Can you really know someone else without knowing yourself?

If only love wasn't so difficult to find. Once you have experienced a real love of someone, and felt it returned, you become addicted. If that love dies, or if the one you love dies, it feels like you've ingested acid coated razor blades. Then it becomes an internal obsession always looking for someone to fill the void.

I have been lucky to have 3 long term relationships, although each one left me bleeding. Still I keep searching. It isn't just about the sex, although that is an obvious perk for me. As I have grown older, 'dating' has been replaced by 'ghosting' and 'if you don't put out now, I'm not interested'. Building a relationship takes time. Even though I have less time on this earth by the day, I am no longer willing to settle for less than I want. If I don't find it I guess I join the ranks of those who do not have love in their lives. Some people have never experienced the kind of love of which I speak. I guess we each love to the extend we are capable of loving. It may not be enough for some, and so the end reveals itself, stealthily and insidiously. I hope that is not the only ending love has. It didn't seem that way with my parents. However, looking from the outside into a relationship is never the same as looking at your own relationship from the inside. Do we really know someone? Can we really know what they think of us? Can our words, our actions, convey how we really feel about them to the degree that they actually believe it?

Was it Shakespeare who said all the world is a stage and we are just players? How do we tell, how can we KNOW, that the person we love is not just acting the part. The answer to that question is we can't. Nor can anyone else KNOW how we feel about them. We can only be who we are, develop into who we are meant to be, or perhaps WILL ourselves to be. I must trust my gut feeling, my logical dissection of what a person does and says. Perhaps it is not important that we know how another feels, but just to accept how we feel in their presence. It is only how we feel, remember and enjoy that episode of love, regardless of it's length or level of commitment. But hold out until you feel that love within you, and you think you can see it in another's eyes, feel it in another's arms. This life is so short. Maybe we go on, maybe not. Make the most of the life left to you. Take a chance to get to know someone, and if you still like them 3 months later, chances are you have at least met a friend.

Here is to our search for love!