chemistry

“I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it — to be fed so much love I couldn’t take any more. Just once.” 

— Haruki Murakami

I dropped biology in high school because it started getting too chemistry heavy. I never quite grasped what components matched with others or what atoms do. In real life, chemistry is a fool’s game. The concept of being “head over heels” for someone: the concept of a connection. The realist inside always knows the outcome: failure. The romanticist keeps hoping; keeps building castles in the clouds. Why is romance easy for other people?

I don’t think I will ever understand this one. He admits the chemistry and the attraction are both there. Then, it begets the question: why can’t this be explored further? I’m already hurt. I’m already frustrated. I’m already anxious. I’m already semi-attached to the idea of a person I barely know because of one night of pure ecstasy; ongoing philosophical conversations. I never felt this before. Or, I haven’t felt it in a while. And, maybe, because of the longevity of the absence of such a feeling, I forgot what it was like. 

I asked – “then, what was the first night?” He replied: “I got caught up in the chemistry.” I must have walked for an hour across the city after this conversation. Where had I heard this before?

And it all leads back to you. All I could think about yesterday were your blue eyes; the way your silky honey-blonde locks felt when I stroked your hair to comfort you. That moment in my kitchen when I first witnessed your vulnerability; when you cried in front of me for the first time because you were scared. I fell in love with you when you told me you loved my scent. Meanwhile, you got caught up in the excitement of the contrast between us. And then, you broke my heart when you told me that you still had feelings for your ex-fiancée, and that your heart only has space for her. "What was that?" I asked you, broken. Your reply? "I thought you were just being friendly... Mediterranean..." Even you can't be that ignorant. She broke your heart again, soon after, when you visited her in Berlin. Wasn’t it ironic that the woman you pined after led you to Berlin on a false notion, only for you to find that she had in fact moved on? You came back to me, tail between your legs. 

But, my heart and soul were already desensitized to your never-ending game of emotional chess. Perhaps, you and me were both two lost souls who found each other in the wrong country, at the wrong time. Now, my heart is closed. 

After you, there was someone else: a connection with a long-lost flame back home. It was, however, an attempt at me trying to replace you that summer: that connection we had. That’s all. I tried to forget your scent; the way your fingers felt when they intertwined in mine, and the way your warmth would soothe my skin when you held me. And then, then I got addicted to the idea of him. I made myself sick on the fantasy of what could have been between us had I not left my home country. I desperately wanted to delete you; to replace you. It was easy for you to move on. It isn’t for me. I miss our connection, but I’ll never tell you again. 

This summer, I’m back to where I was last year: wrapped up in another chemistry, with no prospects. I’m in a different  country again, but repeating the same pattern of self-destructive behaviour. Sometimes, I want to replace my skin; I want to forget what the touch of their hands felt like on my body. 

In the morning, a friend was lamenting to me that her skinny love was moving towards its expiration date. And I told her: “you deserve someone who chooses you.” Ironic, that I said this. I never fall for people who choose me wholeheartedly. People only choose me when it’s the most convenient for them. 

And, after my walk that same day, a friend of ours called me in the evening. Perfect timing. I asked him, “am I stupid?” He said, “well, if you had a premonition that it was a repeat of what you went through last year, then perhaps.” This time, I promised him, I will be detaching myself before I fall further.