I began to love only at sixteen, and here's what I learnt

I have not fully opened my heart, but I'd like to think that I love myself and others just a little more than I did before. (This article should be relatively short :))

English singer Griff’s unreleased single “Vertigo” went viral on video-sharing app TikTok earlier this year, and being a chronically-online user of the app, the song found its way onto my For You Page. Aside from its lilting melody and upbeat nature, a particular lyric resonated with me: “You’re scared of love, well aren’t we all?”

The truth is, I am scared of love. Both of loving, and being loved. In Griff’s words, “you ran from love, that’s nothing new” — to me, that’s the best representation of the past sixteen years of my life. For sixteen years, I believed I was unlovable, pushing away anyone in a two-metre radius of me. Friendship, to me, was transactional. You give me something, I give you something in return. I labelled all my relationships with others, keeping track of what they had wanted from me, times they had hurt me, and I turned this knowledge into my personal weapon. If they stabbed me in the back, I’d turn around and slash them in the heart — where it hurt. My soul was full of hatred, and bearing grudges only served to add fuel to the fire.

The belief that I was unlovable rendered me incapable of loving others as well. I saw no point in wasting my energy on interpersonal relationships when I could channel this focus and endurance into being an academic weapon (no joke, but then again, I wasn’t even doing that well). When all else failed, I turned to the good old ‘Net to find friends (stupid, I know), and for one, maybe two, blissful weeks, I finally found myself somewhere I could belong. But then the feeling of novelty would fade away, and I was left alone yet again, relegated to being second-best. Even over the Internet, where I was already putting up a false persona of being this loving, kind-hearted soul that IRL me was clearly not, I could not find the friendships I so desperately yearned for. I hung out with the oddballs and outcasts in school, with a mutual understanding hanging over us that we were only there for each other because we had no one else. I was settling for racists, homophobes, and all-around weirdos for friends, but they were all I had, so what could I do? I was not alone, yet I was extremely lonely.

At some point, I did some deep digging into my soul, realising that the common denominator in all my relationships was, well, me. I had to come to terms with the crushing reality that my attitude was cutting through all my relationships, causing them to crumble and fall. There was really no one to blame but myself, and I realised how important it was for me to mend my relationships before it was too late.

Mind you, I came to this realisation at the age of fifteen. People were having best friends, going out with others in their free time, and I was only realising that to have a good friend, I had to be a friend in return at the turn of Secondary 3.

From there, it was an upward curve, although it was not easy. I had to make the extremely conscious decision to be a better, kinder, more compassionate person in my everyday life, an act that was certainly no mean feat. It was laborious, having to tell myself “be nice” every minute of every hour of every day, suppressing the urge to laugh at others’ mistakes (I was, and still am, a sadist, I’m just better at hiding it now) and forcing myself to be just that little bit nicer to the people around me. Did it come easy? Definitely not. It was a very difficult journey — after all, old habits die hard, and I struggled with validating myself when I could not find the people who wanted to stay. I found my kindness being exploited, my newfound friendships containing moderate to high amounts of trauma-dumping, and me having to be their “therapist friend”, a position I neither did well in nor enjoyed.

Loving others was one thing, but loving myself was another. Learning to love myself by putting distance between myself and interpersonal relationships was harder than I thought. I was under the impression that, since I was extremely selfish before, it would be extremely easy to strike a balance between being a friend to others and a friend to myself. Little did I know that with my newly-developed people-pleasing tendencies, I would become someone who clung to my new (toxic) friendships and defend them at all costs. I had become the very person I sought to destroy.

These friendships hurt me, and for a period of time, I heavily considered shutting myself out from the world yet again. My experiences had proven that being friendly, opening my heart to others, would only serve to break me down further, and that was not a risk I wanted to take.

But the fear of being lonely continued to bite me, and I was once again reminded of the times I had cried myself to sleep because I was excluded from a friend-group, the instances where I was left partner-less during PE lessons, and the episodes in which I had no shoulder to lie on when times got tough. Indubitably, I yearned for such close friendships, but I knew I had to put up barriers around myself as well. Barriers that only a select few would be able to break.

Once I learnt to set boundaries for myself, I found some wonderful friends whom I’m truly grateful to have met. I wouldn’t call myself surrounded by friends, but I have enough to get by, and younger me would be surprised by how much I’ve grown. After sixteen years, I finally feel like I have places where I belong — friends who will wait for me, include me, and love me for who I am.

Of course, the barriers around me still exist, and while I enjoy making people laugh and seeing my friends happy, the things I tell them are still very shallow. I don’t divulge too much about my life, I make certain things my entire personality (for a reason), and I still continue to forgive but not forget. To this day, I have not found a way to let people all the way into my heart, but I hope that one day, the windows will open wide, my heart can sing its song freely, and I can love myself the same way I do others — for all my flaws, insecurities, and aches. For every bad friend I’ve made, there is someone good, someone sweet, someone delicate, who is willing to give me the warmest of hugs, the kindest of words, and the sweetest of days. Now that I’ve learnt to love myself and others, I’m feeling the love being reciprocated, and although it’s taken me years to get here (admittedly, I’m still not great at it), my younger self would be proud.

And to you, if you’re just figuring out how to love others: I leave you with this lyric by Rina Sawayama. If you can’t love yourself, how are you going to love somebody else?

This article is dedicated to Shay, Lucia, Ning, Ruo, Joyce, Ode, Xindi, Xuan, Jillian, Arley, Jisoo, En, and everyone who has chose to stick by me on my journey of growth. I’m indebted to you, and for your love, I am endlessly grateful.