The People You Will Fall In Love With In Your 20s
You will fall in love with someone who annoys you, whose orgasm face looks and feels pathetic. Despite all of this, thereโs something keeping you drawn to them, something that makes you want to protect them from the harsh world. What you fail to realize, however, is that you are the harsh world. You arenโt their noble protector โ you are someone to be protected from but it takes a lot of dates, a lot of nights where you question whether or not you are actually a good person, for this to ever resonate with you. When itโs over and whatever love is left is put back in the fridge like a sad plate of leftovers, you will finally understand that you have the power to hurt someone. You can either hurt them or love them and itโs up to you to decide what kind of role you would like to take on in future relationships. What feels more comfortable โ being the one who loves more or being the one whoโs loved less?
You will fall in love with someone whoโs cold and always seemingly pushing you away. When all is said and done, they will be forever known as the one person you couldnโt get to love you. Unfortunately, it will hurt and sting worse than the good ones, the ones that chopped up your meat for you and picked out an eyelash from your eye and were nice to your mother, because love often feels like a game we need to win. And when we lose, when we realize we couldnโt get what we ultimately desired from a person, it makes us feel like a failure and erases all the memories of those who loved us in the past. Itโs a permanent smudge on your love resume.
You will fall in love with someone for one night and one night only. Theyโll come to you when you need them and be gone in the morning when you donโt. At first, this will make you feel empty and youโll try to convince yourself that you couldโve loved this person for longer than a night, but you canโt. Some people are just meant to make cameo appearances, some are destined to be a pithy footnote. Thatโs okay though. Not every person we love has to stick around. Sometimes itโs better to leave while youโre still ahead. Sometimes itโs better to leave before you get unloved.
You will fall in love with the old couple down the street because to you they represent the impossible: a stable, long-lasting love. Youโre trying to get someone to like you for more than ten minutes. A monogamous โnever get sick of yaโ love seems unfathomable. โWhatโs your secret, sir? Do you just say yes a lot?โ
You will fall in love with smells, the good and the bad kind. You will want to wear your lovers shirt because it makes you feel close to them and youโre okay with being that PYSCHO who is legitimately sniffing their shirt in public. You will fall in love with sweat, certain perfumes, the smell of the season in which you fell in love. This particular love smells like fall. It smells like Halloween and a roaring fire and leaves and fog and mist and candy and food and family and whiskey and sex and the lint that collects on sweaters. When it ends, if it ends, you will never experience another fall without thinking of him, her, it. The memories will stick to the ground like a mound of leaves and will only dissipate when the weather drops.
You will fall in love with your friends. Deep, passionate love. You will create a second family with them, a kind of tribe that makes you feel less vulnerable. Sometimes our families canโt love us all the time. Sometimes weโre born into families who donโt know how to love us properly. They do as much as they can but the rest is up to our friends. They can love you all the time, without judgement. At least the good ones can.
This is where Iโm supposed to tell you that you will fall in love with The One, a person who isnโt too cold or too nice. Their โOโ face is perfectly fine and theyโre not afraid to show how much they love you. This person is supposed to wait for us at the end of the twentysomething road as some kind of reward for all the heartache and loneliness. We deserve them. Weโve earned this kind of love.
So fine. Youโre going to fall in love with The One. Youโre going to fall in love with someone who will make sense beyond college or a job or a particular season. Theyโll make sense forever and wonโt ever want to leave you behind. Iโm telling you this not because itโs true but because it NEEDS to be true. Everyone is entitled to this kind of love, so why not? Have it. Itโs yours. Blow out the candles on your 30th birthday, holding their hand, and let out an exhale thatโs been waiting for ten years. Do it. Now.















