Emotional Me

Flashback once again to that phone conversation with Harvey the night I got dumped.

"I wish I was more like Katie," I sniffed. "Guys seem to be more attracted to her energy."

"What do you like about her?" she asked.

"She's so even keeled. She never lets on that she's annoyed or angry. The minute I become unsatisfied, I announce it. It causes problems."

"There's nothing wrong with admiring a trait in other people and trying to replicate it in your own life," she said. Her voice became softer, "Maybe if you became more logical like Katie, you wouldn't get hurt so much."

Her words were meant to soothe me. Harvey, a person also ruled by logic, was trying to help me find a logical solution in her logical way. But instead it incited an emotional reaction within me.

I don't feel that my goal in life is to hurt less. I would rather take the hurt and the pain and the rejection if it meant I could also have the good things: the love and the joy and the acceptance. I believe that because I am a person who is so in touch with her feelings, I am able to love more freely than the logical person. And I would never ever wish that away.

And Katie is not without her own problems. It isn't my story to tell, but the best I can share is that she has the exact opposite problem that I have. Whereas I feel like I am too much of a personality, she feels like she isn't enough of one. She can feel anxious in social situations, hence the drinking her face off and passing out in the bar bathroom when Schmoozer initially showed interest in her.

Not to mention that I already tried the experiment of emulating the friends. I spent a week trying to be like Harvey and it blew up in my face.

I was silent on the other end of the phone with Harvey. I never responded to her "Maybe... you wouldn't get hurt so much." But I knew the answer and it surprised the hell out of me: I would rather love messily than not at all. I'd rather have my problems than somebody else's. I've never felt that way before.

So give me the heartbreak and all the pain that comes with it. Give me the tears and the running mascara and the splotchy face. Because you don't get that way if you haven't invested yourself and loved.