Head vs Heart

My love life has been characterised by a distinct inability to listen to what my head’s telling me. I’m a follow your heart kind of girl, the last of the romantics and no matter how hard I try and listen to the little voice in my head, it gets drowned out by the twanging of my heartstrings.

Take for instance my very first relationship at the tender age of 16. I had a fairly unpleasant boyfriend who manipulated me in the only way a 17 year old with low self esteem could. He told me that I was ugly and that everyone in his year was laughing at him for going out with me and no one could understand what he saw in me, along with other similar pleasantries. My head suspected that something wasn’t quite right and told me to "Get out immediately" but my tender little heart, experiencing love for the first time and witnessing my parent’s marriage break down, told me that this was my one and only chance and I needed to stick in there.

You think I would have realised at that point in time that my heart doesn’t know anything.

But I continued to be led around by it and a merry dance indeed it has led me. From relationship to relationship – throwing itself in headfirst while the little voice has stood in the background shaking its head slowly and going “What are you doing you moron, listen to me!”

The little voice told me that Dave* wasn’t quite right for me. He was just a little bit too quiet and serious and all in favour of the easy life. I was dramatic and, quite frankly, a little bit crazy but my heart told me that I must have got it right this time, I was, after all, the incredibly knowledgable age of 21 when I knew everything there was to know. But I ignored the voice, even when Dave told me that he wasn’t looking to settle down any time soon and wanted to go off travelling and explore the world, and I hung on, until my heart realised that it wasn’t getting what it was needing back and led me to someone else.

The heart continued to pound, no matter how many knocks it got, and it never beat faster than the time when I was going out with The One. Perfectly matched, I’d already known him for years, and everything was going swimmingly until the heart decided that I should absolutely definitely tell him that I thought he was The One. The little voice said “Nooooooooooooo what are you doing?!” but the heart was confident this wouldn’t backfire.

Except it kind of did backfire. The trouble was that although The One was, you know, The One. He wasn’t The One At That Moment. He was in a strange old place, not behaving at all like the person I fell in love in with. And the little voice told me that I should leave but the heart refused to let him go. It knew, it absolutely knew that this was the one. And it held on and it held on because it knew that it was strong enough to fix everything that was wrong with him and that if it just stayed in there, he would realise that it knew best.

Until one day it could take no more and it had to go. It was stretched to breaking point and ready to crack in two and it realised that it wasn’t enough. Sometimes love isn’t enough. And for probably the only time in my life, the little voice and the heart said as one, “Time to let go”.

But the heart never really let go. It understood that it wasn’t enough at the moment but that it might be in the future and it still remained certain that it belonged to The One and no one else.

But over time this got lost and occasionally the heart would flare up and say “Hey, wait I love The One, not this other person” and the little voice would say “Oh no you don’t. Don’t start with this again, that’s only going to lead you down a rocky road. Please listen to me, you have to bury that love deep inside and don’t even think about it”

And the heart said a very sheepish “Ok” and seeing as it had been so wrong about so many other relationships it guessed the little voice was probably right.

But soon it was back to its old tricks...

I ignored the little voice when it told me that Steve* wasn’t right for me. Why in my right mind would a slovenly glutton like me be a perfect match for the ultimate gym machine? And when the little voice told me that something wasn’t quite right about this ‘friend’ of his I knew I should have listened to it. But the heart believed the lies and believed he loved it back right up until out of the blue he decided he didn’t love it anymore.

And then a few weeks later I met The Boyfriend.

And the heart said “YES! Finally a nice boy who would never ever hurt me and will look after me and make sure I don’t get broken.”

But the voice?

It said “It’s too soon. You have to wait and give the heart time to mend, it’s not quite itself, it’s still in extreme need of repair”

And the heart replied “NONSENSE. I. Am. Fine. Too soon, too schmoon. Shut up little voice.”

And then 22 months later, the heart had some kind of volcanic explosion and remembered that it loved The One and that things were different now, he was out of the strange old place and back to the person it had fallen for in the first place.

Except I’m older now (did I tell you it was just my birthday? Yes?) and I can’t let the heart have its own way again. It’s been wrong so many times. It’s the Weakest Link. It’s Britain’s Biggest Loser. If we were picking teams for netball, my heart would be the one wearing a patch over one eye who couldn't catch if its life depended on it.

So I turn to the little voice for some help and for the first time ever it’s decided to shut its trap. Or it’s talking so quietly that I can’t hear it. Or I don’t really like what it’s saying so I’m not really listening to it.

So until I can decipher what the little voice is saying I’m in the worst position imaginable – this close to everything I dreamed of and this close away from smashing it all to pieces in favour of, once again, going with the heart.

Although sometimes I don’t even think the heart knows what it wants. And sometimes I think it's a sneaky little devil and pretends to be the little voice to try and trick me.

Any of my other organs fancy helping me out here? Liver? Got anything to say? Pancreas? Fancy pitching in? Kidneys? Fancy a break from all the filtering?

(It’s always better to make a little joke than face reality I find)

*The names have been changed. Just because....you never know. Also I like the DRAMA of changing people's names.