Is my overactive imagination ruining my life?
I fell in love in a dream last night
I fell in love in a dream last night. We drank half pints of Guinness in mid-winter sun and shared a friendship group. He held the small of my back protectively as we swept through crowds in central London, touched the tips of my fingers with his own across fresh bedsheets on slow Sunday mornings. We are walking toward each other wearing sheepish grins in a nondescript location that vaguely resembled the Sportspark carpark at my uni (?) when I wake up in a cold sweat; images of kind eyes flashing underneath my own and soft whispers ringing in my ears. A slow sinking in my stomach as I reach for my phone only to find that it ran out of charge at some point in the night. It doesn’t matter - there won’t be a message from a man who doesn’t exist anyway. I grab my watch: 6am. The earliest I have woken up naturally, maybe ever. With moments from the dream already forming counterfeit memories in my mind I put in my contacts and head downstairs to make myself a coffee.
I have always had an overactive imagination. One that translates into both my waking hours and my resting ones, too. I can travel both to places I’ve never been and places that don’t exist from the comfort of a café, my bedroom, a bus home from town. Storylines and life-stories have been created for strangers I’ve locked eyes with for nanoseconds across desolate parks and pubs. I’ve caught winks from unknown eyes and extended glances across escalators and imagined a future with them had I turned around and followed them instead of continuing my journey home. I’ve stared at handsome hands holding pints on first dates and fantasised about whether they would fit around mine for a few months or so, to help bare the cold of the coming months.
I’ve cried attending funerals that haven’t happened yet. I’ve envisioned the moments after the birth of my first child and seen myself weep in the arms of a featureless man who for all I know might not actually exist. I’ve imagined worst case scenarios and to a much lesser degree best ones too, in vast technicolour and painstaking detail. I’ve tried to mentally prepare myself for situations that most likely will not arise, burning images behind my eyes. It’s like a self-inflicted kind of torture that sometimes happens to me without me being fully aware of it, before it’s too late. It’s exhausting.
I have acted unfairly toward potential romantic interests because I have created versions of them that don’t really exist in my head. Taking their words given in passing and spinning them into entire personality traits before we’ve even made the upgrade from Hinge to WhatsApp. Falling in love with an idea of them before actually truly being able to know them, romanticising their flaws and feigned interest as them being unique and different, or even damaged. Spoiler alert: it really isn’t that complex. A lot of the time they are just boys who want a shag and lack depth, so I have no choice but to use my overactive imagination to fill in the gaps.
My ex once told me that I have unrealistic expectations of a partner because I read too many romance novels and watch too many rom coms.
“That’s not real life.” He said.
It was a grey afternoon in one of my old uni houses, I can’t remember which, but the heating was off and I was cold. I didn’t reach out to hold him. He had just hurt me in a way he couldn’t even comprehend.
“You read too many stories that just aren’t real. You think relationships can be like that but they’re not. It’s only for books and movies.”
I can’t remember the context of this conversation - I can’t remember what I had asked of him that was so unfathomable it was only fit for the fictional realm. (Probably for him to not like other girls bikini pictures because it made me feel like shit - sue me). But I remember those words so vividly and I remember the feeling as it fills me again as I am typing this. An anxious sick feeling in the bottom of my stomach. Because, what if he’s right? It’s looking as though he might be, because in the nine months that have passed since we broke up I have not met anyone even close to being up to the task. It’s all ‘ethical non-monogamy’ (what does that mean please???) and situationships. I find myself saying that I’m fine with ‘fun, casual dates’ and ‘intimacy, without commitment’ so as not too look too sincere, or too intense. Which is not only doing myself a disservice but the person on the other end of the phone too because I’m not being earnest from the get-go. But why does saying I’m looking for a ‘long-term relationship, open to short’ (again what does that mean please) feel so cringe?
Maybe my overactive imagination is ruining my life. Maybe my brain truly does span beyond what is reasonable and rational to dream of. Maybe I expect too much; from others and myself. Maybe I am well and truly delusional.
But, surely, if these grand ideas of love and romance that I allegedly spend too much time filling my head with can be thought up and begin to exist through pen and paper, through a camera and two actors, surely they can exist in real life. Yes sex sells, but romance is real, and I find it so patronising now looking back that he felt the need to say that to me. Because I’m not expecting a hallmark movie type of romance where I lock eyes with someone and am swept suddenly away into the sunset. But instead a real, raw, comfortable, trusting, understanding, curious, evolving love where I feel seen and heard and am able to attempt to understand and wholeheartedly listen to somebody else, too. I think I knew, just from that comment, that he wasn’t going to be that for me. But still, I held onto the idea of him for many months after because I was so desperate for him to live up to what he could be in my imagination; the person who existed in the conversations we had in my head before I fell asleep at night. Ultimately, he never became that.
But I suppose this is why I think of myself as a writer, or a storyteller, even when I haven’t yet completed any substantial works that are usually required to earn that title. Because the stories that have been brewing in my brain since I gained sentience and attempting to claw their way out are begging for somewhere to go. And I suppose, because this is the first time in years I have been consistently writing, I now realise that until recently I’ve been projecting those fantasies onto other people as that was my only outlet for them, and that’s not really any fun for either parties in the situation.
But, I’m not giving up hope, not just yet. I wont let myself lose my imagination or the dreams I have for my romantic life that may seem unobtainable to some. I will continue holding myself to that standard for just a little while longer, and see where that gets me. But I’m probably going to be single for a long while with this outlook, so at least it will make for some good content in the meantime.
Speak soon and don’t settle,
All my love, Char x
Honestly I think if more people admitted they were hopeless romantics the world would be a better place!! <3
another beautiful read miss charlotte!!!!