Why I Stopped Choosing with My Heart

You meet someone new. You get along.

Somewhere along the way, you fall in love. You don’t always know what triggers it: a favorite song, a poem they share, a book they like.

You think it’s too good to be true. And it is. They get mad at you, even if you don’t immediately know what caused it.

If you’re lucky, they talk to you again. You get to know them more.

You start seeing the cracks. You have a list of people you’ll never date. You make an exception.

They get angry, again. You’re both too different:

You’re brutally honest, logical, persistent.

They’re sensitive, moody, evasive.

They hurt you, because you care. You hurt them, because your words strike true.

You want to solve the problem. They don’t want to talk about it.

You learn patience, when you yearn for compromise. They learn forgiveness, when they yearn for acceptance.

You cope by crying yourself to sleep, writing letters that never get read, and rereading the scant words they left.

You get more chances than you deserve but you squander it by conveying how much you’ve been hurt.

You realize too late that to save the friendship, you need to shut up, swallow your pride, and sacrifice your heart.