Truth be told, I have never experienced love, romantically.

Maybe, I could have but I never knew.

It had always been just a mere infatuation, now that I think about it. Back then, I would think I was ‘head-over-heels in love’ with them; it just seemed too good to be true.  It never lasted long, either. The longest I felt I ‘loved’ someone would be around 3 years, perhaps? Even then, I am not too sure. It was on-and-off. I would move on to someone else who was attractive, in my eyes, and then believe I ‘loved’ them.

I have never felt any sort of attraction towards a person, according to the textbook definition. I would have to have had clammy palms, when I’m near them; butterflies fluttering in my stomach; wanted to impress them; wanted to see them happy; have my heart pound against my chest and more. The cliché definition of love. That was something I never experienced.

All in all, I have had about five major crushes. When I reminisce, I wasted all my time fawning over them rather than trying my best to secure a good future by studying and excelling academically. Sure, I did have many achievements academically but I still misused time. My most recent one was a Japanese buddy that had come over to our school to stay for a couple of days. I was intrigued as he was an exact replica of one of my biases: Jinhwan, from iKON. I was starstruck; deluded myself into believing he was the closest I could get to Jinhwan. But that was not the case. We e-mailed once, twice and I sent the third one. I still haven’t got any reply. I have, most definitely, moved on.

I do not know the psychology behind all of this but it could have been peer pressure. Everyone else my age, my friends, younger students, older students; everyone, at that time, seemed to have a crush on someone or they were ‘going out’ with someone. I ended up thinking I have to have a crush, otherwise I would be frowned upon and I guess that’s where it all began. Acquaintances would ask me, ‘Who’s your crush? Do you like anyone?’ and I would blurt the name of the first person I thought was pretty cute. Soon, word spread. One of our mutual friends ridiculed me at lunch. It was too much, for a 10-year-old child.

It continued when I was eleven. It was a different guy, this time round. He was new to the school, to be honest, the country itself. We clicked. We soon became close friends; if you were looking for one of us, most just said, ‘Look for the other one’. I don’t know when it happened but I found myself having a crush on him because he was the most adorable, dorky and funny kid you would ever meet. Somewhere down the track, the year after, one of our mutual friends told him that I liked someone. (At this point, due to this person, who I thought would keep it a secret, the entire cohort knew about my tiny crush on him.) He was flabbergasted; I had a crush and I did not tell him. This mutual told me she knew who he liked, so I considered it to be a lost cause; there was no way on Earth I’d have a chance. He kept bugging me, all of our mutuals knew who we liked until one came up to me and told me that it was, in fact, me who he liked. Me, of all the attractive students. (I always had and still do have an insecurity considering my appearance, my personality and just me, in general.) Being the naïve child that I was, I thought it was amazing. My crush liked me back! What a great thing! We never dated formally, just knew we liked each other and that was it. During the Year 7 pool party, I had been dared to kiss his cheek. I did so and he told me it was his first. I did so too.

Months later, we drifted apart and things became awkward between us. We had just entered high school and there were a whole lot more faces. He became a social butterfly; I continued to be an awkward person, staying with the people I had befriended.

I ended up liking the boy I liked back when I was ten. I found out, at the end of the year, he liked another girl. She was pretty. Very pretty, indeed. I went through a period where I could not focus on ‘love’ as I believed it. I moved on, once again, to another boy. He was tall, athletic and intelligent whereas the other two were the same height as me, intelligent and not super athletic. He never interacted with me, only talking in Maths when he wanted to cross-check solutions. Nonetheless, my heart did not stay faithful. Exactly a year passed, when I meet this new boy. He was nothing like the other boys I had set out to have a crush on. He was Indian, just like me (although he would beg to differ, ‘I’m Kiwi-Indian’ to which I would, just as quickly, reply, ‘Well, I’m Australinsian’), tall, absolutely dorky. We talked a bit, we weren’t all that close, but soon ended up having two same classes. He told me he thought I was cool because I was unlike the others; not being disgusted by the dirty comments he made at times and shutting him up easily, a feat that was impossible to do, he said. He found out I liked him and we drifted apart. Two months later, I share four, out of a possible six, classes with him. It’s awkward, our friends are close and he’s very social.

Then came along my most recent one, which was aforementioned. I’m not going into much detail about that one.

I’m a very cheesy person. I’m an absolute er for romance. It’s a proven fact. However, I have never experienced it myself. After these experiences, I find myself utterly confused. I define myself as polyromantic but I am unsure if I am demiual or aual. This is where things come to play.

How do you define romance, anyway? How do you know if this person is the one you want to settle down with? What makes you not say that you have walked down the street, passed your potential spouse and continued embarking on your journey? If everyone focuses on the looks, what about the rest of us?

I am inching towards being demiual recently due to one thing. Lately, I have been thinking of my closest male friend, whom I have known for a little less than six years. We talk a lot, as most friends do. He has a lot of friends, but at the end of the day, he comes back to us. (I guess, I’m the only one in our friend group who doesn’t have friends outside the group, as in at school.) When we walk together to go to someplace at the school, I just have a strong tendency to slide my hands into his. When he is upset or insecure, I feel like peppering his face with kisses, to let him know I care. Sometimes, I feel like hugging him, something through all these years we have never done. We’ve laughed together, cried together and even were angry together. He has always liked a beautiful, perfect girl and I don’t know what I feel. I know it’s not love though. My heart does not speed up or hammer in my chest, I don’t feel butterflies in my tummy but I sometimes do get jealous. However, that’s a natural phenomenon when you are like me.

In reality, writing what makes me confused is strangling me. Right now, I am choking up. I am not crying as such but I am struggling to breath, a lump in my throat. It hurts.

I have a weird tendency to want to feel loved at all times. It’s bad enough to have a mild case of social anxiety. It’s bad enough I have a handful of friends, I can count them on two hands, ones that I trust and ones that are just there due to other mutuals. I crave physical contact but at the same time, I can’t participate in it; I just stand there, not knowing what to do.

You know that feeling when there are people around you but you feel so lonely? They’re there but they are not really there. Do you understand what I mean? It feels like that every day I see my friends, to be frank. They branch out into their own little groups and my closest friends, the ones I thought would be with me, would not even spare a second glance but I still care about them. I end up, trying to hold back my tears as I plug in my headphones and zone out, knowing they do not care about me. It is one of the worst feelings, ever. It happened again, yesterday but who am I kidding? I guess, the only people who care about me are my parents. At least, my Mother provides me with enough love and affection for a lifetime of goodness.

I am a weird human, I know. Writing this down sort of helps me in a way but also wrecks me, inside out. I am feeling a bit better, releasing my frustration onto a document in Word but at the same time, I feel sick. There is a literal lump in my throat that I cannot swallow down and I am on the edge of tears. I feel unworthy of anything. Another day of school, another day to hold back my feelings and zone out.

I am only turning fifteen in a few months, I have the rest of my life to do what I want. But I find it very ironic that I have not experienced true love yet continue to write cringe-worthy stories involving this very idea.

However, how do I know I’m in love? I could have been in love with my closest male friend and never have known. Am I experiencing it now? How do I know?

I know, one day, the sun will shine and everything will be clear. One day, I will feel loved by a significant other and they will make me forget all of these negative emotions I have felt through the course of my life. I know they will. If I don’t have a significant other to fall back on, I have my God in heaven to take care of me and love me, and my parents as well.