How do you guard your heart?

I don’t trust easily anymore. I also avoid relationships that start getting too serious. I hate when someone gets a really strong hold on me. I have a bitter, black heart, that’s hard as a rock and ice cold when it comes to relationships. Fuck em. I don’t need anything else tying me down.

I’m not sure I want to be on that extreme end of the spectrum either.

@FluffyChicken a string of mean guys will do that to a girl.

@redfeather Harsh terms :( I think you don’t trust because someone did hurt you? If so, fuck em’.
Nevertheless, @FluffyChicken If you feel there’s a chance it might work on the long term then why don’t you have a talk with him or so? To your question – Stop yourself from falling inlove? Pfft, ain’t no way on earth anyone can.

Love is full of craggy cliffs. Just do whatever your heart tells you to do. :)

@redfeather I’m sorry. That’s really a shame.

A Glock 17 does it for me.

@FluffyChicken It sounds like a perfect chance to sort the talkers from the walkers!

Start your trip. Whatever else happens, start your trip!!

Tell him you would like him to come along or, meet up with you somewhere on the way.

Regardless, you gotta go!

I think I’m going to ask him to come with me, but I doubt if he’ll say yes.

You guard it by not allowing anyone in. It works for me.

I think I’m going to ask him to come with me, but I doubt if he’ll say yes.

Ask him, If he does not come along, maybe he’ll catch up to you. Maybe years later.

I don’t think you do guard your heart. So many people try to, and I’m not sure it helps. But then, maybe I’m different.

For me, love is crucial. If I’m not in a relationship; if I’m not feeling love; it feels like I could die. I feel like nothing. So anything is worth falling in love, even if it ends. The pain of heartbreak is horrible. But the pain of everlasting loneliness is worse. So if I let myself fall in love, at least I have a chance. If I harden my heart to protect myself… I die. Metaphorically, if not literally.

On the metaphoric level, I die inside. I can no longer reach out to anyone. I can’t trust anyone. I can’t connect to anyone. I’m sorry, but that’s death as far as I’m concerned.

Maybe I need people more than most. Maybe I need love more than most. All I know is that it is the most important thing in my life and I will do anything for it. Once, I nearly died because of a lack of it. The lack may have been my own fault—in that it was there but I couldn’t feel it—but the idea of suicide became so powerful—more powerful than I’ve ever felt it. I don’t want to go there again, and I know love can keep that away.

Maybe others can be hurt and then stop letting themselves feel. Maybe it works. I can’t do it, though. And I feel very bad for people who have gotten to the point where they don’t believe in love; where they think all men or women are liars who are out to run some kind of confidence game on you.

Relationships are really hard. People have enormous communication problems. We don’t make our expectations clear, and so when a person behaves differently, we are often crushed and think it means they don’t like us. From there, it gets worse and worse.

@FluffyChicken If you are going to do this, you both need to be open and honest about what you want and what your fears are. What do each of you want to do? How important might it be to be together?

I’ve followed women long distances just to be with them, even though I had no job where we were going. I made it happen. Love was worth it. Even when it was falling apart. Other people have their own goals and purposes, but for me there has only really been one thing, and everything else I do is in support of that: love. Loving with every ounce of energy in my being. Being loved. Feeling connected. Whole. A part of the vast network of human souls.

So I don’t guard my heart. I leave it open to what might be there.

@wundayatta I totally feel you! I want so badly to have someone in my life! I suppose I’m working on learning to love myself right now… but damn I sure would like it from another person, specifically the young man in question.

Beneath a thick layer of alcohol, chemicals, and sarcasm all masked as a pseudo-caring brand of cynicism.

fuck all of you

You don’t guard if this person is the right person for you. But for now, I would go on the trip. Keep in contact occasionally and if he is still waiting around for you than maybe it is meant to be. If not than you had some distance between you two and you will probably have moved on yourself.

I feel life is too short to not allow yourself to experience the thrill of being with someone despite known obstacles. I dated a gal in Germany for 2 weeks on a student exchange and we both knew that that day would come when I had to leave! I was a magical time for me I look back on fondly!

Act like a dick, no one wants to be emotionally close to someone who laughs at misery and doesn’t give two shits about the death of someone.

That’s not helping myself, that’s just hurting those around me, which in turn hurts me. Dummy! (ow!)

@FluffyChicken I do it so they don’t get hurt in the long run, I have a sort of split personality thing going on which has time and time again proven to only hurt those close to me in a devastating manner. I’m toxic, and right now, this is the best thing I can do for those I care about.

Wow.. I’m not toxic as far as I know. I’ve just got a lot going on right now

@chyna That answer broke my heart.

These things become a self-fulfilling prophesy. You guard your heart and then you wonder why no one loves you. You expect people to treat you badly and so they do, and then you wonder why they do.

I don’t know why, but I have always expected the best of people. I have wondered if they are lying to me or misleading me in some way, but underneath that I think that people are trustworthy and they mean well. I have not done badly with this premise.

In fact, when I do worst, is when I am expecting bad things to happen. But even then, I trust people. Then they come to like me and I sabotage the relationship because I can’t stand for good things to happen. But that’s another story entirely.

@wundayatta This is excellent advise. This is how I try to live my life.