Since my accidental fall, I have often asked myself what triggers falling in love, and what indeed if anything makes you fall out of it.

Since last week I have managed to identify a few mood-killers when it comes to loving feelings. I did this revisiting my handful of failed relationships, and the only one I still treasure in memory. Each person will have a different set of emotion killers but for me the biggest interference comes from duty and guilt. Other big factors are the behavior of my love interest. My New York relationship was killed instantly by his excessive control and a pathological mistrust, that cast doubt on my integrity and principles. In my marriage, on the other hand, the loving feelings bled out slowly by insidious emotional abuse. My ex was a master at making me feel unworthy and inadequate. He even made me believe at some point that I was the dead-weight preventing him from reaching the heights of his destiny. It took me almost a decade to get a backbone and meet my destiny instead of languishing at his side. He turned out to be the dead-weight I was carrying.

Duty and guilt featured strongly in my two earlier relationship. My first innocent love was crushed against my duty towards my faith (as idiotic as this may sound to my current middle aged agnostic persona). I still cherish the memories of that first love, because my offense against my faith or my creator remained a victimless crime, and there is really nothing wrong in loving an atheist, I have almost become one myself.

In contrast, I have blocked all memories of my first boyfriend. We lived our love in secret away from the harsh judgment of society. Hiding away at my side was his last attempt at avoiding an inevitable marriage to his fiance of many years. Duty caught up with him in the end, and guilt drove me away. I felt guilty over my lies, that I wronged the other woman, disgraced my family, and went against my tradition by loving someone from outside my “tribe”.

I remember when I recounted the stories of my disappointing love-life, one of my girlfriends pointed out to me the prominence of guilt in my life. For all the guilt I needlessly carry, she said, I should have been a catholic. And indeed, some people can sin guilt-free while I invariably end up with sin-free guilt. And this is where I have ended up with my current strange relationship. Last week I decided to put the crazy twin of my Gemini personality in her box. My relationship with Aquarius II should never have left the friend-zone, and if I felt stale, guilty and cheap from a throwaway comment he made, then I know that I would completely hate myself if the relationship ever went to the next level.  I now know that it is not going to happen, ever, not in 2019, and not on my next decade birthday. It is simply not going to happen this lifetime.

Words that were said last week did not change the way I feel. I still carry the same desperate and hopeless emotion in my heart. And I also know that there was no ill-intent behind them at all. They served as triggers that flummoxed my crazy half and woke up the reasonable one. After some thought, the latter strongly expressed itself, and decided that it was unfair to continue stoking the emotional fires, and indulging an impossible hope. I know that part of me will remain crazy about this man for a long time, but our close friendship has become very important to me, and I would rather keep it for the long-term than trade it for a temporary tryst that will make me lose him forever.

So for now, we will continue drinking coffee, but the invisible shadow of his partner and my son will sit next to me at the table. The content of the conversation has to remain appropriate for our invisible audience. This is the only way I can shake off my guilt. In time, I will be ready to introduce real audience to the table and bring this strange connection back to the friend zone. Will this make fall out of love with Aquarius II? I have to wait and see.