You’re sitting on the train home on a Friday evening. The sun is just beginning to set and you stare out of the window with such blissful content, drinking in the landscape and admiring the sky’s palette of colours entwining as one. You turn reluctantly back to your newspaper, determined to educate yourself on the day’s events before it becomes history… but then someone of the opposite gender catches your eye. You don’t know it yet, but that’s the person you’re about to fall irrevocably in love with.
They’re unlike anyone you’ve ever laid your eyes on before and this strange feeling engulfs you as you smile at them nervously, a light blush sweeping your face. You make small talk and you can feel the chemistry between you both sizzling beyond control. You know only their name, but for now that’s enough because just being in their presence is satisfyingly ample. Your heart starts hammering and little beads of sweat dance across the palms of your hands as you notice your train stop is next. Already? It can't be. It slowly and painfully dawns on you that you have to unwillingly leave this beautiful creature behind.
Quick.
Think.
You exchange mobile numbers before it’s too late.
One date turns into two, and then three, and then four, five, six, seven, eight. You’re in love, you already know it. This is it for you now, you're in too deep. They're all you think about, your mind working like a broken record, singing their name over and over again. Their emotions are infectious and you feel as though you’re one whole person together. You fell in love with them because they taught you how to love yourself, even the parts you try to hide away. You chose them and you know that in any lifetime, in any opportunity and in a single heart beat, you would choose them over and over again. You fell in love with them for who they are as a person, not just their appearance (although, you know that there is no one else on the planet that looks just as good as them.) This is your soul mate, and it’s funny because if you told your old self that ‘soul mates’ actually existed, you would have laughed bitterly. But you have yours now. You’re the girl and the boy that everyone knows will last forever because you love each other and a life without them isn’t a life worth living.
You might be reading this with a hope that this will one day happen to you. You might be reading this with someone in mind. Now, I want you to imagine you that weren’t allowed to love this person. Imagine you were continuously told that your feelings were wrong and that they were a choice, and a bad one. Imagine people muttered disapprovingly under their breath every time you stole a kiss from your loved one at the bus stop, or strolled through the shopping mall with your hands linked. Imagine.
Most gay couples know this feeling all too well, either through first hand experience or relayed stories. When it comes to heterosexual couples, the odds of them experiencing this disapproval is almost little to none. I mean why would they, right? In a society so used to focusing on heteronormativity, it’s the type of business that no one looks twice at.
This leaves me to ponder a question I think about often: why is it any different? Why is Hannah loving Amy any different to Amy loving John? Why is Tyler kissing Michael any different to Michael kissing Ellie? To not allow this love is a breach of basic human rights and something that I don’t think I could ever fully comprehend. I personally believe that love is something this world doesn’t have enough of and whatever sexuality, gender or religion of an individual, we should be embracing all types of this emotion. Love and attraction are both such beautiful things and I don’t believe anyone in this world has a right to tell someone else that what they’re feeling is wrong. To discriminate, bully or oppress someone because of an emotion beyond their control… that’s what’s wrong. It’s something this world needs to obliterate fast so that future generations don’t have to feel so marginalised and punished for feeling something so natural. Love is Love.
They’re unlike anyone you’ve ever laid your eyes on before and this strange feeling engulfs you as you smile at them nervously, a light blush sweeping your face. You make small talk and you can feel the chemistry between you both sizzling beyond control. You know only their name, but for now that’s enough because just being in their presence is satisfyingly ample. Your heart starts hammering and little beads of sweat dance across the palms of your hands as you notice your train stop is next. Already? It can't be. It slowly and painfully dawns on you that you have to unwillingly leave this beautiful creature behind.
Quick.
Think.
You exchange mobile numbers before it’s too late.
One date turns into two, and then three, and then four, five, six, seven, eight. You’re in love, you already know it. This is it for you now, you're in too deep. They're all you think about, your mind working like a broken record, singing their name over and over again. Their emotions are infectious and you feel as though you’re one whole person together. You fell in love with them because they taught you how to love yourself, even the parts you try to hide away. You chose them and you know that in any lifetime, in any opportunity and in a single heart beat, you would choose them over and over again. You fell in love with them for who they are as a person, not just their appearance (although, you know that there is no one else on the planet that looks just as good as them.) This is your soul mate, and it’s funny because if you told your old self that ‘soul mates’ actually existed, you would have laughed bitterly. But you have yours now. You’re the girl and the boy that everyone knows will last forever because you love each other and a life without them isn’t a life worth living.
You might be reading this with a hope that this will one day happen to you. You might be reading this with someone in mind. Now, I want you to imagine you that weren’t allowed to love this person. Imagine you were continuously told that your feelings were wrong and that they were a choice, and a bad one. Imagine people muttered disapprovingly under their breath every time you stole a kiss from your loved one at the bus stop, or strolled through the shopping mall with your hands linked. Imagine.
Most gay couples know this feeling all too well, either through first hand experience or relayed stories. When it comes to heterosexual couples, the odds of them experiencing this disapproval is almost little to none. I mean why would they, right? In a society so used to focusing on heteronormativity, it’s the type of business that no one looks twice at.
This leaves me to ponder a question I think about often: why is it any different? Why is Hannah loving Amy any different to Amy loving John? Why is Tyler kissing Michael any different to Michael kissing Ellie? To not allow this love is a breach of basic human rights and something that I don’t think I could ever fully comprehend. I personally believe that love is something this world doesn’t have enough of and whatever sexuality, gender or religion of an individual, we should be embracing all types of this emotion. Love and attraction are both such beautiful things and I don’t believe anyone in this world has a right to tell someone else that what they’re feeling is wrong. To discriminate, bully or oppress someone because of an emotion beyond their control… that’s what’s wrong. It’s something this world needs to obliterate fast so that future generations don’t have to feel so marginalised and punished for feeling something so natural. Love is Love.
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