The Love Timeline

You Will Fall In Love 3 Times in Your Life

While we may fall in love with many people over the span of our lifetime, we can break down the type of love we experience with these people into three categories.  Because even though people are different, our reasons for falling in love with the one can be counted on three fingers. This is definitely true if you think about it deeply.

First Love when we are young.

You probably had your first crush as a starry-eyed teenager. This usually happens in high school and it’s usually innocent but intense. Everyone experiences the magic of young love. It is the sort of love that you may have entered into to conform with the crowd. High-school lovers want everyone to see that their relationship is perfect, even though in reality it is far from the truth. Young people have a need for social acceptance; as such, how others viewed you may have been more important than how you felt. 

But for me, it was definitely an innocent one. I fall in love with this girl in my class during primary school whom is my best friend and we are always together. She sits next to me and I think I fall for her because of how sweet she can be. I was a really shy guy back then and definitely a bookworm. She understands me and always tries to help me out when I'm in trouble. I have some serious problem of nose bleeding last time. I can't remember all the details because I have some bad memory problem after some incident before but that story is for another time. In short, she moved to another place due to her parents, and she didn't say anything until the last day. The only thing that I remember from that time was that she gave a letter to the teacher which the teacher then gave it to me. I can't remember anything after that because I forgot about it and I don't know what happened to that letter too. But in short, she left and I didn't see her anymore after that.

Second Love is a Painful Love and it’s a hard lesson,

The second part of love is the love that hurts. It is the love of experience and educates you about yourself. You also learn about others. We fall in love with one whom we do not fit well, but with whom we feel we should “work on the relationship” for our own good.  This is a relationship that is most often conflict-filled, but we tell ourselves that all relationships have their issues so we should use these rough patches to learn something about ourselves.  

You may have met someone who has manipulated or abused you in some way. There may have been vicious cycles of love and hurt in your relationship, but the hope for a miracle prompted you to see it through.  You spent an infinite amount of time trying to make it work, but it did not. Painful love is the love of growth. It may seem unbalanced, but the hurt eventually guides you to make the right choices.

This is magical thinking but because this is your pattern, you don’t realize it.  Many people stay stuck with this type of love for much of their lives, never having a chance to experience the third type of love which is the most healthy and meaningful.

For me, I have fallen in love with three different people that teach me these three hard lessons. The first one, she is a senior of mine in high school whom I met during my college times again. We dated in the fourth semester and I learn the hard way that sometimes, even if you met the right person, the timing might be wrong. She was raised as a Christian and I was raised as a Muslim. Her family is a religious family but her brother converted to Muslim and was disowned by the family. She was ready to learn about my religion while I am so concerned about her being disowned and I was having problems with my own family in a way. One of my biggest regret that time when I decided to break up with her was that I didn't tell her my reason why. It was really selfish of me that time for doing it that way. I was so worried that things might not work out in the future as I am still jobless that time and a lot of other stuff was on my mind that made me decided to end it. I never regret the decision to break up with her because I think that was the best decision that time for both her and myself but I do regret for not telling her why. She is a kind person and I know she will still stay with me no matter what happen. And I know someday she will definitely find a better person than me so I decided to be a jerk and cut it off just like that. I do hear story about her every now and then from my friends since we are in the same circle of friends. She's now happy pursuing her dreams and met a good match.

The second person that I met was my colleague from the office. For this particular story, I think you should watch 500 Days of summer because that is basically how this love story happened. One of the main reason, I am totally in love with that movie too because I can totally relate to it. She did say she was not into relationship and I was definitely a bit pushy on my thoughts that time. As the story comes to an end, I learn about how your expectation and reality really works in life. 

The third person I met was my gaming friend older sister. She was tomboyish but sweet in a way. We chat up quite a lot with video calls and stuff because she was in Bintulu. I went there and we met. She introduces me to her best friend and her brother. I talked to her father and her father is in a bikers gang. That was so scary at first but still I met him. The relationship last for quite a while until my best friend who was a bit curious about her because she was out with another person. Long story short, she was actually engaged a month before she know me and she didn't like the guy because it was arranged by her parents. I asked her about this for quite some time and she finally confessed about it. I was so dumbfounded that time and I ask her, do you like him? She was actually going out with that guy when I'm not around and she confessed that she had fallen for him. She said sorry and I end it with the hope that guy can take care of her properly. I wished her all the happiness in the world and said sorry that I should have known better that time. Our relationship ends and I decided not to meet up with anyone for any serious relationship until I really know them. I moved on with my life again.

Third love is the Unexpected Love

The third kind of love is the sort of love that comes as a surprise. It may look wrong for a person at the start and may challenge your idea of what love is supposed to be, but works out perfectly in the end. The connection between you and your better half is inexplicable.

The two of you just click. Neither of you has expectations of how the other party should behave or act. None of you has lofty ideals. This kind of love is not without problems, but because, you both function so smoothly as partners, you both work together to work out your conflicts.  And once that is done, your relationship is even stronger and deeper.  

Most people experience the number one type of love when they are young.  It is an important passage to move through when we are teenagers, as it teaches us what to look for when we are ready to engage in an adult relationship.  Unfortunately, many people remain in the number two type of love, with partners who aren’t good fits.

We want to make the number three type of love our end goal, however, so if you are stuck in number two, do what you need to do to extract yourself from this negative situation so you can open yourself up to letting in the third, most-satisfying type of love.

Honestly, I had my closure this year. I have filled up all the holes left from every single person that passes by me. I realized that sometimes love just happens and it can just be as easy as a simple hi. I know unless you are taking risk to take a step forward you won’t be anywhere. Probably the first love and the second type of love is a preparation for you to meet that third unexpected love. Love is not perfect so are we. Stop trying to find the right person that matches all your criteria, your needs and etc. Sometimes it can be just somebody from your past whom you have met but you didn’t expect to meet again.

Opening up to someone is definitely hard but sometimes you just have to give it a chance.

P.S. I think I’m in love. 10.10