My Love Life is An Experience Bag

 After one talk with a someone whom I used to hold a feeling for, I come to a weird realization that my love life has been one giant ball of an experience bag with lots of mess and seems to be one of the few things that encircles me in the past instead of moving forward. The other thing on that encircling is the deeply rooted masked emotions in my soul, which some of it has been written in previous diaries.

It's weird, there's content, yet the feeling of helplessness is also heavily present. The conclusion that I might be stuck in this rotten circle is a helpless realization that I am somewhat content with. For once, I am considering reviewing all my love life as much as possible out of it. Oftentimes, it's just overthinking on my end, but let's get started.

First of all, DE is the first name on the list. A friend in early junior high. After all these years, I still cannot forget this name when talking of my love life history. Probably since this one has the most terrible outcome out of everyone in the list. So far, this is the only bond that I have yet managed to mend even the slightest. The most I can gather from her is that there are some bonds that can be considered beyond fixing, even if we try to mend it with all our might. Human relation is a two-sided thing, which is impossible if only one side is doing all the effort of mending while the other keeps running away.

This relation is a weird pickle, since DE messed relation rendered me to start the presumption of love must be hidden from the target. A weird notion, but it makes sense during the time. Looking back, DE, before the entire shitfest, can be considered a good friend for me. Also lost another friend, RF, in between my feud with DE. So yeah, a safety approach I took for the next relationships.

The second is YNM, a classmate during second junior high. This one also ends with a gap, though the pit is not as deep as DE, but sufficiently deep that for years we are out of touch. The bond is healed around the senior high school time, which created the notion for me that time can heal wounds. It took one simple accident where I happened to stroll around special course outside school in preparation for the national university exam where I meet her somewhat struggle with the second high school year, I think, lesson. Not sure if it is homework or what. I'm just doing my job of being a good Samaritan back then. Seems to heal the bond, even though we are quite out of touch now.

After YNM relationship damaged due to incidents during late second junior high year, SYLSN, a former classmate during elementary school and classmate during third junior high school year is where the feeling went. Sort of complicated, but as far as I am aware, the relationship is not damaged since I tried to be considerate on things, though I do some reckless stuffs so yeah. At least, last I remembered, it's not till the relationship fall apart like DE case. Pretty much out of touch now too. I do hope she get in the same senior high school as me at the time, but that's not the case: probably what helped things from escalating further into chaotic mess.

So, with three somewhat terrible relationship, and mind you that none of these three get to the 'boyfriend/girlfriend' relation level, it just sort of blow my self-esteem in this whole love department. Settling things down, I sort of wished that my feelings just be mute during my senior high school, which, thanks to my "terrible" national exam score, forced me to suffer through the acceleration class.

All going well at first, with me trying to shut my feelings down to just be out of the way. SRA, A fellow classmate in the acceleration class, enters the foray. Started with just random talks between me and her with how my sanity is slowly going the insane route at the time (Do you guys wanna hear some 'multiple mask' and 'mirror self' theories that my brain spat for me at the time? Pretty sure not something a senior high school student should be thinking), slowly devolving into a shitty mess called falling in love, again. The circumstances add like a crazy stack of odd, while I also presented the duty as the class leader. Due to the unfairness that I believed stem from my feelings to SRA and how torn apart the class is (this class has like 3 major group at war constantly), I stepped down, yet the feelings are still there as I struggle to deny myself.

It's one and a half year of hellish torture for myself in a futile attempt to resist myself from making mistakes, I'd personally say. At the end line of senior high, I yielded an issue that is somewhat recounted in "Perkuliahan: Jika Aku Bisa Bertemu Kamu 4 Tahun Lagi". Since my graduation, my bond with her has been dwindling as life separated us further and further.

Now, if we go with my recount in "Perkuliahan: Jika Aku Bisa Bertemu Kamu 4 Tahun Lagi", there are numerous omitted details for this next few in the list. They are mostly minor, but I find they contribute some experience for me. Only one of them is major, as spoiled in Semester 4 of the story.

The first of them, that I can remember well is Winda. She pretty much is the only one out of the entire long list of names in my bachelor study that I still, for some weird reason, actively in touch. Everyone else on the list is barely in touch if not outright out of touch.

Now, Winda pretty much probably beat other in the list if we account the number of experiences I learned from the relationship till today. She somewhat influenced some of my way of thinking and pretty much is the one that I can rely on even when we agree (probably should've added 'to disagree', but that's my mistake to fall in love to the same person twice which makes me a fool) to not view each other romantically. However, since this is focused on the bachelor study, I will be focusing on that segment.

In this segment, we had falling out during the second semester. The reason is, weirdly reasonable and very dumb at the same time. Cannot go too deep into that. Afterward, we recovered the relationship in the fourth semester and stayed friends, as far as I remember for my bachelor years, and assisted each other. Sort of comrades in arms. Winda taught me something opposite from DE, which is a critical flaw in my way of thinking regarding relationships, especially love-related ones. The incident proves that relationship, when both sides attempt to mend the relationship, is possible to be mended.

Both me and Winda had different perspectives regarding our fallout, with each of us, in our own perspectives, believed it was our own fault, not the other party. Sort of disastrous when I think about it, and it shows how miscommunication can severely kills relationships.

Next, there's FMS. This one is sort of loving and more of running away from my feud with Winda. There was not much into it in my opinion, just me assisting her around since the whole batch of our department is suffering from the seniority hell. Worth noting that there are three departments under one student organization, where me and FMS come from two different departments from these three.

I'd say this is more of telling me that I just used the feeling of emptiness from my feud and place her to fill it. Well, I never try to think seriously about this particular one, so it's more of a passing. It's just interesting that had I tried to pursue this relationship, I'd be on a cross-fire with one of my fellow friends in my department. Something about chivalry or whatever. Regarding FMS herself, I'm out of touch with her.

Another one during the late third year would be FDH. I don't know how to put this one. This one is about how to be "fair" and not get clouded by emotions. It sort of a painful reminder of my acceleration class' failure, but I guess it is what I must accept. I think the feeling is partly a distraction, though I didn't realize it at the time. The thing is, there's no falling out since like FMS case, I don't really actively pursue it, though I did try to pull strings related to this feeling, it backfired in a way that is not obvious to FDH being singled out with unfair advantage.

For the last two semesters ... I still wonder why I cannot remember where the feeling lies around these trying times. It is a weird reality that I had a hard time getting a proper clarity out of these two semesters. There's another name from the late sixth semester after FDH, but I think that one is more of the first purely sinful desire in my brain rather than falling in love, so I don't consider it for this list.

There are also numerous attractive women that got my attention for a short span, but I don't think it is considered as love. Sometimes, I'd like to discount FDH from the list, but despite the short span, the issues that occurred around the time those feelings are blooming can be considered a life lesson learned and worth my attention.

There are also antithesis events where I am the one being the target of falling in love. Occurred on the third and eight semesters. The third semester has JI, where our relationship is now quite damaged and out of touch. The last semester has IA falling in love for me which seems to be severed with addition of having another woman involved in the crossfire when both me and that woman least expect it.

After the whole pandemic chaos and me becoming a fresh graduate, I continued to my master study while taking some freelancing jobs. Winda is the only one I am actively in touch, and thus where my feelings also take hold. However, an old friend from my bachelor days, UIS started to be in touch again during my master and the feeling gradually shift to her, as reality played some tricks to Winda which severed me indirectly. Just a follow-up, it is not happening.

UIS given me some interesting experience during my short time falling for her, before now lost in a sea of confusion today. The first is that she secretly aware that I already fell for her, yet not deny me chance to talk to her with my budding feelings. This is the most significant thing, since my perception is that I must hide my feelings to avoid conflicts and preserve a faux friendship relation. The second thing is that I get an opportunity to not only try to get close to her, but also her father, though only twice.

The first experience is the second most significant experience I feel, after Winda's relationship mended. Even after my feeling has vanished for her, I still feel content ever falling for UIS.

To be fair, after UIS, I just feel that probably now I am lost in my own sea of emotion, searching for meaning and exit out of the confusion. It is a total lost for me at this point and I am no longer certain where my feelings lie with such a nihilistic way of me viewing things.