The Love Haters

by Katherine Center

Some of them came from just being a girl in a world that is appallingly mean to girls. Do any of us escape unscathed?

Every time you have to be brave, you get to be a little braver next time.

“Those people are on the internet, looking at a photo of the ex-fiancée of a famous singer. The ex! And you’re so pretty, they have to go after you.” “You haven’t seen the picture, have you?” “I don’t have to see the picture.” He pointed at me. “You’re right here.”

“I’m saying that when I’m not with you, I’m thinking about you. And waiting to see you again. And we’ve spent all day, every day together for weeks now—and it already feels like it’ll never be enough.”

The thing you’re afraid of is never the thing you should be afraid of.

That longing to be looked at lovingly? That longing to be lovable … that’s really also so much about wanting to be valued, and seen, and connected, and safe, and just deeply, fundamentally okay? Maybe we didn’t have to outsource that. Maybe we could fill that longing for ourselves. And I’m not saying we don’t need other people, or that we should spend our lives alone. I just suddenly understood in a whole new, sun-breaking-through-the-clouds way that even if we do eternally need and long and want to be seen … maybe the most important eyes doing the looking are our own.

He had every right to not say goodbye. And to not call. And he might detest me now, fair and square. But that didn’t change the fact that I was in love with him. The way I was missing him. The way I couldn’t stop longing for him. The way my thoughts, and my heart, and my entire body were completely capsized by everything that had just happened … there was no other explanation. Based on misery alone, it just had to be love.