(baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more)
What an iconic lyric. How can anyone who has heard this song query what loving someone actually feels like without being afraid that it’s going to hurt? Wondering what the shifting from foot to foot is about when you feel the stare of someone who wants to love you, but they also have no fucking clue what they’re doing.
Love means confusion and heartbreak. That’s what the song says, right? I want to know what you are. Please don’t hurt me. I’ve already been hurt before. But I’m desperate to know what you can do, so please hear me. Hear the beat of my heart (I know you are bopping to that beat). Dun dun dun, da da dun dun dun, da da da da da…
What a twisted and miserable way to approach doing the thing that everyone says is the key to a happy life. Love. Pure and simple. Just love, they say. Well, ya’ll. It’s hard. That vulnerability of allowing yourself to open up so that you can show your raw and mangled self to the person who wants to apply the balm and fulfill your deepest, darkest desires and wishes, is scary as hell.
And it’s probably going to hurt. But what they don’t tell you is that the majority of the hurt is going to come at the hands of your own damned mind. Your mind that’s going to tell you that they don’t really love you, they love the idea of you (news flash, they probably know you better than you know yourself, because your mind has twisted who “you” are into this mish-mash of identities and labels and limits). Your mind may also tell you you’re not worthy of something so pure and simple. You’re not deserving enough, or interesting enough, or sexy enough. What if you’re more than enough for them? But you’re too scared to ask them about it because your mind has told you, time and again, that questioning it is fruitless or sad. Because if you have to question it then it’s not real, right? No mind, shut up. I have questions! And primary among them is ‘what is love?’
Bored to Death 