A Whole-Ass Treatise on Everything Love is Not

I have been thinking a lot of a specific scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In the seventh season, there is a scene between Buffy and the vampire, Spike. Now, Spike is a vampire like any other. He is monster who murders and eats humans; he is soulless and he has no remorse and no humanity. All the same, he fell in love with Buffy, and although he never stopped being evil, he did become a friend of sorts for a few years.

Of course, Buffy could not give Spike what he wanted. She could not love him back. He is a monster. How could she? So, everything he does, he does out of love for her, and slowly, this begins to frustrate him.

The scene I am talking about is when Spike and Buffy reunite after Spike has been gone for quite a while. Buffy gives Spike just one chance to explain why she would ever allow him further in her life, and he begins to speak. Spike talks about how much he wants to be rid of Buffy, to be free of the curse of loving her. Buffy arms herself to protect against the vampire. Then, he tells her what he did. He got his soul back. For a vampire, a soul is unspeakable torture because a soul is basically your conscience. Having lived hundreds of years as a monster, Spike now has the ability to feel guilty for the countless evil things he has done. The guilt would crush anyone. “Do you know how painful it is to have done what I have done, and to feel bad about it?”

But Spike willingly chose to be cursed with a soul. He tells Buffy that he did it for her, so that he could be someone she would love. It is an impossible sacrifice which he has made for her. Buffy does not run to Spike’s arms and kiss him deeply. They do not have a tearful proposal or declaration of love. Her face registers only horror. She is horrified by what he has done, by the pain he has put upon himself. For her.

You see, Buffy now carries a burden she never bargained for. She never asked for Spike to love her so deeply. And now, well her position is untenable. She still cannot love this vampire, this monster. It’s inconceivable! That day will never come. And yet, she sees before her a man who has been willing to do more for her than anyone else. This monster might love her more than anyone ever has or will. And she will never, ever love him back. As Spike suffers for her, you see her burden. It’s a terrible thing.

Before I got the COVID, I ran a lot. I never wanted to be a runner because it meant soccer had passed me by. But, there is a satisfaction in mowing down mile after mile. Of course, COVID screwed all that up, but it did give me time to think because all of a sudden I had no athletic recourse. Even now, weeks later, I can’t breathe properly when I run. I don’t have more than four miles in me, and my intramural soccer team is going to need me to figure out how to breathe again fast. The point being, I can’t control COVID. I can’t snap my lungs back into working order, and I con’t drain the fatigue out of my body. The same is true of love.

It is a different thing to be in love than it is to have love. I have love. I love my family, and I love my friends. I have almost fifteen friends which is three away from a full set, but that’s a story for another time. I have not yet been in love, not yet been in a relationship. I’m willing to admit that the fact bothers me. I was raised by two people, born a day apart, who started dating in the seventh grade and will never stop. Sure, it’s a loving home, but it’s also an unfair standard! I was looking around the middle school for my wife like it was a normal way to think! 

You see, being in love is not a choice you can make; it’s a phenomenon that happens to you. In a way, it’s impersonal and impartial. I practiced every single day to make the varsity team in soccer, but I can’t practice to be in love. It’s a lightning strike. These things just happen. 

As humans, we are reluctant to acknowledge that relationships are borne out of vulnerability. I pretend that I like to be alone, but I don’t. When I get an “A” I want to have someone who I can text the good news to. I want someone to fill the silences when I watch tv or to listen to every joke I make and laugh at all of them (which is an easy task because I’m fucking hilarious). I want someone who will read this and be like, “This is overdramatic and absurd. Please stop spreading your weird thoughts to the outside world. Your brain is a disease.” 

The problem is that these people don’t actually exist. No one in the world would ever do any of those things because I want it. No, the trick is that they have to want it. This is a simple distinction, but I find it to be difficult to wrap my head around. You see, the thing that sates my vulnerability is something I have zero control over. If I need this human being in my life, there is no combination of thoughts or actions that will force her arrival. 

Find the nearest person and try right now to make them get a bowl of ice cream for you without letting them know in any way that you want them to get a bowl of ice cream for you. It’s impossible. You cannot force people to desire something, and you can’t ask someone to get you a bowl of ice cream without them knowing that it’s you that wants a bowl of ice cream. That being said, I would like a bowl of the chocolatest ice cream right now please and thank you. 

So, I need to find someone who cares about me because they want to with zero interference from me. If I want a relationship, that is ingredient 1. Ingredient 2 is that I simultaneously feel the exact same for them. 

Let me float something else. What if we just take ingredient 2? We know I want a relationship, and we know I can’t find a way to create ingredient 1, so how about we try ingredient 2? I will do my half of the love and try to spark the other half. Now, we are cooking with gas.

What I’ve just described is a dangerous thing. It’s a terrible thing. It’s what Spike did with Buffy. True love requires complete sacrifice. Everyone knows that, including me. And so, I prepare myself to be an agent of sacrifice. Whatever makes Buffy happy or protects Buffy or helps Buffy, I will do. And I will expect nothing in return, not ever. 

Buffy knows how I feel, by the way. She doesn’t totally accept it, but I know it will hurt her feelings if she knows the toll ingredient 2 takes. So, I make the sacrifice of hiding the pain. I shall love Buffy and do it with a smile. Her accomplishments make me happy, and I want to hear her celebrate them for hours. When it comes to my accomplishments, she’s thrilled, but she moves on. At first, you think Buffy is a bad person. Then you remember, her smile makes you truly happy. Your smile doesn’t mean the same to her. You love her. She doesn’t. 

What I need is to push my limits. Buffy does not love who I am now, so I have to change who I am by stretching my comfort zone. No more making friends with vampires, I like to hang out with humans now because that’s what Buffy is like. The daylight terrifies me and makes me sick, but Buffy loves the day, so I will learn to as well. I’ve made myself sick chasing Buffy, and she skipped out on my blood party because she had a cold. How is that fair? Is she a bad person? No, she just doesn’t love me.

You see, the final sacrifice is the only one I can’t make, the only one Spike can’t make. If I truly love her, then I have to let her love someone else. Maybe Buffy will never find a man who treats her the way I think she deserves. It doesn’t matter because she deserves the chance to feel for someone else, they way I do for her. Anything else would just be forcing something that we know for certain will never be love; it will always have just one ingredient, and we need two. I know this is true, but I can’t let go.

For Spike and Buffy, it ends poorly. Like it was destined to from the very beginning.

I know what you’re thinking dear reader who probably knows me personally. This whole thing is an extended metaphor of my actual life. Yes and no. Clearly, I know vulnerability, desperation, and unrequited love well. No, this story is not a symbolic description of real-life events, and Buffy is not representative of some girl from my past. She’s a representative of several girls. You think only one girl hasn’t loved me in my life? Give me some credit, there’s been many! All kidding aside, this is not some pointed remark directed at my past or the people there. I don’t give a shit about my past right now; this story is a cautionary tale for me. 

I want to be better tomorrow than I was yesterday. Once upon a time, I was prepared to torture myself for people who didn’t want me to, and I called it love. That’s not love.

It’s going to heal my OCD, not make it act up. It will soothe my anxiety, and it will encourage my laughter. All of my best qualities will be drawn out by the person who wants to see them, who knows exactly what they are. It’s not a miles long journey. It doesn’t involve training or practice or willpower. It will just be natural. It’s just going to happen. 

And with that Buffy, I am finally, truly, actually gone. Until lightning strikes.