Could've Been: How Fear in Dating Keeps Us from Real Love
A poetic reflection on love and dating in the modern world.
This post was inspired by the song “Could’ve Been” by H.E.R. To get the full experience, scroll to the bottom of this post and press play.
It’s an interesting dance, dating is.
We tip-toe through our feelings not wanting to tip too close to someone who could potentially hurt us. It’s scary, the possibility that someone may just be the very one you’ve been looking for.
We give little while wanting a lot. Question if we’re doing too much, or if we’re not doing enough. Is it lust or is it love? We tell ourselves the former to keep ourselves from opening up.
And when our guard does come down just a little, fear has us running back to safety. Unsafely, we return to those who made us fear love to begin with. We sacrifice what could be for what was, even when the past is the very thing God was removing us from. A toxic cycle that keeps us from experiencing the best that He has for us.
Our minds echo a long list of reasons that our hearts contradict—wrong time, right place, right one, but it’s high stakes to step into the unknown. It’s hard leaving your comfort zone to build a new home without the promise that you won’t once again end up back alone.
And so we settle for the familiar, telling ourselves that there’s still something there with those who show us time and time again that their love is a fallacy. We choose delusion over reality and then profess that love hurts. We say it doesn’t work when we’re the ones who continuously choose to let go of better for worse.