The Opposite of Love is Indifference

The age of indifference has nothing to do with numbers. It has to do with mindset and what we grow accustomed to, what we allow, what we accept and what we have given up on. I have found this does not conform to an actual timeline or years lived in the world. This has more to do with not caring and not even caring that you're flitting through life unconcerned.

People are people no matter what age they are.

I have been given advice to go for older men. "They are the ones who will take care of you. Who will get you. Who will want to settle down and actually have real relationships."

I have been told by an older man, "We're too old to get emotional about things. We don't need all that seriousness."

My response was, "I'm too young to resign myself to live my life without any emotions involved." Yet, I do not have any belief that my thought or feeling has anything to do with age. Nor do I think his thoughts on the matter have to do with how old he is either. It has to do with life experience and what we get from it.

We all have cracks in us, wounds that haven't completely healed or have left scars, tragedies that linger somewhere in the recesses of our minds. We all have been hurt and disappointed at one time or another. Everyone comes from a place of experience if they have bothered living at all. Our indifference is a choice. It is not about being so jaded by the world we don't want to even feel it anymore. It is about allowing our tragedies to steal our joys. This is what creates the numbness, the indifference to continuing to experience our lives as deeply as we can.

There is still joy-no matter what the past or present or future has in store for us. We have choices still to love or to ignore it. We don't have to settle for what we think is all we can have. I have told myself that lie before thinking that maybe this is all there is. And it is a lie to believe that. It is a joy stealing lie.

I am capable of great love. I have loved with the deepest passion. Why would I allow myself to be robbed of the opportunity of having someone give me back as much as I will freely and joyfully give by accepting that I am getting to old to have "emotions" about my love life?

I have dated younger men whom also hold the same belief, "Let's not get emotions involved." And to each man of any age who is this indifferent, I bid adieu-with joy. Each has spared me an emotionless relationship and I appreciate that.

I am not completely ruled by emotions or my feelings. I have a thinking and reasoning brain. I can love and still end a relationship knowing that it doesn't work simply because I love. I just don't regret the loving part. It is who I am. It is who I always was and most likely who I will always be. I have every faith that there is someone else in this world who feels-allows themselves to feel-the same way. I just have to wait for everything to line up and meet him.

Monika M. Basile