Every Love I've Never Had

Liam

Liam was my first crush, when we were in primary school. We were in the same PSHE group, the only ones from our class. So were his two brothers, who made fun of me for a while. I was a small, chubby black girl, and he was a skinny, blonde, white boy. We were never meant to be, and even when we became friends and he stood up to his brothers for me it was never meant to happen. But then he moved to Boston (the one in Yorkshire, not America) and I basically never saw him again, I never had a chance. He knew I liked him, but he didn't like me back: the beginning of a long line.

Morgan

When I started secondary school, I started seeing new faces. Morgan's stuck out to me. He was in the year above at our brother school and was covered in freckles, dark-haired and blue-eyed, one of the prettiest guys I'd ever seen. I added him on Facebook, I don't know why but I did and somehow this resulted in me having his number? We texted a fair bit but it never really amounted to much. I think he might have been dating someone else at the time. A couple of years later and he got really bad acne, but I still thought he was beautiful. I think it was the eyes... Sigh.

Tim

Tim was friends with Morgan. Sort of, I think. He got my train and my tram on the way to school and had amazingly blonde hair that really always needed a bit of a trim. But I was into that at the time I guess. I was strangely intrigued by him, but more attracted to his younger brother who travelled with him. Because I showed such interest in them both, my friend/travel buddy thought I had a serious crush on Tim. So she wrote a poem on a card, added some confetti and gave it to him saying it was from me. Possibly was the most embarrassing situation in my life. He was weird about it. We never really spoke of it, or spoke for that matter, again. That was the end of that. Then he started dating one of my friends in the year above, which was greatly awkward, but I loved her so it was fine. Another one bites the dust.

James

The thing I had for James is probably one of the most constant things about me. It kinda happened throughout the time of Morgan and Tim, but it stuck around for like two years. When we were in year eight, he was dating one of my good friends. We befriended each other over our love of certain musicians (although I'm pretty sure I only got into them because of him) and Nike 6.0s. Of all the people in my life, he affected my music taste most severely over the time we talked. But, as with many of my crushes, we only really spoke on Facebook. I wasn't brave enough to go up to him on the train, surrounded by all his friends. It was always me initiating conversations, but he was nice enough. We'd talk for hours after school, and I loved it. I just wanted to be around him. But then, after a year or so, my feelings for him got too serious. I couldn't speak as friends, I think I stopped speaking to him altogether. How he felt about me affected me seriously, in ways I couldn't explain. And as he dated different people, I sat around never telling him how I felt. It enraged my best friend who kept telling me to suck it up and do it, but it was never the right time for me. My mental state got so much worse because of it and I remember just crying for the dumbest reasons, but knowing it was because I wanted to be able to love him. One day, I just decided enough was enough and I made myself stop liking him. I just thought it was damaging me too severely to let it go on so I gave up. And strangely it worked. It was as if I had been forcing myself to like him the whole time. We haven't spoken since, though we continued to see each other every day for three more years. I don't believe he ever felt half of what I felt for him for me, which made it all the more easy to finally get over him.

Ethan

What I felt for Ethan was strange. I was bizarrely attracted to him for some pretty stock reasons - he skateboarded, played drums, played bass, was a good artist: all things I find sexy - but it was problematic because I'd known him since I was a kid, yet we'd never spoken. Besides, we went to church together. My mum already knew him! It was a difficult situation to decipher. My best friend at church was really close to him though and kept grouping us as similar people. At some point she decided we would start helping each other improve on our instruments by giving each other songs to learn. I asked him what he'd like me to pick for him and I remember him sending me a message saying "anything you want" and it made my heart melt. That was the moment I knew I was into him. I wanted to get closer to him so I asked him to help me with an art project, which never really happened. But that summer, we all went camping together for a week and over that week, as often occurs, we got really close. By day three, he was laying on my lap and this kid asked if we were dating, which was a strange moment because I almost wished we were when I knew he didn't care. By the end of the trip, one of our supervisors even thought he was into me. And I wouldn't have disagreed at that point; he was incredibly flirty with me. But as always happens in situations like this, when we got back we barely spoke. And I missed him. I tried to make situations arise, and we were on a friendly level and it was pretty great. About a month after we came back, I was in Oxford on another trip and I got a message from him that basically just said "I love you x". And I automatically assumed it was a prank, I wasn't about to assume it was reality. So I replied "Lol okay Ethan okay". I wanted to ask him about it for ages but I couldn't pluck up the courage till one day I finally Facebooked him with my assumption. It was one of the best conversations we'd ever had. Such high levels of banter and sarcasm like I'd never experienced before with someone I was into. It was like the first time I was truly myself when talking and it felt great. I wanted, at the very least, to be good friends. And a couple of months later with some friends, I realised how much I did. So I texted him again and let him know. But it was too late. He was now dating his best friend, and had been for a few months. She was the one who sent me the weird message (apparently) and I got some more weird messages after that. We're still friends, but he's been a little more vacant lately and totally absorbed in his girlfriend during summer. I'm not into him anymore, but I don't believe this is the end to our story. I still have hope for us, but while I'm at uni and he's in his last year at school, our whole relationship is on the back-burner. I might see him this weekend, and I hope things can be as good as they were before.

So, the reason why I wrote about this today is that I recently told my best friend that I'm bisexual, which made it real. I am bisexual. I am! and she claims she's known I wasn't straight for ages. Even I wasn't sure so I'm uncertain how she could've been. I'm attracted to girls as well as guys, but it's weird. None of the people I've been into - longterm - have been girls. I see girls and yes, sometimes I'm sexually attracted to them. But not to this day have I been both physically and mentally attracted to a female. 

One day, about half a year ago, one of my friend's prophesied to me that she believed my first great love would be a female. I would have a wonderful and fulfilling relationship with her, she said, but one day it would just end, and I would never love a girl again. She didn't know I was bisexual then. She still doesn't know. But I'm starting to wonder if maybe this will come true, if maybe she was right about me, if I'm going to be that real life version of Piper from Orange Is The New Black. And if it did, how bizarre would that be?

In my mind, there's every possibility the next person I love could be a girl. But the only thing that matters to me right now is finding a person who loves me. I'm done with my one-sided visions of love, of me being into someone and them never loving me back. I hope I can break the curse of unreciprocated love soon, because all I really want now is a real relationship, with someone to care about me and hold me tight. That's all that matters to me.