The Hopeless Romantic

Ayla JABR, Terminale

Love.

The most complex sentiment to acknowledge.

Each and every human being perceives this love differently.

Some might think it is what life is all about, others, may think it is the essence of pain and deception.  

But if you look carefully, love is everywhere. It’s all around.

To me, love is everything and everyone. It is present in the most unnecessary yet necessary occurrences that take place on a daily basis. Love is the person that holds the door for you. Love is that awkward smirk you give a stranger in the elevator. It’s the warm water flowing against your skin after a long day. Love is your mother’s hug, your father’s kiss goodnight. Love is everywhere and in everyone.

But there exists a type of “love” so wicked, immoral, so strong, that makes us humans, that long for love, despise it: unrequited love. A love so powerful that it convinces the foolish, innocent, naïve psyche to believe that this love will be our last. It distorts and deforms our perception of love and even of ourselves.

However, in all its malignity and selfishness, this love is the purest kind. We love the other, because their eyes are home, their arms are safe, and their smile is everything combined into one.

I too have been a victim of this excruciating and sinful virus. The worst illness of all. Heart palpitations, teary eyes and stomach pains for many years. Yes, many years. I was young, at the gates of puberty, jaws shackled in steel, hair tied back… and in all this chaos, “z”, a slightly older prince charming decided to pay me a compliment: “she’s so pretty” he said, a relatively insignificant yet significant phrase that got me hooked for years. The “tell her I say hi” and the “tell him I said hey” slowly came to be hour long conversations until dawn. They say you only really get to know someone at 4 am, and I got to know “z” a full lot. I, had completely perfected the “z” algorithm, knowing his answers to unasked questions; I knew what he was thinking, what he was feeling and why instantaneously. Regardless, “z” was always on my mind and I had hoped to be on his. It took about a year for the malfunctions to start. The “errors” and “miscalculations” started off by being mild and then multiplied at a rapid rate. Inconsistency and instability are what the “z” algorithm knew best. The system would be working flawlessly on Monday but crash on Tuesday. It would bounce from one coder to the other, working impeccably and unsullied with them and yet, would always return to me, claiming coder- A to be the only coder for the system. I eventually came to love the system; I gave the entirety and plenitude of my time and effort to the “z” algorithm only for it to feed of off this “love”. “z” would fluctuate between perfect prince charming to manipulating toad on a daily basis. Yet coder-A did nothing but trust the “z” algorithm. The charming toad’s empty words would resonate and echo in my head indefinitely. Coder-A would spend the majority of her time deciphering each and every “okay”. She also would crash sometimes. “z” algorithms’ rare, infrequent, and sparse performances were all she had left. They were the source of Coder A’s dignity, love and self-worth. We’ll all come across a z algorithm, and it won’t stop there, they’ll be a multitude of algorithms, some hurting more than others.

Here she is again, broken and shattered by another one, once again. An algorithm she thought was greater than “z”, the long awaited “one for me”, algorithm “e”. He left her questioning if the last time, was even love at all, and here she is defeated by this eternal fall.