About Love I. Love is everywhere. Just look around. So many people you see everyday. All of them with their own stories, their needs, desires and disappointments. One of them is Martha, first in succession.

 

"In the end I love my cousins most, because they need me"

 

 

Martha is 34 years and a virgin. Once been kissed. What does she knows about love? Everything, if you talk about desires. And the boundary of what  you can bear: "I've never outspoken my feelings for him to him. I've never told him, because I am scared he would make fun of me."

 

By Dominique Verschuren

 

Martha: "I don't think I'm abnormal, even though the Western culture is focused on sex. It just happened like that. Not because of religious persuasion or a principle, as if I wait till I'll be married. No, to me it's not loaden. Of course I don't know if I miss something. Sometimes I wonder why I haven't sex so far. Last Thursday with J. for instance was very romantic, we could really close the evening in a king size bed. But not with him, as long as he is together with his wife. I feel too good to be one of his flirts.

 

I was thirty when I kissed for the first time. I didn't had the extraordinary need to feel how it is to be kissed, or how it is to feel a man inside me. If you don't know it you can't miss it. Most of my friends are single, so it's no issue. Flair Magazine is every week full of articles about sex. To me is the same as the weekly receipts in Flair while I'm not such a kitchen princess. Of course sex interests me more than cooking, but you read once and then scroll again."

 

The courage of your convictions

 

"J. came into my life during drama class. The first thing I was thinking about him was: what a autistic guy they brought in! That was J. In such a group your talk about the lyrics, you get to know each other better. J. sat there with a long face, but slowly he melt. He began to take the lead. On one side he is on his stripes, he speaks of what he stands for. On the other hand he did not dare to go. He lacks the courage of his convictions.

 

J. told me once I was dangerous for him. I played his fiancé. He hold me the whole evening and kissed me, as a part of the role. It was different with me than with other actresses. Others also noticed. He told me: 'You're dangerous for me.' I was flattered. Honesty I couldn't sleep anymore. I was in seventh heaven.

 

Three years ago we kissed. I had a hard time at my work. On an evening, while I tried to postpone next day as long as possible, we sat for hours at a table holding each other's hands. Even when his best friends came in we kept sitting like that. When I went home we kissed. I still regret it was only once.

 

Long time I didn't know that J. had a girlfriend, F. He hadn't told me about her. I discovered her by coincidence, when we were rehearsing at his home. F. was blunt and unfriendly to us. I think she was jealous. She didn't like our group. She never come to a performance. I don't know if she knows that we have performances. In meanwhile they have been married.

 

I've never outspoken my feelings for him to him. He must know from a friend of mine. I've never told him, because I am scared he would make fun of me. Maybe he wouldn't do that, but I'm scared for it. I don't want to.

 

Maybe you think he plays with my feelings, but I don't feel it that way. At the end those are my feelings. I just love him endure. I enjoy him. Last Thursday: poem night. We wander to the place where the poems were read. J. is also there. He's standing with his friends and suddenly he comes at me. Very excited: 'How nice to have you here!' We watched a beautiful sunset for twenty minutes. Arm in arm. At that moment I thought: why don't I continue? Of course because he's married. Because despite everything, he is still in F."

 

Unconditional love

 

"I don't think J. is my great love. Cause I think I otherwise wouldn't let me stop by F. I've seen that with my sister. She was so in love with her ex-husband that she left her life in small Turnhout to Antwerp, left her friends, family... She chose for two hundred percent for her ex-husband. If I say or do the right things, then it could become something between J. en me, put him under pressure, ultimatums... But that's not what I want, I don't want him to choose for me like that. It has to go spontaneously, it has to come from his side. My sister was blind for all rational possibilities, she just didn't saw them. I think you're going through that if you found your great love. I take that daughter, that divorce is also no problem, just as the difference of age. The great love, you go blind for. I never encountered him.

 

I also never tried datingsites. I cherish the romantic idea that it has to come from itself. My ideal is: you go to a supermarket, you accidentally leave your basket fall, the apples roll on the ground, someone help pick up the apples and you look into each other's eyes and that's it. I don't believe it really, but secretly I hope. All that stuff of dating sites, it seems too forced to me. I don't go on a dating site between all those desperate people. I prefer to stay lonely alone than in a relationship, I think. Loneliness may overtake me. Then I feel a half hour very sorry for myself. Then I play some good music or someone calls me, or I've planned something nice in my agenda. Then it's over.

 

Eventually I expect somebody with whom I can be myself completely. I have to offer something: content, warmth, attention... But only if I can be myself. I love to have children, but I don't dare to have them alone. A colleague of mine is 23 and she's pregnant. I'm more than ten years older, that's painful. Children are a purpose in itself. I don't need only a man for those kids to make, but I also need a man to raise those kids. Someone who says now and then: 'Now it's your time to relax, I take care for them.' Someone to share you decisions, to compensate my over anxiety.

 

The thought that I don't encounter my great love scares me. Then I see myself completely sad in a senior home. Answering the question if I'm happy in love is difficult for me. I'm beloved by many people, but I would like to be special for the one. I've been looking for that person who, just like my family, unconditionally loves me. Perhaps that's partly an illusion. I don't hope that I have to change a lot to meet someone who loves me. I am who I am. In the end, when I think about it, I love my cousins most. Because they need me. That says a lot, doesn't? "