized something. To make opposites work, there has to be some common ground, right? So what is our common ground?

I haven't found it yet.

Out of all my rantings and reasons, I will have to stress one point more than the rest. None of this means that I don't love him. I love him so much. So very much. We've been through a lot together and he's held me through some tough times. Which moron would ever say that he/she not love someone who's been there for you, know what you do and where you go and how you feel for the past 27 months?

Of course I love him. So much. That is why I do not want this love to just die and wither away. It may not happen with him, because he loves the comfort zone so much, while I love the adrenalin rush. This is why it's so difficult for me to make him see what a big problem this is to me. Not only do I see this as grounds to end a relationship, but I'm also fearful of the emerging possibility that I can't commit. Ironic, isn't it, to have been a hopeless romantic your whole life, searching for The One, and just when you feel like you've found just the right one, it turns out that you love the chase more than the actual capture.

Not a fan of irony.

I have spent the whole night Googling "how to keep romance alive". Gosh, I'm not even married yet and I'm already looking this up. I feel like such an old hag/loser/desperate. But what the heck. I am trying my very best to awaken the romantic, unsettling feelings I once had for him. The feelings that have settled and are still stuck there but leaving me craving for more.

I'm 22. I am not ready to give up my life at this age. I do not want to settle down and make a nest and be content with whatever I have.

I want to be madly in love. And I want him to love me back, deeply and madly.