I see it now, all too clearly. The fortress I built around myself was never for protection—it was a prison, a way of keeping the world, and more painfully, her, out. I thought I was being careful, thought I was avoiding inevitable heartbreak, but in reality, I was just avoiding something much more terrifying: the possibility of being truly seen, truly known.
Her love wasn’t the trap I believed it to be; it was the only thing that could’ve set me free. I could’ve let her in, let myself feel what it meant to be loved without conditions. But instead, I ran away from her, away from the love I wasn’t brave enough to accept. It’s maddening to realize now, but I thought her love was a test I couldn’t pass. What I didn’t see was that it was the answer I had been looking for all along.
I convinced myself she deserved more than I could give her, but that was just fear talking. Fear of being too much, fear of not being enough, fear of seeing the truth of my own brokenness reflected in the way she loved me. The cruel irony is that I kept pushing her away, all the while losing the one person who would have loved me in spite of it all.
Now, all I’m left with is the weight of regret, heavy, quiet, suffocating. It wasn’t the loss that hurt the most, it was the time I wasted, the moments we could’ve shared, and the love that went unspoken. But I can't change what I did, can't undo the distance I put between us. All I can do now is face the truth: the greatest tragedy isn’t that I lost her. it’s that I never allowed myself to find out what could’ve been if I had dared to meet her love with the courage it deserved.
I was a fool, and now, I live with the echo of a love that was real, but one I was too afraid to embrace. Fear is the thing that steals everything from us, and it’s the hardest lesson to learn, love isn’t something we have to protect ourselves from. It’s something we should allow to heal, not run from. But now, it’s too late.
Tamara, this piece goes directly to my mind. You speak a language many of us, readers, understand beyond your words. Thank you.
Wow! Your response isn’t just a comment — it’s a confession, a reckoning, a mirror held up to the very heart of what “Untried Love” wrestles with. And in that, you’ve done something extraordinary: you’ve turned the story back on itself, proving that its tragedy isn’t just fiction — it’s lived, felt, and known in ways that stretch far beyond the page.
You saw the prison for what it was. Not protection, but isolation. Not strength, but fear in disguise. And that realisation — painful as it is — carries a strange kind of liberation. Because seeing the bars means knowing they were never truly locked.
Regret is a brutal teacher, isn’t it? It doesn’t scream, it lingers. It plays the what ifs on repeat, but never grants a do-over. And yet, in your words, I hear something deeper than just loss — I hear understanding, and with understanding, a kind of redemption. Because the cruelest regret isn’t in losing love, but in never realising its true nature until it’s gone. And here you are, seeing it now, with a clarity that so many never reach.
Thank you for this! For meeting the story where it LIVES — not just in the mind, but in the marrow. That’s the only kind of reading that ever really matters. Thank you again!
This one hits hard. Because isn’t that the cruelest thing about fear? It never roars—it whispers. It disguises itself as logic, as self-preservation, as taking things slow. It convinces us we have all the time in the world, right up until we don’t.
I’ve been both people in this story. The one waiting, hoping, leaving the light on—until one day, I didn’t. And I’ve been the one retreating, building distance, telling myself I was protecting them when really, I was protecting myself. It’s a bitter thing, realizing too late that the walls you built to keep yourself safe also kept you alone.
Love is terrifying because it hands us a mirror we can’t turn away from. But maybe the real tragedy isn’t being hurt—it’s never letting ourselves be seen at all.
Ohhh your comment cuts right to the bone because yes, fear is never the villain we expect. It doesn’t arrive with flashing lights and dire warnings. It’s subtle, insidious, persuasive. It tells us we’re being rational when we’re really just running scared. It tells us we’re making the smart choice, when in truth, we’re just making the safe one. And as you so perfectly put it, it lulls us into believing we have time — until time is the very thing we run out of.
Your experience — being on both sides of this story — is something so many of us carry without ever naming it. The one who waits, holding space, only to realise one day that hope has quietly slipped through the cracks. And the one who withdraws, mistaking solitude for security, not realising until it’s too late that self-preservation has turned into self-imposed exile.
You’re right — love is terrifying. It demands that we be seen, unfiltered, unarmoured. And maybe that’s why so many people retreat. It’s easier to be alone than to risk the possibility that, once fully seen, we might not be enough. But the real irony? The retreat doesn’t save us from pain — it just guarantees a different kind. Not the sharp sting of heartbreak, but the slow, aching erosion of what could have been.
This reminds me of something Rilke wrote: “For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.”
Maybe that’s it. Maybe love is the final frontier — the thing we spend our whole lives preparing for, yet never quite feel ready to meet. And fear? Fear is the quiet thief that tells us we should wait just a little longer. Until one day, the waiting becomes the loss itself.
Tamara this response isn’t just thoughtful—it’s a whole masterclass in seeing clearly what so many of us fumble through in the dark.
You’re right—fear doesn’t storm in with a battle cry. It’s a slow erosion, a voice so reasonable we don’t even question it until we’re standing in the aftermath, wondering how we let something slip away without ever truly fighting for it. And that distinction you make—the difference between heartbreak and the slow, aching erosion of what could have been—that hits like a truth I didn’t know I was waiting to hear.
That Rilke quote is perfect. Love as the final test, the thing we spend our whole lives preparing for, yet somehow never feel quite ready to meet. And fear as the thing that convinces us to wait just a little longer—until there’s nothing left to wait for. That thought alone makes me want to be braver.
So thank you. Not just for your words, but for the mirror you just held up to them. Some lessons need to be learned more than once, and this was one of them. Grateful.
I felt love this one time and I was terrified cos I was hiding a secret. There was a demon inside me and I wasn't 100% sure I could keep it caged and she had a young kid and it wasn't fair to expose them to my risk.
If he got out, all our lives went up in smoke. It had happened before. Understand this wasn't an excuse. I wanted them in my life so bad but if that dragon escaped and got it's teeth in me again it took all three of us straight to hell.
But I loved her so bad. Wanted her so bad. Needed her so bad. So I confessed one night. Told her straight - I'd been committed. Twice. Fully psychotic. Diagnosed bipolar. Type 1 - the really f'kin scary one! Told I needed to take lithium for the rest of my life. Told them to shove it. Crawled out of my own hell and here I was, five years later, still hanging on by my fingernails.
And she paused and looked at me kinda funny for a moment and she made up her mind right there and then and she told me she didn't care, she loved me and we'd face the demon together if it ever came back and I knew in that moment that she didn't understand. I hadn't explained it well enough, she was blinded by love to the risk she'd just exposed herself to by inviting the beast over the threshold and I couldn't bring myself do the decent thing and walk away.
And now it's twenty five years later and I curse myself every day for doing that to her, for sticking around when I knew that leaving was the right thing to do but I was too weak, too drawn to her light to flee back into the darkness where I belonged.
So I curse myself but I'm thankful. Thankful for her light, to keep me focused. Thankful for my strength, to hang on, for her. Thankful and guilty that she said "I do", that day when I asked that question I had no business asking. Thankful I said the same when she asked me. When I dedicated my life to repaying the love I had no business taking from her.
Our happy ever after still feels like it was built on false pretenses and I've told her as much, as many times but you know what? I'm past caring, her gamble paid off, even if she never really knew the stakes she was playing. Mine paid off two, even if I knew it was based on a bluff. All I can do is spend the rest of my life making it up to her, so that's what I do.
This is one of those stories that doesn’t just sit on the surface — it gets under the skin. I have goosebumps. It’s raw, tangled, paradoxical in the way that only real love can be. Because here you are, decades later, still holding the weight of a choice you thought you had no right to make. But love — real, unwavering, sees-through-the-darkness love — isn’t a transaction. It’s not something you “deserve” or “don’t deserve.” It’s not a bet placed on even odds. It’s the kind of force that makes fools of logic, that risks itself on faith alone. And the woman you love? She knew the stakes. Maybe not the full shape of the ‘monster’, but enough to know she was willing to face it for you, with you.
And yet, I get why you still struggle with it. Survivor’s guilt of a different kind — the guilt of being loved when you didn’t think you were safe to love back. But the fact that you stayed, that you chose her every day since, that you spent your life making it up to her — that’s not a bluff. That’s the realest thing there is. Maybe you think you tricked her, but I suspect she knew more than you ever gave her credit for. And if she’s still here, still choosing this life, then maybe it’s time to stop seeing it as a debt and start seeing it for what it is: the rarest kind of love, the kind that looked the demon in the eye and said, I’m not afraid.
So curse yourself if you must. But also — be thankful. Not just for her, but for the strength it takes to keep choosing love, even when you think you’re unworthy of it. Because in the end, that’s what love really is: not a gamble, not a con, but the only thing that ever makes life worth the risk.
Yeah I'm the cat that got the cream. At the time I was on top of the mental thing but only just, The psychic scars were still raw. I know now I had it worked out enough but I'd thought that before and been proven wrong so there was that - once bitten twice shy - element of doubt in my mind.
You're right tho - love ain't a transaction, it's the same force that makes the galaxy orbit the black hole. We were caught in each other's gravity well and I was half crazy, I can't really blame myself for falling in. Torturing myself with the what-if's keeps me honest tho 😁
And what a gravity well that must have been — two forces pulling each other into an orbit neither could resist. You call yourself “the cat that got the cream”, but I’d argue you were also the cat that walked the razor’s edge between self-preservation and surrender, between the instinct to run and the impossible pull of love’s event horizon.
When you had doubt, that was the voice of experience, the whisper of old wounds reminding you how easily the ground can give way. But love — real, unrelenting love — doesn’t wait for certainty. It arrives in the midst of the chaos, when we are raw, unsteady, almost but not quite sure we can handle it. And still, she chose you. Still, you chose her. That’s not just love, that’s gravitational inevitability. And I love this story!
And maybe torturing yourself with “what-ifs” keeps you honest. But I’d argue that “what-is” is the real proof of your integrity. A man who’s spent a lifetime showing up, refusing to let the past define the present, doing the work, staying when it would have been easier to flee — that’s not a trick of fate. That’s CHOICE. Again and again, that’s choice. And that’s what love is, in the end — not just the force that pulls us in, but the one that makes us stay.
Heartbreaking and beautifully written. I have always been on the love-without-limits side and I always found it very hard to understand why some people confine themselves in self-imposed prisons believing they are protecting themselves, but actually missing out on the rich emotional spectrum life offers us to experience. I think this article connects very well with your previous article, "The Invisible Wounds of Emotional Neglect", showing how this isolating behaviour hurts both sides in very different ways.
I wish to those who fear love the courage to open their hearts, dare to love and see where it leads!
And for those who love deeply yet do not receive love in return, I hope they hold onto the intensity of their feelings and move on quickly. Love is not just an experience but a way of life..
I love that you made this connection — because yes, “Untried Love” and “The Invisible Wounds of Emotional Neglect” are deeply intertwined. Emotional neglect isn’t just about what was denied to us in childhood, it’s about the way that absence shapes how we engage with love as adults. Those who have learned that vulnerability leads to disappointment often become the ones who build those self-imposed prisons, mistaking solitude for safety. And yet, as you so rightly point out, the tragedy isn’t just theirs — it ripples outward, hurting both the lover and the beloved in profoundly different ways.
Your perspective is beautifully generous, and I share your wish: that those who fear love may find the courage to step into it, and that those who give love without return may learn to walk away without losing faith in their own depth. Because love, as you said so perfectly, is not just something we experience — it’s something we ARE. It’s a way of moving through the world, of refusing to shut down, of keeping the heart open even when it would be easier to close it. And in the end, that’s the only way love ever truly wins. Nothing will ever change my opinion about this.
After I reflected, it left me wondering what the story was from his side. I sense that very different realities exist in these stories. And all love stories have two parts.
What might look like true love offered unconditionally to one party might be perceived as obsessive and unhealthy infatuation by another.
In which case withdrawal would be an understandable reaction, pulling the emergency cord before the inevitable derailing.
The end result might be two very different stories, both told from very different perceptions of the same reality.
Maybe the tragedy is that both stories will keep repeating themselves until we realise that’s all they are in the end. And we let them go.
This is a sharp insight, and one that complicates the tragedy in a necessary way. Because yes, every love story is two stories — two perceptions, two truths, often irreconcilable. What one sees as unconditional love, another might experience as suffocating intensity. The same gestures that feel like devotion to one might feel like entrapment to another. You are right.
That’s the quiet chaos of human connection: we don’t just love as we are, we love as we perceive. And perception is slippery, shaped by past wounds, fears, and invisible scripts we don’t even realise we’re following. Maybe, for him, her love wasn’t an open door — it was a mirror he didn’t want to look into. Maybe it felt like a demand he could never meet, a burden rather than a gift. In that case, was his retreat cowardice, or self-preservation? And is the tragedy in his inability to receive love — or in her inability to recognise that what she was offering wasn’t what he needed?
And then there’s the final layer of your argument — the idea that these stories repeat themselves until we recognise them as stories. Until we step outside our own narrative, outside the script of unattainable love, fearful retreat, missed chances. Maybe the real tragedy isn’t in love lost, but in the patterns we can’t stop reliving. Maybe freedom comes not from forcing a different ending, but from realising we were never trapped in the story to begin with.
Your reflection forces an uncomfortable but essential question: was this ever a love story? Or was it always just two people misreading the same pages?……
And yet, while perception shapes reality, fear has a way of distorting it. What if his withdrawal wasn’t a rational escape from obsession, but a refusal to believe in love at all? What if he mistook genuine, steadfast affection for a threat simply because it demanded that he show up — without armour, without excuses? There’s a difference between recognising an unhealthy dynamic and sabotaging something real out of fear. The tragedy of “Untried Love” isn’t just that two people saw the story differently — it’s that one of them never dared to see at all.
Having put this idea in the form of a story made the tragic element of it so evident, especially the tragedy of regret. You've illustrated a pure version of love, one that enables someone to be seen even in their depths of despair, granted they have the courage to look back... Simply beautiful! Had to read it multiple times.
Your words feel like an echo of the very tragedy my essay explores — how often we only see the full weight of something once it’s framed in hindsight. The tragedy of regret is precisely that: its clarity comes too late, when all that’s left is the haunting what if.
I love that you picked up on the idea of love as an unflinching mirror. It’s easy to romanticise love as grand gestures and poetic declarations, but its purest form is often terrifying — because it demands that we be fully seen, even in our darkest corners. And most of us, let’s be honest, would rather stay hidden than risk exposure.
Your comment made me reread my own words through your lens, and for that, I thank you, Sebastian! After all, what’s a story if not a bridge between minds?
Your words don’t just echo the heart of this — they elevate it into something even more profound. The abyss that gazes back, the calling of love, the choice to answer or retreat — this is the very tension that defines the human experience. Love is not a passive force. Love is an invitation. It extends a hand, but never forces. It offers transformation, but only if we step forward.
And that abyss? That’s the terrifying part, isn’t it? Because when love calls, it doesn’t just summon our best, it awakens everything buried. The fear, the wounds, the deeply ingrained belief that we are somehow unworthy. To meet love fully is to let it burn through all the false identities we’ve built for safety. And not everyone is ready for that. Some turn away, believing the abyss is safer than the unknown promise of love’s transformation.
Nietzsche said, “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” But what if love is the only abyss worth staring into? What if, instead of darkness, it reflects back the light we’ve always been too afraid to claim?
You understand this. Not just as a concept, but as something lived, something felt. And that makes this exchange more than just words — it makes it a meeting of minds on that bridge you so beautifully described. Thank you for stepping onto it with me.
Perfectly described, as always, and while I do not think love is the only abyss worth staring into, I do believe it is the deepest one and the most transformative. In every way possible, down to the cavernous depths!
A meeting of minds turned into a meeting of hearts once I took that step.
It feels not only like a mirror, but as an "abyss that gazes into you". If pain is undeniably real, then the utmost real aspect of life is the one that alleviates it — love. Love gazes profoundly into you and calls forth the love that resides inside you. But it is only that, a calling. You still have to answer and let its transformative power commence.
And I thank YOU for the opportunity to shine on that bridge with you, Tamara!
So, I can tell that in some parts I have recognized your touch. I liked a lot the phrase: “ Fear is the voice that tells us to run before we are left, to wound before we are wounded, to retreat before we are ever truly seen…” which means that I am led by fear. I am full of fears… and I am doing my best to get rid of some of them.
It’s not what I thought it was last night when I read only the title, but, this UNTRIED Love is really what it keeps us prisoner in our bubble…. As you said this false protection is slowing us down in the process of beautifully developing and evolving as individuals. As long as we run away of it, we run away from ourselves.
You’ve captured the heart of it perfectly, Iuliana — “untried” love isn’t just about what we lose in another person, but what we lose within ourselves. Fear convinces us that running away is self-preservation, when in reality, it’s self-abandonment. Every time we retreat from love, we’re not just avoiding another’s gaze — we’re refusing to meet our own reflection in its fullest form.
I admire your awareness, your willingness to see the fear rather than let it operate in the background, unchallenged. That alone is already part of the evolution you speak of. Because fear isn’t the enemy — it’s a habit, a deeply ingrained survival instinct. And like any habit, it can be unlearned.
You’re right — love isn’t just something external, it’s a force that propels us toward our own becoming. And when we resist it, we resist growth itself. So perhaps the question isn’t just whether we will dare to love, but whether we will dare to fully be. Think about it!
Sometimes, the most powerful stories aren’t the ones that introduce us to something new, but the ones that hold up a mirror to what we already know too well. If my essay had this effect on you, it’s because you’ve lived some version of it — you’ve stood on one side of that chasm, watching the distance grow, feeling the weight of what wasn’t said, what wasn’t done. Whether you were the one waiting or the one retreating, the ache remains the same.
And yet, if your story was its inverse, then maybe there’s another truth hidden in that reversal: that love, in all its forms, is a dance of fear and longing, presence and absence, courage and hesitation. The roles may change, but the lesson remains. We hurt, we learn, we carry these ghosts with us — but in the end, we still get to choose what we do NEXT.
So if this felt like a rehashing, let it also be a release. Not just of what was lost, but of whatever weight you no longer need to carry forward.
Thank you for sharing such a vulnerable and thought-provoking piece. It reminds us that even in the absence of action, there's a depth of emotion and a story waiting to be told.
Thank you for seeing that, because yes, even in silence, in hesitation, in what never happened, there’s a story unfolding. We tend to measure love in actions, in declarations, in the moments that did take place. But sometimes, the most haunting love stories are written in absence — in the words unsaid, the doors never opened, the steps never taken.
Emotion doesn’t disappear just because it’s unexpressed. If anything, it lingers longer, filling the empty spaces where something could have been. That’s the weight of “Untried Love” — not a love that failed, but a love that was never fully dared. And maybe that’s why it stays with us. Because unfinished stories never really end.
And yet, isn’t it extraordinary… how many of us carry the echo of an unoffered love, rehearsing what might have been in the quiet theatre of our minds? You name something essential, that fear, not fate, is often the true villain in our stories. Vulnerability is the only real currency of intimacy, and when we withhold it, we end up bankrupting the very connection we crave.
Thank you, Prajna, for seeing the words and, more than that, feeling their pulse. You’ve described the ache that binds more of us than we admit, the ache of nearly, of almost, of untried love left trembling at the threshold.
I think it's important to point out that these things are always a two-way street. There are a lot of people who build walls and run from intimacy, but it's uncommon for the other side to love freely as well. It's exceptionally rare for someone to actually be unguarded and giving first, with no strings attached. People who are guarded are often so because history has taught them in one way or the other that if you give too much, too fast, you will get hurt. Also, people who give too much can also be doing it in a manipulative fashion: "love bombing."
Part of loving someone has to involve meeting them where they are, not where they could/should be, where both people are doing their best in the moment with what they have. There will never be perfect symmetry and because people are very self-oriented, the view of who gives what can be distorted. Studies have shown that most people, when questioned, tend to overvalue their contribution to relationships and undervalue their partner's contributions.
Grace needs to be given on both sides. Progress, not perfection.
This is such a balanced, thoughtful take, and I agree with much of it — especially the idea that love is never about perfect symmetry, that perception is skewed, and that meeting people where they are is crucial. But I’d push back on one thing: the idea that truly unguarded, selfless love is exceptionally rare. Is it really? Or do we just fail to recognise it when it’s in front of us?!
We live in a world that conditions us to view vulnerability as weakness, that makes caution feel like common sense. So when someone does love openly — when they give without a hidden agenda, when they make themselves emotionally available — we often don’t trust it. We mistake generosity for naivety, patience for desperation, devotion for manipulation. Love bombing does exist, but not every act of pure-hearted affection is a trap. And sometimes, in our fear of being taken advantage of, we preemptively reject genuine love before it has a chance to prove itself.
I’d also argue that while yes, people tend to overvalue their own contributions in relationships, this logic often gets used to rationalise emotional unavailability. The person who withholds, who keeps a partner at arm’s length, can just as easily claim they’re “giving what they can” when, in reality, they’re choosing self-protection over connection. Does that mean we should demand perfection from them? No. But does it mean we should excuse their retreat as simply where they are? Not necessarily. There’s a difference between meeting someone where they are and lowering our expectations to accommodate their fear.
You’re right — grace is needed on both sides. Love is a process, not a performance. But grace shouldn’t mean endlessly waiting for someone who refuses to step forward. At some point, love asks for courage. And if one person refuses to meet it, the tragedy isn’t just the loss of love — it’s the loss of what could have been if only they had dared….
Sad, Tamara. Though the first words I read by you gave me a totally new insight: "Love is a reunion of sorts." You claimed that love isn't dependent on a single human being's individual qualities ౼ but double, dialectic, as it were. And thus a preset dimension of life possible to shape by two persons, in common; not a Sisyphean task.
You’ve brought it full circle — to the idea that love isn’t about the impossible weight of one person proving themselves worthy, but about two stepping into something larger than themselves. A reunion, not a solitary pursuit. Love as dialectic, not an individual test. That distinction changes everything.
So much of our modern mythology around love still traps us in the Sisyphean struggle — the idea that love is about being enough, about perfecting ourselves before we dare to receive it. But that’s the illusion, isn’t it? Love was never meant to be a solitary climb. It’s not a TASK, it’s a meeting. A space where two people shape something together, neither one carrying the full burden alone.
And yet, fear convinces us otherwise. It isolates, it whispers, it tells us that love is something to be won, rather than entered. That’s why so many never step forward at all. They see the boulder, not the reunion.
Your insight is sharp, essential. Love isn’t meant to be a solitary feat of endurance — it’s a space, a dimension, a possibility. And the tragedy of “Untried Love” is that he never allowed himself to step into it. Instead, he saw love as an impossible task, when all it ever asked of him was courage.
I'm reminded of the Paul Simon lyrics from his youth. Amazing he wrote these words when he was 20ish:
" I have my books and my poetry to protect me.
I am shielded in my armour.
Hiding in my room,
Safe within my tomb,
I touch no one,
And no one touches me
I am a rock.
I am an island."
Is it possible that this life of solitude in a mancave is devoted to Source? Devoted to finding the motherlode of Love. Love, the creative energy of the entire Universe and beyond?
Ah, “I Am a Rock”. A song that distills the lonely defiance of the self-exiled heart — where solitude isn’t just a preference, but a fortress, an identity. And yet, for all its conviction, there’s an unspoken ache beneath those lyrics. Because what is a rock, really, but something shaped by time, by erosion, by the very elements it tries to resist?
Your question is fascinating — can isolation be a devotion to something greater? To Love itself, in its purest, most transcendent form? Maybe. The mystics withdrew to their caves, the poets to their garrets, the monks to their silent vows. They sought the divine, the source, the raw, undiluted essence of love beyond the personal, beyond the fleeting. And yet… even the most devoted seekers always return. Rilke, Rumi, even Simon himself — all their words, all their discoveries — were ultimately meant to be shared.
Because love, even when pursued in solitude, is not meant to remain there. The motherlode of Love, as you put it so beautifully, isn’t hoarded — it’s given, lived, risked. The greatest irony of the fortress is that the heart inside it still longs to be known. Even the rock, for all its strength, is softened by the tide.
So perhaps the question isn’t whether the mancave can be devoted to Love — but whether the one inside will ever be brave enough to step out and let that love touch him back. Reflect on that, Jeff!
I have. I confess I have retreated to solitude, but only because mixing the corruptible world's mostly solipsitic inclination with a notion, a hint, so pure from the ethers given so generously, would be a violation of that trust. The great irony is that talent is “willingness to share” and, you are correct, there is a great passion to share with others what this humble vessel has received. As an actor or singer, now as poet, indeed as a human on Terra Firma, connection is completion of this beautiful process.
الخوفُ هو الصوتُ الذي يُنادينا بالركضِ قبلَ أن نُترك، "
" والجرحِ قبلَ أن نُصابَ، والانسحابِ قبلَ أن نُرى حقًا
هذا النص يشبه الكتابة بآلة حادة على واجهة جدار كل حرف يحفر له ما يستحقه من الجهد واتخيل الكاتبة معلقة في اعلى الجدار تحفر وجعها بصر الحكيم وبراعة الفنان
الكاتب الذي يستدعي حواسك ويتهجى الوجع معك كرشفة شاهي هو الذي يصحبك في لحظة. يستقظ معك ويعلق في معطفك كرائحة عطرك المفضل.
What an extraordinary image… me, dangling from the top of a wall, carving each word like a wound made deliberate. That’s exactly how it felt. Not written so much as excavated. I like what you wrote about the writer who doesn’t just tell you pain but sips it with you, one slow breath at a time. That is the kind of writing I aspire to… less performance, more presence. Less spectacle, more scent left behind.
Thank you for meeting me in that moment with such sensory grace!
You just made me laugh and tear up in the same breath. If I ever manage to become even half the writer you saw in those words, it will be because of readers like you, who recognise. Thank you for this quiet blessing wrapped in humour! It means more than you know.
Reading your final sentence "with the echo of what might have been" was painful! You're totally right about love asking to be met - we only give what we get, and we get what we give. Why the hesitation? Hesitation is a self-sabotage, but we have a strange relationship with predictability and possibility. It's predictable that if we're left alone to self-preserve, we don't risk harm of any kind. But self-preservation risks alienation and loss, because self-preservation is an illusion - we, as living human beings, can never preserve who or what we are. We are constantly evolving with time and the environment like all living things. We are never truly frozen. We just aren't living to the fullest. Yes we can live - but living to the fullest is a life well-lived, explored and experienced. That's why possibility - the expansion of self - is always the better option. It's always better to make a risk for something which is possibility positive as opposed to something predictably stale and lifeless.
I see it now, all too clearly. The fortress I built around myself was never for protection—it was a prison, a way of keeping the world, and more painfully, her, out. I thought I was being careful, thought I was avoiding inevitable heartbreak, but in reality, I was just avoiding something much more terrifying: the possibility of being truly seen, truly known.
Her love wasn’t the trap I believed it to be; it was the only thing that could’ve set me free. I could’ve let her in, let myself feel what it meant to be loved without conditions. But instead, I ran away from her, away from the love I wasn’t brave enough to accept. It’s maddening to realize now, but I thought her love was a test I couldn’t pass. What I didn’t see was that it was the answer I had been looking for all along.
I convinced myself she deserved more than I could give her, but that was just fear talking. Fear of being too much, fear of not being enough, fear of seeing the truth of my own brokenness reflected in the way she loved me. The cruel irony is that I kept pushing her away, all the while losing the one person who would have loved me in spite of it all.
Now, all I’m left with is the weight of regret, heavy, quiet, suffocating. It wasn’t the loss that hurt the most, it was the time I wasted, the moments we could’ve shared, and the love that went unspoken. But I can't change what I did, can't undo the distance I put between us. All I can do now is face the truth: the greatest tragedy isn’t that I lost her. it’s that I never allowed myself to find out what could’ve been if I had dared to meet her love with the courage it deserved.
I was a fool, and now, I live with the echo of a love that was real, but one I was too afraid to embrace. Fear is the thing that steals everything from us, and it’s the hardest lesson to learn, love isn’t something we have to protect ourselves from. It’s something we should allow to heal, not run from. But now, it’s too late.
Tamara, this piece goes directly to my mind. You speak a language many of us, readers, understand beyond your words. Thank you.
Wow! Your response isn’t just a comment — it’s a confession, a reckoning, a mirror held up to the very heart of what “Untried Love” wrestles with. And in that, you’ve done something extraordinary: you’ve turned the story back on itself, proving that its tragedy isn’t just fiction — it’s lived, felt, and known in ways that stretch far beyond the page.
You saw the prison for what it was. Not protection, but isolation. Not strength, but fear in disguise. And that realisation — painful as it is — carries a strange kind of liberation. Because seeing the bars means knowing they were never truly locked.
Regret is a brutal teacher, isn’t it? It doesn’t scream, it lingers. It plays the what ifs on repeat, but never grants a do-over. And yet, in your words, I hear something deeper than just loss — I hear understanding, and with understanding, a kind of redemption. Because the cruelest regret isn’t in losing love, but in never realising its true nature until it’s gone. And here you are, seeing it now, with a clarity that so many never reach.
Thank you for this! For meeting the story where it LIVES — not just in the mind, but in the marrow. That’s the only kind of reading that ever really matters. Thank you again!
Tamara you are priceless.
Thanks Billy. I appreciate.
This one hits hard. Because isn’t that the cruelest thing about fear? It never roars—it whispers. It disguises itself as logic, as self-preservation, as taking things slow. It convinces us we have all the time in the world, right up until we don’t.
I’ve been both people in this story. The one waiting, hoping, leaving the light on—until one day, I didn’t. And I’ve been the one retreating, building distance, telling myself I was protecting them when really, I was protecting myself. It’s a bitter thing, realizing too late that the walls you built to keep yourself safe also kept you alone.
Love is terrifying because it hands us a mirror we can’t turn away from. But maybe the real tragedy isn’t being hurt—it’s never letting ourselves be seen at all.
How emotional I feel after reading this…
Thank you Tamara!
Ohhh your comment cuts right to the bone because yes, fear is never the villain we expect. It doesn’t arrive with flashing lights and dire warnings. It’s subtle, insidious, persuasive. It tells us we’re being rational when we’re really just running scared. It tells us we’re making the smart choice, when in truth, we’re just making the safe one. And as you so perfectly put it, it lulls us into believing we have time — until time is the very thing we run out of.
Your experience — being on both sides of this story — is something so many of us carry without ever naming it. The one who waits, holding space, only to realise one day that hope has quietly slipped through the cracks. And the one who withdraws, mistaking solitude for security, not realising until it’s too late that self-preservation has turned into self-imposed exile.
You’re right — love is terrifying. It demands that we be seen, unfiltered, unarmoured. And maybe that’s why so many people retreat. It’s easier to be alone than to risk the possibility that, once fully seen, we might not be enough. But the real irony? The retreat doesn’t save us from pain — it just guarantees a different kind. Not the sharp sting of heartbreak, but the slow, aching erosion of what could have been.
This reminds me of something Rilke wrote: “For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.”
Maybe that’s it. Maybe love is the final frontier — the thing we spend our whole lives preparing for, yet never quite feel ready to meet. And fear? Fear is the quiet thief that tells us we should wait just a little longer. Until one day, the waiting becomes the loss itself.
Thank you, Céline!
Tamara this response isn’t just thoughtful—it’s a whole masterclass in seeing clearly what so many of us fumble through in the dark.
You’re right—fear doesn’t storm in with a battle cry. It’s a slow erosion, a voice so reasonable we don’t even question it until we’re standing in the aftermath, wondering how we let something slip away without ever truly fighting for it. And that distinction you make—the difference between heartbreak and the slow, aching erosion of what could have been—that hits like a truth I didn’t know I was waiting to hear.
That Rilke quote is perfect. Love as the final test, the thing we spend our whole lives preparing for, yet somehow never feel quite ready to meet. And fear as the thing that convinces us to wait just a little longer—until there’s nothing left to wait for. That thought alone makes me want to be braver.
So thank you. Not just for your words, but for the mirror you just held up to them. Some lessons need to be learned more than once, and this was one of them. Grateful.
I felt love this one time and I was terrified cos I was hiding a secret. There was a demon inside me and I wasn't 100% sure I could keep it caged and she had a young kid and it wasn't fair to expose them to my risk.
If he got out, all our lives went up in smoke. It had happened before. Understand this wasn't an excuse. I wanted them in my life so bad but if that dragon escaped and got it's teeth in me again it took all three of us straight to hell.
But I loved her so bad. Wanted her so bad. Needed her so bad. So I confessed one night. Told her straight - I'd been committed. Twice. Fully psychotic. Diagnosed bipolar. Type 1 - the really f'kin scary one! Told I needed to take lithium for the rest of my life. Told them to shove it. Crawled out of my own hell and here I was, five years later, still hanging on by my fingernails.
And she paused and looked at me kinda funny for a moment and she made up her mind right there and then and she told me she didn't care, she loved me and we'd face the demon together if it ever came back and I knew in that moment that she didn't understand. I hadn't explained it well enough, she was blinded by love to the risk she'd just exposed herself to by inviting the beast over the threshold and I couldn't bring myself do the decent thing and walk away.
And now it's twenty five years later and I curse myself every day for doing that to her, for sticking around when I knew that leaving was the right thing to do but I was too weak, too drawn to her light to flee back into the darkness where I belonged.
So I curse myself but I'm thankful. Thankful for her light, to keep me focused. Thankful for my strength, to hang on, for her. Thankful and guilty that she said "I do", that day when I asked that question I had no business asking. Thankful I said the same when she asked me. When I dedicated my life to repaying the love I had no business taking from her.
Our happy ever after still feels like it was built on false pretenses and I've told her as much, as many times but you know what? I'm past caring, her gamble paid off, even if she never really knew the stakes she was playing. Mine paid off two, even if I knew it was based on a bluff. All I can do is spend the rest of my life making it up to her, so that's what I do.
This is one of those stories that doesn’t just sit on the surface — it gets under the skin. I have goosebumps. It’s raw, tangled, paradoxical in the way that only real love can be. Because here you are, decades later, still holding the weight of a choice you thought you had no right to make. But love — real, unwavering, sees-through-the-darkness love — isn’t a transaction. It’s not something you “deserve” or “don’t deserve.” It’s not a bet placed on even odds. It’s the kind of force that makes fools of logic, that risks itself on faith alone. And the woman you love? She knew the stakes. Maybe not the full shape of the ‘monster’, but enough to know she was willing to face it for you, with you.
And yet, I get why you still struggle with it. Survivor’s guilt of a different kind — the guilt of being loved when you didn’t think you were safe to love back. But the fact that you stayed, that you chose her every day since, that you spent your life making it up to her — that’s not a bluff. That’s the realest thing there is. Maybe you think you tricked her, but I suspect she knew more than you ever gave her credit for. And if she’s still here, still choosing this life, then maybe it’s time to stop seeing it as a debt and start seeing it for what it is: the rarest kind of love, the kind that looked the demon in the eye and said, I’m not afraid.
So curse yourself if you must. But also — be thankful. Not just for her, but for the strength it takes to keep choosing love, even when you think you’re unworthy of it. Because in the end, that’s what love really is: not a gamble, not a con, but the only thing that ever makes life worth the risk.
Thank you so much for writing this story, Ross!
Yeah I'm the cat that got the cream. At the time I was on top of the mental thing but only just, The psychic scars were still raw. I know now I had it worked out enough but I'd thought that before and been proven wrong so there was that - once bitten twice shy - element of doubt in my mind.
You're right tho - love ain't a transaction, it's the same force that makes the galaxy orbit the black hole. We were caught in each other's gravity well and I was half crazy, I can't really blame myself for falling in. Torturing myself with the what-if's keeps me honest tho 😁
And what a gravity well that must have been — two forces pulling each other into an orbit neither could resist. You call yourself “the cat that got the cream”, but I’d argue you were also the cat that walked the razor’s edge between self-preservation and surrender, between the instinct to run and the impossible pull of love’s event horizon.
When you had doubt, that was the voice of experience, the whisper of old wounds reminding you how easily the ground can give way. But love — real, unrelenting love — doesn’t wait for certainty. It arrives in the midst of the chaos, when we are raw, unsteady, almost but not quite sure we can handle it. And still, she chose you. Still, you chose her. That’s not just love, that’s gravitational inevitability. And I love this story!
And maybe torturing yourself with “what-ifs” keeps you honest. But I’d argue that “what-is” is the real proof of your integrity. A man who’s spent a lifetime showing up, refusing to let the past define the present, doing the work, staying when it would have been easier to flee — that’s not a trick of fate. That’s CHOICE. Again and again, that’s choice. And that’s what love is, in the end — not just the force that pulls us in, but the one that makes us stay.
Heartbreaking and beautifully written. I have always been on the love-without-limits side and I always found it very hard to understand why some people confine themselves in self-imposed prisons believing they are protecting themselves, but actually missing out on the rich emotional spectrum life offers us to experience. I think this article connects very well with your previous article, "The Invisible Wounds of Emotional Neglect", showing how this isolating behaviour hurts both sides in very different ways.
I wish to those who fear love the courage to open their hearts, dare to love and see where it leads!
And for those who love deeply yet do not receive love in return, I hope they hold onto the intensity of their feelings and move on quickly. Love is not just an experience but a way of life..
I love that you made this connection — because yes, “Untried Love” and “The Invisible Wounds of Emotional Neglect” are deeply intertwined. Emotional neglect isn’t just about what was denied to us in childhood, it’s about the way that absence shapes how we engage with love as adults. Those who have learned that vulnerability leads to disappointment often become the ones who build those self-imposed prisons, mistaking solitude for safety. And yet, as you so rightly point out, the tragedy isn’t just theirs — it ripples outward, hurting both the lover and the beloved in profoundly different ways.
Your perspective is beautifully generous, and I share your wish: that those who fear love may find the courage to step into it, and that those who give love without return may learn to walk away without losing faith in their own depth. Because love, as you said so perfectly, is not just something we experience — it’s something we ARE. It’s a way of moving through the world, of refusing to shut down, of keeping the heart open even when it would be easier to close it. And in the end, that’s the only way love ever truly wins. Nothing will ever change my opinion about this.
Another beautifully written essay, thanks Tamara.
After I reflected, it left me wondering what the story was from his side. I sense that very different realities exist in these stories. And all love stories have two parts.
What might look like true love offered unconditionally to one party might be perceived as obsessive and unhealthy infatuation by another.
In which case withdrawal would be an understandable reaction, pulling the emergency cord before the inevitable derailing.
The end result might be two very different stories, both told from very different perceptions of the same reality.
Maybe the tragedy is that both stories will keep repeating themselves until we realise that’s all they are in the end. And we let them go.
This is a sharp insight, and one that complicates the tragedy in a necessary way. Because yes, every love story is two stories — two perceptions, two truths, often irreconcilable. What one sees as unconditional love, another might experience as suffocating intensity. The same gestures that feel like devotion to one might feel like entrapment to another. You are right.
That’s the quiet chaos of human connection: we don’t just love as we are, we love as we perceive. And perception is slippery, shaped by past wounds, fears, and invisible scripts we don’t even realise we’re following. Maybe, for him, her love wasn’t an open door — it was a mirror he didn’t want to look into. Maybe it felt like a demand he could never meet, a burden rather than a gift. In that case, was his retreat cowardice, or self-preservation? And is the tragedy in his inability to receive love — or in her inability to recognise that what she was offering wasn’t what he needed?
And then there’s the final layer of your argument — the idea that these stories repeat themselves until we recognise them as stories. Until we step outside our own narrative, outside the script of unattainable love, fearful retreat, missed chances. Maybe the real tragedy isn’t in love lost, but in the patterns we can’t stop reliving. Maybe freedom comes not from forcing a different ending, but from realising we were never trapped in the story to begin with.
Your reflection forces an uncomfortable but essential question: was this ever a love story? Or was it always just two people misreading the same pages?……
And yet, while perception shapes reality, fear has a way of distorting it. What if his withdrawal wasn’t a rational escape from obsession, but a refusal to believe in love at all? What if he mistook genuine, steadfast affection for a threat simply because it demanded that he show up — without armour, without excuses? There’s a difference between recognising an unhealthy dynamic and sabotaging something real out of fear. The tragedy of “Untried Love” isn’t just that two people saw the story differently — it’s that one of them never dared to see at all.
Having put this idea in the form of a story made the tragic element of it so evident, especially the tragedy of regret. You've illustrated a pure version of love, one that enables someone to be seen even in their depths of despair, granted they have the courage to look back... Simply beautiful! Had to read it multiple times.
Your words feel like an echo of the very tragedy my essay explores — how often we only see the full weight of something once it’s framed in hindsight. The tragedy of regret is precisely that: its clarity comes too late, when all that’s left is the haunting what if.
I love that you picked up on the idea of love as an unflinching mirror. It’s easy to romanticise love as grand gestures and poetic declarations, but its purest form is often terrifying — because it demands that we be fully seen, even in our darkest corners. And most of us, let’s be honest, would rather stay hidden than risk exposure.
Your comment made me reread my own words through your lens, and for that, I thank you, Sebastian! After all, what’s a story if not a bridge between minds?
Your words don’t just echo the heart of this — they elevate it into something even more profound. The abyss that gazes back, the calling of love, the choice to answer or retreat — this is the very tension that defines the human experience. Love is not a passive force. Love is an invitation. It extends a hand, but never forces. It offers transformation, but only if we step forward.
And that abyss? That’s the terrifying part, isn’t it? Because when love calls, it doesn’t just summon our best, it awakens everything buried. The fear, the wounds, the deeply ingrained belief that we are somehow unworthy. To meet love fully is to let it burn through all the false identities we’ve built for safety. And not everyone is ready for that. Some turn away, believing the abyss is safer than the unknown promise of love’s transformation.
Nietzsche said, “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” But what if love is the only abyss worth staring into? What if, instead of darkness, it reflects back the light we’ve always been too afraid to claim?
You understand this. Not just as a concept, but as something lived, something felt. And that makes this exchange more than just words — it makes it a meeting of minds on that bridge you so beautifully described. Thank you for stepping onto it with me.
Perfectly described, as always, and while I do not think love is the only abyss worth staring into, I do believe it is the deepest one and the most transformative. In every way possible, down to the cavernous depths!
A meeting of minds turned into a meeting of hearts once I took that step.
It feels not only like a mirror, but as an "abyss that gazes into you". If pain is undeniably real, then the utmost real aspect of life is the one that alleviates it — love. Love gazes profoundly into you and calls forth the love that resides inside you. But it is only that, a calling. You still have to answer and let its transformative power commence.
And I thank YOU for the opportunity to shine on that bridge with you, Tamara!
So, I can tell that in some parts I have recognized your touch. I liked a lot the phrase: “ Fear is the voice that tells us to run before we are left, to wound before we are wounded, to retreat before we are ever truly seen…” which means that I am led by fear. I am full of fears… and I am doing my best to get rid of some of them.
It’s not what I thought it was last night when I read only the title, but, this UNTRIED Love is really what it keeps us prisoner in our bubble…. As you said this false protection is slowing us down in the process of beautifully developing and evolving as individuals. As long as we run away of it, we run away from ourselves.
You’ve captured the heart of it perfectly, Iuliana — “untried” love isn’t just about what we lose in another person, but what we lose within ourselves. Fear convinces us that running away is self-preservation, when in reality, it’s self-abandonment. Every time we retreat from love, we’re not just avoiding another’s gaze — we’re refusing to meet our own reflection in its fullest form.
I admire your awareness, your willingness to see the fear rather than let it operate in the background, unchallenged. That alone is already part of the evolution you speak of. Because fear isn’t the enemy — it’s a habit, a deeply ingrained survival instinct. And like any habit, it can be unlearned.
You’re right — love isn’t just something external, it’s a force that propels us toward our own becoming. And when we resist it, we resist growth itself. So perhaps the question isn’t just whether we will dare to love, but whether we will dare to fully be. Think about it!
Yes, indeed! It’s about being fully us……
Thank you.
Gutted me, but thank you.
Succinctly rehashed my last love, albeit in inverse.
Sometimes, the most powerful stories aren’t the ones that introduce us to something new, but the ones that hold up a mirror to what we already know too well. If my essay had this effect on you, it’s because you’ve lived some version of it — you’ve stood on one side of that chasm, watching the distance grow, feeling the weight of what wasn’t said, what wasn’t done. Whether you were the one waiting or the one retreating, the ache remains the same.
And yet, if your story was its inverse, then maybe there’s another truth hidden in that reversal: that love, in all its forms, is a dance of fear and longing, presence and absence, courage and hesitation. The roles may change, but the lesson remains. We hurt, we learn, we carry these ghosts with us — but in the end, we still get to choose what we do NEXT.
So if this felt like a rehashing, let it also be a release. Not just of what was lost, but of whatever weight you no longer need to carry forward.
Thank you for this comment!
Gorgeous
Thank you for sharing such a vulnerable and thought-provoking piece. It reminds us that even in the absence of action, there's a depth of emotion and a story waiting to be told.
Thank you for seeing that, because yes, even in silence, in hesitation, in what never happened, there’s a story unfolding. We tend to measure love in actions, in declarations, in the moments that did take place. But sometimes, the most haunting love stories are written in absence — in the words unsaid, the doors never opened, the steps never taken.
Emotion doesn’t disappear just because it’s unexpressed. If anything, it lingers longer, filling the empty spaces where something could have been. That’s the weight of “Untried Love” — not a love that failed, but a love that was never fully dared. And maybe that’s why it stays with us. Because unfinished stories never really end.
Love does not
Wait for us to ready
Fear is the silent assassination of vulnerability
The only thing that invites true connection
The deepest yearning of the heart
So absolutely beautiful what you write
I can’t believe I found you - your exquisite words.
Aww what might have been to receive love
The all too common human experience
thank you so much
And yet, isn’t it extraordinary… how many of us carry the echo of an unoffered love, rehearsing what might have been in the quiet theatre of our minds? You name something essential, that fear, not fate, is often the true villain in our stories. Vulnerability is the only real currency of intimacy, and when we withhold it, we end up bankrupting the very connection we crave.
Thank you, Prajna, for seeing the words and, more than that, feeling their pulse. You’ve described the ache that binds more of us than we admit, the ache of nearly, of almost, of untried love left trembling at the threshold.
This is a hard-hitting piece.
I think it's important to point out that these things are always a two-way street. There are a lot of people who build walls and run from intimacy, but it's uncommon for the other side to love freely as well. It's exceptionally rare for someone to actually be unguarded and giving first, with no strings attached. People who are guarded are often so because history has taught them in one way or the other that if you give too much, too fast, you will get hurt. Also, people who give too much can also be doing it in a manipulative fashion: "love bombing."
Part of loving someone has to involve meeting them where they are, not where they could/should be, where both people are doing their best in the moment with what they have. There will never be perfect symmetry and because people are very self-oriented, the view of who gives what can be distorted. Studies have shown that most people, when questioned, tend to overvalue their contribution to relationships and undervalue their partner's contributions.
Grace needs to be given on both sides. Progress, not perfection.
This is such a balanced, thoughtful take, and I agree with much of it — especially the idea that love is never about perfect symmetry, that perception is skewed, and that meeting people where they are is crucial. But I’d push back on one thing: the idea that truly unguarded, selfless love is exceptionally rare. Is it really? Or do we just fail to recognise it when it’s in front of us?!
We live in a world that conditions us to view vulnerability as weakness, that makes caution feel like common sense. So when someone does love openly — when they give without a hidden agenda, when they make themselves emotionally available — we often don’t trust it. We mistake generosity for naivety, patience for desperation, devotion for manipulation. Love bombing does exist, but not every act of pure-hearted affection is a trap. And sometimes, in our fear of being taken advantage of, we preemptively reject genuine love before it has a chance to prove itself.
I’d also argue that while yes, people tend to overvalue their own contributions in relationships, this logic often gets used to rationalise emotional unavailability. The person who withholds, who keeps a partner at arm’s length, can just as easily claim they’re “giving what they can” when, in reality, they’re choosing self-protection over connection. Does that mean we should demand perfection from them? No. But does it mean we should excuse their retreat as simply where they are? Not necessarily. There’s a difference between meeting someone where they are and lowering our expectations to accommodate their fear.
You’re right — grace is needed on both sides. Love is a process, not a performance. But grace shouldn’t mean endlessly waiting for someone who refuses to step forward. At some point, love asks for courage. And if one person refuses to meet it, the tragedy isn’t just the loss of love — it’s the loss of what could have been if only they had dared….
Sad, Tamara. Though the first words I read by you gave me a totally new insight: "Love is a reunion of sorts." You claimed that love isn't dependent on a single human being's individual qualities ౼ but double, dialectic, as it were. And thus a preset dimension of life possible to shape by two persons, in common; not a Sisyphean task.
You’ve brought it full circle — to the idea that love isn’t about the impossible weight of one person proving themselves worthy, but about two stepping into something larger than themselves. A reunion, not a solitary pursuit. Love as dialectic, not an individual test. That distinction changes everything.
So much of our modern mythology around love still traps us in the Sisyphean struggle — the idea that love is about being enough, about perfecting ourselves before we dare to receive it. But that’s the illusion, isn’t it? Love was never meant to be a solitary climb. It’s not a TASK, it’s a meeting. A space where two people shape something together, neither one carrying the full burden alone.
And yet, fear convinces us otherwise. It isolates, it whispers, it tells us that love is something to be won, rather than entered. That’s why so many never step forward at all. They see the boulder, not the reunion.
Your insight is sharp, essential. Love isn’t meant to be a solitary feat of endurance — it’s a space, a dimension, a possibility. And the tragedy of “Untried Love” is that he never allowed himself to step into it. Instead, he saw love as an impossible task, when all it ever asked of him was courage.
I'm reminded of the Paul Simon lyrics from his youth. Amazing he wrote these words when he was 20ish:
" I have my books and my poetry to protect me.
I am shielded in my armour.
Hiding in my room,
Safe within my tomb,
I touch no one,
And no one touches me
I am a rock.
I am an island."
Is it possible that this life of solitude in a mancave is devoted to Source? Devoted to finding the motherlode of Love. Love, the creative energy of the entire Universe and beyond?
Ah, “I Am a Rock”. A song that distills the lonely defiance of the self-exiled heart — where solitude isn’t just a preference, but a fortress, an identity. And yet, for all its conviction, there’s an unspoken ache beneath those lyrics. Because what is a rock, really, but something shaped by time, by erosion, by the very elements it tries to resist?
Your question is fascinating — can isolation be a devotion to something greater? To Love itself, in its purest, most transcendent form? Maybe. The mystics withdrew to their caves, the poets to their garrets, the monks to their silent vows. They sought the divine, the source, the raw, undiluted essence of love beyond the personal, beyond the fleeting. And yet… even the most devoted seekers always return. Rilke, Rumi, even Simon himself — all their words, all their discoveries — were ultimately meant to be shared.
Because love, even when pursued in solitude, is not meant to remain there. The motherlode of Love, as you put it so beautifully, isn’t hoarded — it’s given, lived, risked. The greatest irony of the fortress is that the heart inside it still longs to be known. Even the rock, for all its strength, is softened by the tide.
So perhaps the question isn’t whether the mancave can be devoted to Love — but whether the one inside will ever be brave enough to step out and let that love touch him back. Reflect on that, Jeff!
I have. I confess I have retreated to solitude, but only because mixing the corruptible world's mostly solipsitic inclination with a notion, a hint, so pure from the ethers given so generously, would be a violation of that trust. The great irony is that talent is “willingness to share” and, you are correct, there is a great passion to share with others what this humble vessel has received. As an actor or singer, now as poet, indeed as a human on Terra Firma, connection is completion of this beautiful process.
الخوفُ هو الصوتُ الذي يُنادينا بالركضِ قبلَ أن نُترك، "
" والجرحِ قبلَ أن نُصابَ، والانسحابِ قبلَ أن نُرى حقًا
هذا النص يشبه الكتابة بآلة حادة على واجهة جدار كل حرف يحفر له ما يستحقه من الجهد واتخيل الكاتبة معلقة في اعلى الجدار تحفر وجعها بصر الحكيم وبراعة الفنان
الكاتب الذي يستدعي حواسك ويتهجى الوجع معك كرشفة شاهي هو الذي يصحبك في لحظة. يستقظ معك ويعلق في معطفك كرائحة عطرك المفضل.
What an extraordinary image… me, dangling from the top of a wall, carving each word like a wound made deliberate. That’s exactly how it felt. Not written so much as excavated. I like what you wrote about the writer who doesn’t just tell you pain but sips it with you, one slow breath at a time. That is the kind of writing I aspire to… less performance, more presence. Less spectacle, more scent left behind.
Thank you for meeting me in that moment with such sensory grace!
الكاتب الذي وصفته هو انتي يا بنتي ههه
You just made me laugh and tear up in the same breath. If I ever manage to become even half the writer you saw in those words, it will be because of readers like you, who recognise. Thank you for this quiet blessing wrapped in humour! It means more than you know.
😍 amazingly poinient and deep..
Reading your final sentence "with the echo of what might have been" was painful! You're totally right about love asking to be met - we only give what we get, and we get what we give. Why the hesitation? Hesitation is a self-sabotage, but we have a strange relationship with predictability and possibility. It's predictable that if we're left alone to self-preserve, we don't risk harm of any kind. But self-preservation risks alienation and loss, because self-preservation is an illusion - we, as living human beings, can never preserve who or what we are. We are constantly evolving with time and the environment like all living things. We are never truly frozen. We just aren't living to the fullest. Yes we can live - but living to the fullest is a life well-lived, explored and experienced. That's why possibility - the expansion of self - is always the better option. It's always better to make a risk for something which is possibility positive as opposed to something predictably stale and lifeless.