How Not To Be In Love

And just like that, it’s spring.

Girls are wearing their summer dresses, anxious to feel the sun on their skin. People pour out of their homes once again; the winter keeps you in and the spring forces you out. Don’t miss out, it says. Before you know it, I’ll be gone.

A woman is crying on a bench, wiping at her eyes not caring who sees her. I should feel sorry for her, but I don’t. Not really. I watch every single person pass by me and forget what they look like in a blink. I’m sure they do the same with me. I feel forgettable, so I can’t say I’m offended.

Every so often a man will look right into my eyes as we pass – usually, they sweep me over from eyebrows to toes or ogle me haphazardly. But sometimes one will hold my gaze and it makes me shiver with a strangely cold feeling.

This is how it feels not to be in love with anyone, I guess.

When I was 15, I was in love with one of my classmates – or so I thought then, anyway, which I suppose is as much love as anything as far as teenage years are concerned. I’d wake up early and set my hair on rollers, shimmy into a pencil skirt and go to school every day, even with a bleating migraine, just to see him. I pined over him. I wrote angsty, heartachy poems abut him during English class. It lasted my entire sophomore year, and then one day it was just gone.

I don’t wake up with hearts in my eyes right now. I have a revolving door of guys who kiss me and feel me up when I’m bored, and sometimes they stay the night and other times they don’t. I don’t miss them when they’re gone, but I like when they’re here. I spent some time scrolling through Tinder, but whenever anyone expressed interest in meeting up, I just vanished. Something about it feels wrong to me. I can’t get excited about someone I met through the phone.

I can’t get excited about anyone, really. Most of the time I’m OK with it. It’ll happen when it happens.

But Sunday is the only day I ever feel lonely. My friends retreat into the glow of their relationships on Sundays, reminding me that everyone around me is in love but for some reason I just can’t make it work. And so I walk and walk and walk the lake until my brain slows down.

I have been in love maybe once. Maybe twice. It never lasts longer than a few months. I have been known to pretend to be in love just because I’m bored and it gives me something to do and focus on for awhile.

I feel sorta like a cat, batting at a toy it isn’t even sure it wants. At this point, it would be pretty hard to sweep me off my feet.