never knows best.

I used to enjoy falling in love, I actually fell in love often back in the day. The reason was because I enjoyed the feeling of getting obsessed with someone and being taken care of in return. Until I eventually fell into an abyss. Not that it was bad, but you know.... it meant I was actually loving someone, deeply. After three years, we broke up. During that time I realized I was non-monogamous myself. See I couldn't bear to see myself attached to someone all their life, nor could I see myself anchoring a person to my life as if our dreams had to be now mixed, as if our indivituality was diluted....

I'm a liar, that's how I look at it nowadays. Back then, it wasn't deeper than an impulse to be free. Which, to be fair, doesn't astray from the philosophy of non-monogamy. I was just too childish to see the bigger picture. The truth is, I enjoyed being taken care of by other people, but couldn't see farther than sexual behavior.

In Brazilian Portuguese there's the word Cafuné, which means to get your head affectionately stroked. Back then and nowadays, that's what I want from to people I romantically like. The difference is that I was too blind to see how I could do that in a healthier way.

So since I was single, I had been not falling in love. My heart turned into a cage and my sexual impulses were on the rise. I understood I didn't want anything exclusive with anyone, unfortunately everyone that has been with me wanted to be exclusive. And so my relationship with these people were very clearly platonic. In the beginning I thought I was needy but after a while I realized I just didn't like these people in a romantic way. Once a heart so open to love now it's closed shut to emotions, and was only interested in sexual exchange. I wasn't living non-monogamy, I was just seeing multiple people. Until I met... you know the drill. My mind is racing and my heart is in emergency mode. All my feelings and past mistakes are trying to keep me from feeling okay with this current relationship. I had let people down, I have been a heartbreaker. Ive spent the entire semester isolating myself over mistakes and hypersexuality. What have I done to deserve to date someone so... great and calm, gentle.

It makes me afraid that now I must forgive myself for mistakes already settled. My psychologist told me it was no use confessing them since they don't define me anymore, but I find myself punishing myself with the pain I felt after commiting such mistakes. I use this pain to avoid staying close to her, as if I were building a monument of self-hatred to justify a feeling of non-belonging next to this person. I stopped drinking, too. This is another sign these mistakes don't define me who I am now. But how far can forgiveness go? I shall find out if my ghosts come to haunt me, I'm aware it's no use reminiscing. There's that, yet another way of auto-sabotage. As the title says, I have a disorder that pressures me out of someone's life due to the fear of abandonment.

I used to smoke as punishment for my mistakes. I'm no longer smoking, but I'm yet to find another way to ease the guilt without punishing myself

Falling in love with someone comes with the aforesaid sense of guilt, but also fear. What will that person bring to my heart? Will she hurt me? Rationally, I don't think so. BUT EMOTIONALLY? DEFCON 1 MY DUDE. She ripped away a cage I was convinced it was gonna stay locked for a little longer. It's like walking into someone naked in the bathroom, or being a deer about to be ran over by a car going a full 100Km/h on a dark avenue. And it's been so fast, too. All kinds of questions dominate my mind: does she ACTUALLY feel the same? Am I ACTUALLY in a position of importance, as in, in a position where she'd consider me at least relevant in her dating life? HOW CAN I CALM THE FUCK DOWN? Also, remember I said I was non-monogamous? Well, jackpot: she's non-monogamous too. But the intriguing part is that she has a partner. How crazy does falling in love and engaging with someone that has a partner sound to monogamous people? Actually now that I think about that, that is rather common eh?

The difference is, I'm doing this the ethical and sane way. No hard feelings (except those feelings making me head over heels for her). To be frank I noticed I was really into her when this beautiful woman hit on me on a party and kissed me. Not that it wasn't good, it was really great.

But I thought to myself little after that that I would rather look at trees and kiss next to one with this person I met on a random thursday and walked home from a little get together in a bar..... this is a weird community to be in.

I like going to scene/alternative parties, the aforesaid party is known to the local techno community. However, the get together was in a very calm thursday and she lived nearby.

What drives me to like her even more is how independent she sounds about her plans and prospect. I lack this inspiration. Even considering myself non-monogamous, I always felt like I had to wait for someone to fall in love with and live my life together with that person. Fuck that (but also admiring who wants to choose this life since it's cute) I want to build my own dreams, my own future. She also doesn't do drugs, nor does she drink alcohol. She's sober as a rock, she also doesn't drink coffee. She has every single meal in order and her knowledge for trees is fascinating. Not mentioning her drawing skills that are top notch.

I won't list all the things she's great at. I will say it's been a very different experience to me. Hell, she even told me that it impresses her that someone usually so used to a very energic, drunk, and crowded lifestyle has taken an interest on her. I too am very curious, actually I have the hypothesis that for wanting to change for the better, I was more inclined to meet a healthier individual.

But that's the fun part in non-monogamy: I shan't give up on my lifestyle. Except for the drugs and the alcohol, I'm still able to live the city and dance in dark avenues and kiss strangers like it's a 2000's coming of age movie. I'm able to be the best of me while learning to be a healthier person with her. Now that's someone who's actively falling in love would say, I know, I know.

I used to think the ideal romance for me would consist of two junkies smoking their lives away with a bottle of vodka. I still don't know if that's a good or bad thing, but my heart told me I enjoy more being with a very sober person, somehow.

"Never knows best" is an English expression meaning "lack of judgment." The expression became a mantra in my head, as if every decision I made was tied to terrible omens, miscalculation, and imminent misfortune.

I discovered this expression in an anime called Fool on Cool (FLCL) in a scene where a character called Mamimi smokes a cigarette with the aforementioned expression written on it. The letters were burned along with the nicotine filling her lungs. She never knows best, she's never believed in any of her decisions, and that any of her decisions had a positive outcome. Or at least that's the meaning I want this scene to have.

"Never knows best" can also be interpreted as a reminder that protection is restrictive. In this sense, never smoking is better, never using drugs is better, never drinking is better, never, never, never. Barriers that exist for our protection.

In both senses, I feel like the representation of this phrase. That I shouldn't have chosen to reveal —expose — myself so much. Although it was my inner fight for freedom, now I feel like a bird knocked out by the closed window of someone's house.

And that hurts a lot.