#not tw

Please stop fucking me in the ass. I didn't consent to anal, and you don't know my safeword.

Sincerely,

this was compounded when in my teens i had my first romantic relationship. firstly compounded not by him, but the friends who were unhappy with me for liking him, because they liked him too, though i could not decide for him who he returned feelings for. i learned their love for me was tied to the expected happiness i brought them and robbed them of.

secondly, that same boy taught me love’s expectations in all the wrong ways: “if you love me, you’ll try this” and “if you love me you want to make me happy”. it took me months to end that relationship, and at the time it wasn’t because i didn’t want to love him, but because i couldn’t make him happy. i didn’t discuss this with him, as i had already failed to meet his expectations and thus failed at my ability to love him. it was the first time i considered i didn’t know what love meant.

again in my late teens i fell in love. though now the overbearing weight of my guilt, my inadequacy, my shame for not meeting expectations to earn love had solidified and pressed into me, leaving impressions that i was correct all my life: love is contingent on meeting expectations and this time… this time i won’t fail at love again. his love was kind, patient, and overflowing - a true opposite of what i previously knew. rather than months, it endured years, including me starting college.

but soon the expectations came back like whispers of ghosts. i believed he needed me to be his everything. girlfriend, lover, best friend, mother, sister… the biggest expectation of all is to be everything to someone. i could never be that. i could never give him that. i could not talk with him about this because i had already failed to love him by not meeting my own preconceived expectations. so i ended it and he agreed if it was what i wanted to be happy. because in truth, where i thought he held expectations, he only held unconditional love that i could not recognize. years later, with reflection, that was his final gift to me: i did not know what love meant.