A Theory About Why I Fall in Love So Easily (That I Don't Fully Trust)

“You don’t fall for the person. You fall for the dynamic you have with that person.”

A friend said that to me once. I hated how much sense it made. I’ve fallen in love so many times that I’ve started to doubt the feeling itself. At some point you have to ask how often a person can fall in love before the word stops meaning anything. So I’ve been asking a harder question. Have I ever actually loved anyone?

My friend’s theory explains a lot. Sometimes it’s the late night conversations. Sometimes it’s being someone’s first choice. A dear one once called me at 2 am because she was scared the front door of her house was open. I was half asleep and I kept losing her voice under the fan. She just wanted me to stay on the call so she could feel safe. Of everyone she could have called, she called me. Maybe I fall for being needed. Maybe deep down I just want to know I matter to someone and that I’m not the only one in it, and the version of me that shows up around them is either a side effect of that or the whole point, I honestly can’t tell.

If that’s true, I’m not sure what to call it. Love? Attachment? Infatuation? Loneliness wearing perfume?

I don’t know, and that’s the part that bothers me. The human mind is bad at leaving questions open. We find patterns that might not be there and give names to things we don’t understand, because “I don’t know” feels unfinished. This theory could be one of those names. An answer that fits the evidence well enough to quiet the question. It does fit, though. Every person I’ve loved has a place in it. Every time I thought this one was different gets neatly filed away. It’s comforting, and that’s exactly why I don’t trust it.

What if I did love them? What if I loved the person and the dynamic at the same time, and the two were never separable in the first place?

There’s a quote I keep coming back to: “I know you’re not the one I’m looking for, but I am so cold and a fire is a fire even if it burns me.” I’m not sure I agree with it but I get it. Sometimes you don’t need something to be right to need it. You know the fire isn’t yours and you sit beside it anyway, because you’re cold. Some of my loves were probably that. A particular warmth that lived between two people for a while. I might have mistaken the warmth for the person. Or the warmth was the person, and I’ve been splitting hairs this whole time.

So have I ever loved anyone? I think so. I just can’t tell whether I loved them or the space between us, and I’m starting to suspect the distinction matters less than I think. I cared. I wanted them to be okay even after I stopped being part of their life. That might have been love. Or I’m just another person trying to name something that was never meant to have one.

If you’re one of the people I’ve loved, tell me what it was like on the other side. Did it feel like love, or like I was in love with the way we were together?

I’d really like to know.