I think,

I think I will leave you the day you think me a fool.

Or when I catch myself thinking that you are one.

It's not really about love or lust or affection or loneliness.

(Perhaps a little bit about loneliness, but that's understandable, isn't it?)

It's about knowing that you don't feel the contempt for me that you feel for everyone else. That Idon't feel the urge to roll my eyes every time you speak. Not because we are better than anyone else, of course. It's about having that little bit of compassion, giving that little bit of space before pouncing on each other, that love so beautifully affords, something we do not have for everyone else.

It's actually about having someone to look at and think, yes, I am that bad, but so are you, so that makes it alright. It's pathetic, but we knew that all along, it's just reassuring to see it in someone else.

But mostly, it's about growing. Using each other to get out of that terrible circle of looking for external reinforcement and reaffirmation, because such things are sought only when we continue to suffer from the useless, debilitating disease of inferiority, forgetting that comparing oneself to another is the most useless, baseless deed, a deed the merits of which we have been fed relentlessly since the day we were born.

It's about having that space for ourselves where we do not need to prove to each other how pure and well intentioned we are, scrambling to cover our hypocrisies from each other, trying to be better, not better than what we are, but better than each other.

It's about knowing that while the whole world might think ill of me, you don't. I should not need even that, I should be capable of standing up to my own actions and values without at all looking for reinforcement, but I think knowing that I am incapable of doing that as of now is a big step in itself. And knowing that I can tentatively hope for a future where you will be there, giving me that modicum of space wherein I can sort myself out, wherein I can look inside myself and try and dredge out something honest, is comforting.

If we ever get into that race, that race of holding scores and waiting for the other to make a wrong move, I think we are better off without each other. Now, I don't believe we will ever get there, because we are good at looking at ourselves and being forgiving, at being alone and knowing the value of finding someone like each other.

I think love, for whatever it's worth, takes a lot of courage.