My Love, My Lust, My Obsession
*
"The heart is the last frontier — even the coldest man must eventually cross it."*
— Anonymous
used to tell myself I was an emotionless being — a machine that didn't need the fuel of a heart. Nature, however, has a cruel way of proving that even the hardest stone has a core. I spent my early years "mouth-dating" girls, tossing out rehearsed lines and watching them fall for a version of me that didn't exist. I was the fisherman, laughing at the easy catch, until my net snagged a fish it simply couldn't hold.
When she looked at me and refused to give me an audience, the rejection felt like a physical weight. I had professed what I thought was sincere love, and in return, I was abused, mocked, and ridiculed. Her laughter rang in my ears for days. I sat in the silence of my room, mourning a reality where she wasn't mine, feeling a strange, heavy ache I didn't have a name for yet.
But my "playing skills" were still there, tucked away like a sharp knife. I decided to do more exploits. I sharpened my charm and went back out, breaking boundaries and limitations with a string of "hot babes." On the surface, I was winning. But inside, I was practically incomplete. I would look at them and feel nothing but the missing pieces of myself.
Then, nature intervened. She finally came into my life. After months of persuasion and what felt like a miracle from God, she said yes. I felt a relief so deep it was like finally breathing after being underwater. But then, the university denied my admission. We were forced apart by kilometres of road, but the distance only pulled the string tighter. Passion was tilted, tension was activated. Even miles away, I couldn't even look at another girl. My "skills" bade me goodbye, and for once, I didn't mourn their departure. I didn't need them anymore.
Reprogramming myself to love was strenuous. My nature wasn't built for intimacy, so I forced it. I sat in the dark watching emotional movies, taking notes on how to be romantic, how to care. I practiced moves in the mirror, trying to make my hands feel less like tools and more like a sanctuary.
It finally paid off just before our second anniversary. That day, when I finally kissed her soft lips, I felt the jinx break. In the past, I would have dumped a "victim" right after the conquest, but there I stood, holding her tighter instead. I began to sink deep into her river of love. She was shy — so stiff and still sometimes — avoiding my eyes and obeying my every whim just to please me. It made me love her until it hurt.
But as our third year began, something shifted. I stopped understanding my own feelings because suddenly, I wanted more. I wanted to practise everything I had learned. I wanted to feel her sensual touch; I wanted a courageous, softer version of her that would meet my fire with her own.
But she didn't see the man trying to grow; she saw a predator. She retreated, convinced I was just waiting to use and dump her. She grew distant, and though I trusted her beyond doubt, I could feel the space between us growing cold. The romantic skills I'd worked so hard to acquire, the way I wanted to cuddle and hold her — to her, it looked like obsession and lust. My infant love was suffering for want of his mother's milk, and his survival was at stake. I wanted to be a good husband. I wanted to marry her with a total, all-consuming love, but she couldn't see past her own fear. She remained still, almost frozen, as if she had no sensual reaction left for me at all.
"I loved her — I really did."
But in the end, I was jilted. I was left alone with the realisation that I am a man made of love, lust, and obsessions, and she just couldn't handle the weight of all three.