Title..?

I’ve decided to start writing my thoughts down in this place, mostly as a quiet way to preserve my sanity. I feel like if I can just transfer them to the page, I might finally be able to live without this constant, heavy ache. It’s simply too much to hold all these feelings inside my own head; they fade, they get tangled, and it becomes exhausting having to dredge them back up every once in a while. I have no intention of actually speaking to another human being about this—the risk of vulnerability far outweighs any fleeting benefit. I’ve spent so much time thinking about the things that shape my view of the world, but I’ve never tried to record them until now. A small part of me thought it would be nice to share these reflections, not that anyone out there really cares enough to notice.

Predictably, my first instinct was to worry about the judgment of others. I’ve always cared too much about what people think; even though I know I shouldn't give their opinions such weight, those critical thoughts still haunt my mind most of the time. Yet, I am choosing to make this public anyway, for two reasons. First, I highly doubt the people around me who have access to this would ever have the patience, or the intellect, to actually sit down and understand my writing. Second, and perhaps more importantly, laying bare my honest thoughts here is the only way to be true to myself in real life. It means no more hollow opinions, and no more pretending just to conform to the social world I am surrounded by.

To return to the thoughts I meant to record here, I honestly just want to describe my perspectives on everything—on life, friends, family, and feelings. But tonight, my mind is completely occupied by the concept of love, and what it truly means to give yourself to someone else.

It has always occurred to me that love is a dangerously powerful thing, mostly because I remember the lengths I was willing to go when I truly cared. It all traces back a few years ago, to the late months of 2023, during the first term of my eighth-grade year. I met someone. And like any other girl trying to understand a boy, I pursued him strongly. I wanted to dive deep into his thoughts and figure out exactly what kind of person he was. It was pure curiosity that drove me in the beginning. Before him, I had never experienced a real relationship; all I knew of romance were the superficial things, like holding hands and being romantic. Confessing to him wasn’t because I saw some rare, intrinsic virtue inside him—it was just a way to satisfy my curiosity and see what would happen.

But true love has a way of sprouting unbidden, and before I knew it, it had taken root in my heart.

I have come to define true love as the deliberate choice to act without ever weighing the personal consequences.

In those early days, I willingly traded my own well-being just to be near him. I stayed up into the late hours of the night, fully aware that the next morning would bring a heavy physical exhaustion and a mounting deficit of homework. I meticulously studied the things he liked, immersing myself in his interests solely to bridge the distance between our minds.

But as I got to know him deeper, I realized how different he was from me. He was completely trapped in a system of conformity and obedience—a trait that seems entirely too common among students molded by public Chinese schools. He did exactly what he was instructed to do when it was necessary, but he was utterly devoid of imagination or creative fire. He had no real interests outside of his daily obligations and the hollow escapism of gaming. It surprised me. I always believed that this age was supposed to be a harvest season for teenagers—a time to explore the world and start understanding how it works.

I felt a quiet urge to save him. I wanted to show him that there were far more meaningful things to experience than a screen. Being his partner, that desire slowly led to an irreversible tragedy.

If a mentor’s job is to lay down a path, then the apprentice’s absolute obligation is to take a step forward. I laid down the path. I showed him the world. But he refused to take the step. Though it disappointed me at first, I yielded. I compromised my own standards and stayed by his side, thinking he just needed more time. But time yielded no change. Constant disappointment eventually turned into a heavy, quiet sadness.

As we fought, the grim reality became undeniable: he didn't care for me the way I cared for him. If I left, he would live just as well before as he would after. The only person he truly looked after was himself.

It has been a long time since I experienced that specific heartbreak, but the memory of it is still vividly etched in my chest. I can still feel that tight, sour, agonizing compression. I remember the desperate resistance it took to stop the tears from falling in front of the screen. I would cry all over my pillow in the dark, but the next morning, I would go up to him and pretend like nothing had ever happened, swallowing all those bitter, aggrieved feelings down into my gut.

We entered a cyclical pattern of breaking up and getting back together, mostly because my spirit kept faltering between my actual feelings and the lingering memory of my love for him. But when a human being endures too much pain, instinct eventually dictates a retreat from the source of it. The final severance happened in April of 2026. I told him I loved him for the absolute last time, and then I deleted his contact without a single parting word.

To this day, the concept of romance elicits nothing but a profound numbness. I’ve realized that the times I wanted to get back together weren't because I actually missed him or the relationship itself. I was mourning my past self—the pure, unmarred version of me who still believed that our bond was real. That feeling lies buried deep at the bottom of my heart now; if I recall it with immense effort, a faint, ghostly trace might appear for a few seconds before dissolving into the ether.

Choosing to love someone and enter a relationship is like handing them an unsheathed knife pointed directly at your chest, trusting them not to drive it home. Unfortunately, he struck deep.

I know I will never allow myself to be vulnerable enough to love someone like that again. The risk is too immense, and the price of going through that pain a second time is far too steep. Today, the flat compliments and fancy overtures I receive from people fail to rouse even a tremor of emotion in me. If a relationship is mathematically destined to end in ruin eventually, why invest all the effort just to get hurt?

I didn't want to admit that love was already over for me, so I tried to enter new relationships with other people. But my emotions were too guarded. My love was controlled. When I look at myself now, I see too much of his coldness reflecting back at me. I set out to change him, but instead, his stagnation changed myself. By building a fortress to protect my heart from being stabbed again, I have built the same walls of conformity and numbness that I used to despise in him.

To fully map the landscape of my current numbness, I must record a final, deeply troubling realization. In my attempts to forge new connections after him, I was forced to look at humanity through an entirely different lens. I began to perceive traits in these suitors that I had never encountered in my first relationship.

I saw, with a clarity that bordered on revulsion, the raw mechanics of their desire. I saw their lust—not as a natural extension of affection, but as a transactional hunger. It became chillingly obvious that their intention to be with me was never rooted in a genuine appreciation for who I am as a person, but rather in a cold calculation of the value I hold. They did not want me; they wanted to possess the attributes, the status, or the aesthetic that I could provide for them.

It disgusted me.

In my first romance, whatever its tragic faults and ultimate stagnation, the connection had at least begun from a place of pure, unvarnished curiosity. It was an exploration of the soul. But these subsequent encounters felt predatory, reduced to a hollow market of utility and physical impulse. Seeing love degraded into a mere transaction of lust and worth didn't just push me further away—it solidified the lock on the fortress I have built. It proved to me that the world outside of my own mind is rarely looking for a soul to understand; more often than not, it is simply looking for a prize to claim.

Controlled affection isn't true love—true love is supposed to be limitless. When I find both the person and I weighing the pros and cons of these new relationships, the feelings just pass through me like a meaningless wind.

Sometimes in the quiet hours of the night, I just stare at a wall and zone out completely. I have to admit the bitter truth: I still love him, but I am no longer in love with him. I miss our past, the era when I was most pure in my understanding of hope. Now, that state of grace is unreachable, burned away by the pain I endured. What’s left is a very stark, hollow landscape. Disappointment. Hollowness. Numbness.

(And to those whom I dated after him and dumped so ruthlessly—I am sorry. You simply caught the aftermath of a heart that had already run out of warmth.)