Love is a Dog From Hell

I was in love once.

We would go for short walks, just to get out of the cheap apartment where I lived underneath an East Indian family, deep in the forgotten suburbs.

We’d wake up around noon, fuck, then say “I love you, ‘I love you too’,” dress, brush our teeth, watch cartoons and go to the 7-11 for a hot dog and slurpie. We were young and you couldn’t fatten us up.

“Look at that girl,” she would say, pointing at a beautiful one across the street.

“I see her.”

“Do you think she’s pretty?” She would ask.

“Her?” I’d consider my words and figure it better not to lie. “Yea she is.”

“Prettier than me?” She would ask, not quizzically but with a hint of irritation.

I’d look at her, then at the girl across the street, then at her. “No, of course not; you are the sexiest girl in the world.”

“You’re lying! Why don’t you go with her then!?” She’d scream, and storm away. And that was it. We’d be fighting. Well, she would be mad, and I would drink my slurpy and think about how great that girl across the street would look lying in bed with my beautiful girlfriend. That would be something, a real dream.

We lasted 2.5 years, only breaking up twice in that time. I couldn’t love her because she couldn’t love herself, and vice versa. Jealousy is the destroyer of love. People often mistake love and respect. They’re very close but respect is too balanced: Romantic love is a temporary form of insanity.