A boy and a girl sat together on a bench; the sun shined on them as the breeze carried scents of nature in its path.

“Can I ask you a question?” the girl inquired. “Go for it,” the boy replied. “You’re always writing stories about love, aren’t you?” she asked. “Um, I guess?” the boy replied. “You seem so deeply integrated with the concept of love - do you have any desire to carry out those ideas in real life?” the girl asked with a cautious tone. The boy looked at her thoroughly as he thought about the question. Finally, he replied, “Not really. I’m not ready for that at this moment. I need some time with me and my own thoughts.” The girl replied, “Oh, I see.” That wasn’t the reply she was anticipating. “What makes you think that you’re not ready for that?” The boy chuckled as he looked up at the sky. He sighed and he responded, “Every girl I’ve fallen in love with in my life, I’ve always lacked something critical in my heart. That something I lacked prevented me from truly fulfilling what could’ve been.” The girl nodded slowly, and then she whispered, “Can you tell me about it?” The boy smiled and said, “It’s a long story, you’d get bored.” The girl grabbed the boy’s arms and replied, “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me everything, sir.” She crossed her arms over her chest with a mockingly pouting expression. The boy relented and said, “Well, here goes nothing.”

“Ever since I was a little boy, I was a dreamer. I believed in the concept of perfection, absolute fulfillment, and completion. I truly thought that I could find this in other people. This belief can definitely be seen as naive, but this propelled me to discover the world through the lens of my heart. I’ve always wanted more. I didn’t think this desire would come in a form of a girl. But unfortunately, it did.

The first time I fell in love, I was absolutely engulfed. Addicted. Uncontrollably focused on one person I didn’t even know too well. Coming into this, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I hadn’t legitimately fallen in love ever before at the time, and the new experience came with many firsts - many things I didn’t know how to handle. I guess I was reckless - you could call this a love without knowing.”

The boy paused only to see the girl staring at him directly. “Go on, please,” the girl said with an engaged face. He continued to narrate: “I wanted to know everything that had to do with her. I constantly tried to do whatever I could to figure out more. I made it blatantly obvious that I liked her and it was often embarrassing at times. But, I didn’t care. I loved her a lot….. Well, at least I thought I did. I would try to talk to her as much as I could. My mind was dominated by the thought of her, and even hearing her name would make me feel nervous. However, never did I ever consider that this love was one-sided. My naive perspective on things prevented me from looking at reality objectively. The truth of the matter was, I liked her & the favor wasn’t returned. It took me a long time to come to terms with this. When I eventually realized this, it hit me like a train. The person that was my supposed everything wasn’t meant to be a focal point of my life. Back then, I was angry and hurt because I was too dumb to see things the right way. I was mad because I couldn’t have what I wanted. It took me a while to recover but eventually, I realized that my hurt was unjustified. Love isn’t about having someone, it’s about giving yourself to someone. I failed to do that because my love was a love without knowing.”

“I thought I would never love again, which again points to the naivete I possessed. But eventually someone came along and they somehow managed to break my walls. However, this time I had no intentions of getting to know that person. I didn’t want to risk losing someone close to my heart ever again. So I guess you could say that I didn’t truly love this person because nearly everything about her was a mystery. But looking back, it was that very mystery that attracted me to her. We were both strangers that had no intentions of getting closer. I guess you could call this a love without growing. I’d talk to her whenever we’d run into each other, and I swear that her smile would cheer me up on my worst day. She always had a smile on her face. I didn’t know what went through her mind when she saw me. I assumed that she cared, but ultimately I had no way of knowing. She probably didn’t like me in that way, who knows. We were just offering the tip of our glaciers to each other. However, the encounters I had with her helped me become a new person because she showed me how to care for people unconditionally. I guess my affection for her stayed at stage 1. We’re still in good terms but in retrospect, my liking for her was a love without growing. I appreciated the mystery around her & I think that this was the best possible bond we could’ve had.”

“After that, I was in a transitional stage. I began to find direction in my life, after being lost for so long. Life began to change rapidly. And the person I met at this time reflected that point of my life. She was dynamic; you’d never know what she was up to. We got close and we just clicked, our personalities seemed to match. Although we were fond of each other, I’m hesitant to call it infatuation. I’d say it was a love without a genuine heart, at least on my part. In other words, it felt that both of us weren’t too serious about committing to each other. We were just there for each other to fill the holes we had in our hearts. We were there for each other when we needed, but I think that we both loved the feeling of being loved more than each other. This just naturally faded away, soon this was a bond of the past. If I could go back, I’d show more attention to her. Maybe it could’ve ended differently, but I lacked the commitment necessary to make anything happen. I wasn’t true to my heart, it was a love without genuinity.”

“At this point, I was done with being ‘close’ with anyone. I didn’t want the pressure of having to talk to someone every day. I just wanted to be independent. I devoted my time to my studies and I thought the days of being controlled by a romantic feeling was behind me. Well, I wasn’t totally wrong. However, soon I ran into someone that I simply couldn’t ignore. Looking at her made me realize that she was different from everyone else. Something about her radiated a sense of familiarity, it was as if my ideal version of myself was present in the form of her. It was as if we shared the same soul but were stuck in different bodies. We had the same interests, we had the same favorite things, we had the same taste in music, we had the same mannerisms and habits, and we had the same passions. Just being around her put me at peace because I knew that she understood me thoroughly. Although we interacted at times, however, you could call this a love without expression. Although I saw so much of her in myself, she didn’t tell me anything about how she felt. In response, I closed my doors to her as well. We didn’t share anything about our thoughts about the world, and each other. Looking back I truly admired her, and sometimes I regret not showing this to her.  A love without expression is prone to bring regret in the future. But in the big picture, that was how it had to be. Through this I learned that love wasn’t about the materialistic things at all, it was about how two souls were able to join into one. I thank God that I was able to meet a person like her.”

The boy finished and let out a sigh. The breeze began to settle down as the sun began to set on the orange leaves of autumn. The girl stayed silent for a while and said, “When you’re ready to love again, what’s going to be missing from your love?”

The boy smiled and said, “A love without regrets.”