The bitter truth of modern relationships. A letter from the Internet that everyone should read. Today at breakfast I met a girl I’ve loved for many years. She already has a husband and is pregnant. When she left, we said hello and then called each other. And, to be honest, when we talked, I felt a lot of pain in a way I haven’t felt in the last 15 years.
The Bitter Truth of Modern Relationships:
5 years ago, we decided to break up. At that time we had been dating for 4.5 years and were completely devoted to each other all this time. We could spend 8, 12, and even 24 hours together for dozens of days without breaks and were not tired at all. We ate, slept, walked, played sports, dreamed, watched movies and TV, visited, talked, played Sony PlayStation, fought, and everywhere we felt complete harmony and mutual understanding.
We were each other’s reflection. Of course, there were difficult periods during the five years, when I carried her in my arms to the hospital, and she supported me in my consistently unsuccessful projects when we had to forgive and cry when we doubted each other and ourselves, but no matter what happened, we could never be without each other for more than a day. We were completely abstracted from the world and only observed everything that was happening from the outside, having only a vague idea of how everyone else lived. And every time we went out in public, we were surprised to discover that there is a phenomenon in the world when someone loves and the other allows you to love, when someone in a relationship may not love at all but only decides to be together.
We didn’t see it. We were just told about it, and we just shrugged our shoulders. And every time we returned from the world to our little world, we said with absolute sincerity that we loved each other equally and in a way that no one else did. We believed in it and knew it was true. Just as we knew, you can’t decide to be together if being apart is the same as not being together at all. I won’t hide the fact that we weren’t perfect and our relationship went through many different human trials, but that doesn’t matter.
And so after 4.5 years of relationship, it seemed to us that our feelings were dead, that we were not quite what we should ideally be, that there was no passion, and that perhaps it would be better for us to break up. I will never forget the expectations we had when we parted ways. It seemed to us that we were like sailboats setting out on an open voyage, and we thought that this world was full of worthy and significant people. People who were at least as good as we were for each other. We considered ourselves young, beautiful, and promising, and that finding a soulmate would not be difficult at all because there was plenty to choose from.
Five years have passed since then, and if I had been told 10 or 15 years ago that I would see the life that I see now, I would never have believed it. Now I see how the most beautiful and interesting girls and the most successful and charming guys are left alone en masse. I recall how, when we entered first grade, we had a girl who all the boys loved unconditionally and all the girls despised. If I had been told then that at 25 she would still be just as beautiful, but lonely and divorced, I would have thought it was a joke.
Just as I would not have believed that the girl I loved along with a good dozen guys in the 8th and 9th grades would be a single and very beautiful mother at 25, just like another very beautiful and incredibly kind close friend of mine, whom I can hardly breathe inside with delight when I meet (as does everyone who sees her). I remember how she once told me in a personal conversation that at 17-18 she perceived the world and her future completely differently. She said that it always seemed to her that she would have everything: a big and good family, a successful husband and equally successful children, a home, and everything that every woman dreams of. But everything turned out to be completely different, with a husband who beat her, with a divorce, with dishonest men, and all the consequences…
It’s no secret that I used to go to a lot of beauty contests, and I know the fate of many of the most beautiful girls in our city. And for the most part, I feel incredibly sorry for them. If someone had told me a long time ago that these girls would be lonely, unhappy, and of no use to anyone, I would have simply laughed in response. And that’s exactly how it is with them! And don’t argue; just believe me. And if that’s how it is with them, then what about everyone else…
There are no particularly unsuccessful people in my male company. Everyone plays sports, works, is active, pleasant to talk to, and is between 22 and 35 years old. Our lifestyle and attitude toward many values is what makes us one company. And what’s interesting is that half of them are single. The worst thing is that I know that they are realistic about the prospect of remaining single for the rest of their lives.
I once met a close friend of mine who, like me, once broke up with his girlfriend, thinking that this world was full of better matches. I would call this guy one of the coolest in my circle (easy to love). And he told me that before he had never even considered the scenario of being alone. It seemed that someone would meet him anyway, but now everything is different. Now he is considering the option of being alone with an absolutely cold calculation.
And I don’t even know what happened in the world, where this breakdown occurred, that every day there are more and more lonely people.
Now I am 36 years old. I know and can do a lot. I know how to make money, how to earn respect and recognition, and how to make people laugh or hate me. I have learned to get almost everything. But I do not know what to do to love. This is the only feeling, thing, or emotion that cannot be summoned, created, or imitated. It does not belong to us, and I am convinced that it is a gift from God. And if there is a God, it is love.
And woe to the person who once experienced it, because we think relatively, and having experienced love once, everything will seem less than it in the future, because it is almost impossible to surpass love. And if you love someone now, and outside in our world there is someone who seems brighter, younger, more interesting, smarter, and more tender to you, then know that all this is temporary, but love is eternal. The lights will fade, the young will grow old, what was tender will become rough, the interesting will become ordinary, the sharpness of the mind will dull, and only it has no past tense.
If you have a loved one next to you now, don’t dare to leave him. Never! Your whole life consists of 5-6 worthy people, one of whom you, if the stars align, will love, because if they don’t align, then perhaps it will never work out. Don’t throw away your happiness and the opportunities to build it. Then you will regret them.
Want to know what this world looks like? Then listen and don’t dare come here. There is nothing here that you can exchange love for. Over the past 5 years, I have come to appreciate when I meet a girl who can just talk and communicate normally, laugh, and enjoy life. I have come to appreciate people who can at least just say something, think, have their own opinion, or want something.
It’s interesting that such a quality as “just being a normal person” has become such a rarity that you can give up a lot for it. And such qualities that seem self-evident to you in love, such as respect, kindness, sincerity, honesty—these are rare here.
In love, you can’t be different, and here, for many, being different is a way of survival. Here, everyone is beautiful, and everyone is bright, but almost everything that attracted me so much 5 years ago turned out to be false, harmful, and poisonous, like toadstools in the forest, which for some reason are always brighter than white ones. In general, I am a very happy person because there is happiness in my life. Although, why was there… there will be more. And I wish the same for you. Don’t miss it.
