..Because i cannot love doesn’t make me cold hearted

Let me tell you something that many people are scared of saying…Something people are silently struggling with..

Been in my line of work for over a decade, I have seen and heard things that has humbled me, it has allowed me connect deeply with the complexity of the human nature and also in its beauty.

This is a story of people who cannot love, Yes! You read right, people who cannot love. Please do not be fast to draw conclusion until you read this. There are people out there who struggle to love. If you search in their heart they desire to love, they want to give love so much so that they do everything they can but still fail at loving. It may sound strange but it is real. The word “Love” is just a word not one they understand or can connect too.

When you say to them love is a feeling they would say they have never experienced that feeling, When you say love is an action, they might connect it with other things independent of love in itself, to them love is a one sided coin, its a one street city. Love could be just responsibility towards another; a duty/task, Or Love is purely physical, some of them might argue that Love is being everything to someone (hmmm such a lofty definition)

Because of what they know or do not know about love, Love is still a stranger to them because again they never experienced it as a child and yet still as an adult; it was not a familiar vocabulary in the home they grew up in or the environment they were raised. So they struggle to give and also receive love. Some will even go to the extent of avoiding the word “love” it gives them an uncomfortable feeling. They simply cannot connect to the concept of love and just so they are not stigmatise for this struggle they hide behind many things. They easily and causally throw the word “Love” about they would also do anything and everything to prove to the people around them that they are in love but their heart is far from it.

“No one can give what they do not have”

However, in their silent moment they feel frustrated and overwhelmed, they ask themselves the wrong questions: am I not responsible enough ie “doing my duty?” but I engage physically, I do everything! How can love be so difficult? Some of these people are not cold or hateful people they are simply people who are struggling and in truth do not understand and cannot connect to that word “Love”.

Stop and look around you, you will be surprised at the number of people struggling with this, Its funny that you on the recieving end would often feel a bit confused, you know this person is genuinely a good person but down in your gut you know there is a disconnect you doubt and question the love they profer..

We have them around us, many are in the struggle to be a loving husband, a loving wife, a loving friend, a loving colleague, a loving parents. Do we fault someone for what they do not know or understand? Is it not like been angry with a blind person because they cannot see?

I have more to say about people silently struggling with the concept of “LOVE”, but let me stop here and ask a question, How do we help such people? Can love be taught? If yes, how can we teach love? what do we do when we identify such a person?