‘Tis better to have loved and lost....

...Than never to have loved at all (Alfred Lord Tennyson). Really? I have to confess that I am in two minds about whether I think this is true or not.

On the one hand, as someone who has never been in love (or been loved) whenever I hear this said it brings back all the hurt I feel at never having been in a relationship. I think, well of course it must be better to have loved and lost, to have experienced feeling that someone is the most important person in the whole world to you, to have known that you would do anything for them and them for you, to have wanted to grow old with someone. I would give anything to have had that, even if I ultimately lost it.

On the other hand, when I see what losing love has done to some of my friends, I begin to wonder.

I have one friend who has been in a very bad place the last few months. She was sleeping with a married guy at work (which she knew she shouldn’t have got into, which her friends advised her against, but she somehow couldn’t stop herself and ended up in love). Her left for a new job and the whole thing finished leaving her an emotional mess. I would never want to feel the way she has been – seriously depressed, having suicidal thoughts, feeling that most of her friends have deserted her because they disapproved. My situation may make me feel lonely, miserable, unloved, afraid, like a freak, I may cry myself to sleep from time to time, but I’m fairly sure I don’t feel as gut-wrenchingly awful as she does. If that’s what losing love does to you, is it really better than not having experienced it at all?

Of course, it may be that I am just trying to convince myself that Tennyson was wrong to make myself feel better, to make me think that I am not missing out on something wonderful. I think I’ve become quite good at trying to make myself think that over the years. I never quite succeed though...