Valentina D. (EII) - Love is the most important thing in life

When I fall in love, feelings are the most important thing to me. I don’t think about what he does for a living, how much he earns, what family he comes from, and so on.

The first thing is the look. Eyes always radiate something: cold, warmth, intelligence, harshness, tenderness, passion. A certain kind of look can arouse me very strongly.

When I was young, I fell in love often, and interestingly, at first I didn’t even think about how he felt about me, whether the feeling was mutual. I was so filled with this feeling—I bathed in it. Then I began imagining him, always finding something good. Then came dreams of how our relationship might unfold (how I wanted them to unfold). Then suddenly came the question: “Does he like me?” If he showed interest in me, a relationship started.

<...> All my life, for as long as I can remember, I kept falling in love: with girlfriends, friends, animals, teachers… My mother always scolded me, saying I shouldn’t be so easily infatuated. More experienced friends said I shouldn’t show my feelings. But that wasn’t the main thing. The main thing was that this feeling of elevated, tender infatuation lived within me my whole life, even though I tried to suppress it under societal pressure.

<...> Now, with age, I’ve realized that all these infatuations are not a psychological disorder—they are simply my way of relating to the world, especially since I’ve already met others who are the same.

Very often I wake up in the morning with this feeling of being in love—with what? with whom?—I don’t know. Just in love with the World, with the Universe, with people, with new interests, passions, with something…

In ninth grade, they seated me next to a boy who had transferred from another school. We became friends. And then, somehow imperceptibly, I began drowning in his eyes. Wherever I looked, I saw him. And I was unbelievably happy because of these feelings. I lived in them, breathed them. For a long time, I didn’t think about how he felt about me. That was my first love. Time passed, and I began to wonder whether the feeling was mutual. It turned out he was in love too, but with another girl—and also without reciprocity. For some time, it hurt terribly, and I cried, but then other feelings outweighed the pain: empathy, the desire to help him somehow, to ease his emotional suffering.

And then throughout life, I fell in love very often.