A Piece Of My Heart

Why I'm Afraid Of Love

Oftentimes while talking to a new friend about my love life (or lack thereof) my fears and doubts play into the conversation and I'm asked the question, "Why are you afraid of love?"
Some of my closer friends know about a boyfriend I had in sixth grade- I won't trash him too much but he was a MAJOR asshole. So my first boyfriend (not an asshole, just naive) dated me for three days before I realized he was cheating on me and, as awful as it sounds on my part, things ended before I could really care about where the relationship went. Later in the year I started dating Asshole which was a dumb decision to begin with because I literally knew nothing about him. I learned his name the day AFTER he asked me out. I'm not entirely sure why I said yes, but I wish I hadn't because after one or two months of dating, I was at a school event and I walked in on him shoving his tongue down another girl's throat. So that was fun, and the beginning of my struggle with trust issues and philophobia :)
If you don't know, philophobia put simply is the fear of love. And while this all sounds incredibly dramatic, you have to remember that not only was he my SECOND boyfriend, but I was fragile as it was. Sixth grade was hard enough without the added drama of my first two boyfriends being unable to commit. Granted, the first one didn't effect me nearly as much as the second one, it still hurt. Those two I mostly associate with trust issues, but my first girlfriend and I's relationship is the one I linked to the philophobia. Long story short: we dated for  a month or two and decided we were in love. Both of us. I'm not denying it, I remember how it felt and it was the best thing you could ever imagine. A few months later we celebrated our six month anniversary which was great. We were fine, and then one day I had a weird epiphany type thing and I realized how vulnerable I was when I was with her and it honestly scared the living shit out of me. As far as I knew she could be using me as some sick joke. I knew it wasn't true, and it didn't effect my feelings for her but that tiny shred of doubt stuck with me for a month after our anniversary. To wrap up, I mentioned that bit of doubt to a friend who WAS NOT supposed to mention it to her and they did. It got really ugly and we split up a few weeks later.
To this day it's still hard for me to open up to people- even if it's in a not romantic way- and it's still hard for me to have crushes. Yes, I've had/have really really strong feelings for people after what's happened, but I haven't called it love in a long time. I'm not scared of commitment. It's the aspect of surrendering myself to someone else and trusting them not to hurt me. I think I'm in a good place currently- I trust the people closest to me, and I do have feelings for someone. I'm not sure what'll happen with it, but I think I'm willing to trust that person with my feelings and all that mushy stuff. I'm not entirely sure what the point of this was, but If you read it all the way through I'd like to thank you and conclude this story ♡