The Lonely Hearts Club [On Hold]

Chapter Five: Don't Let Me Down

Chapter 5

Don’t Let Me Down

   I used to like the idea of love, considering love is exactly how everyone makes it out to be. People are always painting this picture that love, once you find somebody to share it with, is the best feeling in the world and nothing can compare. That once you have someone to call your own, you’ll be so happy you find yourself doing things like buying flowers and booking reservations at restaurants so expensive they serve meals in tiny proportions, and not caring about a thing in the world other than you and them. You get to wake up and fall to sleep next to someone that reciprocates your sentiments. It all sounds so wonderful . . . in theory.

   What people don’t tell you is that love, once the parade of flowers and restaurants dies down and you’re left in the aftermath wondering what the hell you’ve just gotten yourself into, is actually a very sly, tricky sort of feeling. One day, you’ll be sitting around, watching TV or reading or trying to make sense of your taxes, and it’ll hit you: you’re not you anymore. You’re only half the man you used to be. And that’s not a bad thing, per se, because now you’re half you and half someone else—them. You find yourself blurting out things they would say, their catch phrases coming out of your mouth here and there, and you start to realize that now they’re a part of you. And you’re not sure how this came to be, or whether you even like it or not, but it’s too late to take it all back. You’ve committed yourself to wholeheartedly loving this one person.

   Then you begin to pick up on how they’re the same: they say things you normally would, or pick up more of your favourite foods at the grocery store even if they don’t usually drink soy milk or eat white carrots.

   And suddenly, both of your personalities are intricately intertwined and your hearts find each other’s, now pounding to the same beat. You’re stuck. So when they leave or they cheat or you decide to go your separate ways, they take a part of you with them and you’re left half-empty in every way possible.

   I didn’t really like love. The idea of it, the prospect of it, the feeling I’m left with when it doesn’t work out—I hated it all. And yes, I’m quite aware that hate is a very strong word. That’s exactly why I used it.

   But at the risk of sounding like the Grinch Who Stole Valentine’s Day, I had every good reason to feel that way about it. Ever since the “Tiffany incident” my love life had been spiralling downhill at a rate faster than I could’ve imagined. So excuse me if I didn’t care for this sort of sentimentality, but harsh break-ups can make a guy cautious about getting back into the flow of relationships. The “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” rule definitely applied.

   There was a point to all that rambling, and my point was that I really didn’t want to “be a cupid” or whatever the hell Eros told me to do. Even if I ignored the possibility that he might not even be real (as the great Billie Joe Armstrong once sang, ‘Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me.’ Actually, that whole song became more and more relevant by the second), there were still an infinite amount of reasons why I couldn’t go through with it. Or, I just didn’t want to. But, then again, I couldn’t just not do anything or he’d send me six feet under, like I was supposed to be before.

   Not only did I hate what I was required to do (not that I hated people’s happiness or anything, I just . . . Nope. Not my thing. It’s the same way I don’t hate kids, but I’d probably put a bullet in my brain if I ever became a teacher), but I didn’t even know how to do it.

   What did it mean to be a cupid? Did I make people fall in love by interfering with their lives? Did Eros give me superpowers he forgot to tell me about?