Return of the Emotional Ninja!

So now I've been having this very exciting and fast burning relationship with a girl I met at the start of the month. Absolutely the perfect thing for me at this point in my life. I wasn't expecting it, I wasn't looking for it, but sometimes these things just land in your lap. So many things in common - uncannily so, and some of the most fantastic sex of my life.
Well its poetic really, because its had a time limit from the word go - she's not from England and she's returning home permanently next week. This meant that from the first meeting the agenda was clear - we would have as much fun as we could for 3 weeks and then that would be that - she would return to her life and I would get on with mine, both of us hopefully enriched and invigorated by the whole experience. I think that's pretty much whats happened as it goes - I feel good about myself, I've made a new close friend - because I'm under no illusion that our sexual relationship has any real future, but she's someone I would easily maintain a close friendship with regardless of that because she's such a cool person.

Learned something new about myself last week too. I was a silly bastard and told her that I love her. I realize now though that its not silly bastard behavior if its coming from the right place. I'm not for a minute trying to make her change her plan and stay, I just wanted to express what was in my heart and confirm for her - in case she was in any doubt - that yes, this had been a significant and very positive experience in my life, and that I appreciate all that she is.

It also brings me back to the old debate - that I'm sure will continue for my whole life - of what does love mean? what is it?
Surely there are many kinds of love; (ok I'll do ANOTHER checklist!!)

1) There's the love that rages between passionate lovers, a visceral, tangible physical sensation in the body, which yearns and aches for the other. This feeling is probably better described as infatuation.
2) Then there's the slow burning, ever deepening respect that two people who've managed to go on loving each other their whole lives have for each other. This is not much different to the feeling that long time close friends have for each other.
3) There's also that kind of love when you feel someone completes you and makes you feel safe - this one I have an issue with because I feel its more akin to need than love. Its amazing how much you feel close to someone who fulfills your emotional neediness, but often this dynamic can be quite separate from love, and one should take care to differentiate.
4) I think that ultimately you can only truly love someone properly if you can honestly say that you don't need them. If you don't need them - their support, their money, their companionship - you just enjoy being with them because you love them, this is honest love. And its quite simple - not a torrid conflagration of romantic overtures, not a co-dependency or a web of emotional hooks, just mutual respect, and a shared joy in togetherness.

So what was it I meant when I said it to her ( or texted - more accurately! Sorry, childish I know - I did say I was a silly bastard!!) -- well really only that I could feel the potential for the latter. It was rather vague actually - more that I know I was feeling something strong and it was more than just a friendly 'I like you' but far too soon to identify in more precise detail. Its fair to say that if it wasn't basically over before it started I would have taken everything much more slowly - a relationship which lights up and burns as fast as this one is destined to fizzle out as quick as it began, which in this case was as I said before - the plan!

So I'm getting in and out of what feels like a relationship in record time - like some kind of emotional ninja! I honestly think though that I haven't acted foolishly expressing myself like that. I've got myself in a world of pain in the past because I contained my feelings and shared them with no-one. I know now that for my own happiness and everyone else's I have to just be totally straight with people about what I'm thinking and feeling.
Also before you express your feelings they feel bottled up - like a boiling kettle wanting to whistle. If I'd been sensible and said nothing I would have said goodbye to her and then felt really sad, because I'd not expressed myself and the moment would then have passed. This way even if its the worst possible thing I could have done and she never wants to speak to me again because its too complicated now, I'm back in my neutral space - I can happily say that it started, went on, and ended in a way I'm happy and proud about. No deception, no hard feelings, lots of respect, love and great sex! Lesson well learned I feel.