Molly Never Combs Her Hair: November 2007

Love is a state of being, and I defy people who reduce it to a feeling, a mere wisp of emotion. There is a strong, real difference between just feeling love and being actively involved in the process, even though it took me a long time to recognize it. I suppose I've had a bad experience with love. (Hasn't everyone?) I've mistaken it for many things – for infatuation, for companionship, for obsession with an ideal. And I've mocked it, belittled it for being mundane, and for being weak.

Strongly independent women don't do love. It's beneath them, it destroys their character – I had made up all these strange rules for myself. One set to govern my pussy, and another entirely different set to govern my heart. It made sense for a long time to keep them strictly apart. I secretly despised those who could only have sex with people who meant something to them. They were fragile little porcelain flowers who bore the burden of being unenlightened, the ones who cloistered themselves and held out their quivering, virginal quims for a statistical improbability.

I, on the other hand, was invincible. But hard in places I couldn't see. I struggled a long time with what seems in retrospect now to be my destiny.

I was torn in several different directions. I loved a man, but I loved my freedom more. I loved a man, but I did not love the situation we were in. I loved a man but in a self-protected, self-obsessed way, the only way I knew how, I loved him only if he loved me more. It was difficult for me to reconcile these conflicts and the more I tried to resolve them, the more I made a hash of things. At times broody and sensitive, at other times spiteful and hurtful, I was self-sabotaging my chances for happiness because I was too scared of being disappointed.

For some reason, I thought that an emotional bogeyman dogged my steps, and that his chief aim was to gobble up my joy and turn it to despair.

It was only at the beginning of this year that I learned to stop worrying, and to just follow my heart.

And despite evidence to the contrary, I have one. You can imagine this comes as a surprise to me as much as it does to you. I'm not a romantic, and I've known firsthand enough dysfunctional, destructive relationships to ever be one. So I'm not about to say that being in love has made my life better – I enjoyed a fantastic singleserves lifestyle with no regrets – but it has changed me.

It has helped me live deeper and richer. I experience life with an under-current of passion, generosity and groundedness that I never had before. And in this way, I think I need to fall in love. Or have a meteorite strike my building. Either way, I needed that epiphany; that it is possible for someone to be in love with me, kinks and all. And that I have the spiritual capacity to reciprocate in kind, when I honestly thought I had forgotten how. I remain remarkably stoic about my prospects though. I don't put much stock in the happy ending. Love ebbs and flows. In fact, it seems the more desperately one tries to hold onto it, the faster it pours away. And deep down, I know that this little mad ecstasy of my heart, as with all things, too shall pass.

Remember, your kink is what makes you special. Explore it, nurture it and don't be afraid to share it with somebody one day. I did, and still do. If anything, it makes for very interesting dinner conversations.