Of love and... Trust.

What happens when you go back to that kind of relationship teens have? You know, when you just want to be with that person all the time, despite knowing better; when you have that undeniable ache in your chest brought about by the possible redirection of your lover's gaze - also known as jealousy.

I am an adult and a psychologist, so one would expect I could handle these things quite well; after all, I have done it in the past!

It's funny going back to feeling that little ache in my chest. Mostly because today I know, rationally of course, the 'best' way to go about this situation... But I forgot that emotions care little about what my brain says!

In a book I read that one cannot learn to love; this is because we cannot think of every relationship as the following one, much less as a continuation of the previous one. In other words, whatever things you learned in one relationship will be of little use in the next one, mainly because it is not with the same person! So, every affair is like starting all over again. Doesn't that suck? I mean, you can definitely use some of the knowledge you acquired but very rarely will two people react in the exact same way.

Also, considering that the bear community in my country is terribly small - everybody knows everybody - and you cannot date anyone without everyone else noticing, you would think I would have learned that being with someone requires a lot of trust.

I used to think I had become quite sensible when it came to relationships... But the universe saw it fit to show me better.

Now, as I step into the uncertainty I realize that, indeed, experience and logic have absolutely nothing to do with love and relationships.

While there's no way to stop feeling jealousy or fear of losing the object of one's affection, I think that it is possible to enjoy even that. Of course, I don't mean being crazy "stalky" or violent, but rather I believe that a bit of jealousy is quite healthy and helps let the other person know that you really care about them. Moreover, the fear of being at risk means that you are investing something important in the relationship - you cannot lose anything unless you bet it first.

So, these feelings, normally associated with lack of self-confidence, can be put to good use if taken in a positive way, as part of the experience of taking the chance - the universe is reciprocal, if you want to win big, you have got to bet big.