in the end

sometimes while i ride the subway i try to look at each person and imagine what they look like to someone who is totally in love with them. i think everyone has had someone look at them that way, whether it was a lover, or a parent, or a friend, whether they know it or not. it’s a wonderful thing, to look at someone to whom i would never be attracted and think about what looking at them feels like to someone who is devouring every part of their image, who has invisible strings that are connected to this person tied to every part of their body. i think this fun pastime is a way of cultivating compassion. it feels good to think about people that way, and to use that part of my mind that i think is traditionally reserved for a tiny portion of people i’ll meet in my life to appreciate the general public.
- dean spade.

well today i tried this at work. i looked at my co-workers (strangers, essentially), customers, male and female, young and old, and i imagined how i would perceive them should we be in love.

but first i had to recall what it felt like to be in love, the tenderness and the hope that you see in your partner's face. i took all of that and projected it upon these people.

i tried (tried, because i wasn't actually in love with them) to find something to love in their faces, in the way that you would somehow find a peculiarity in your lover's face lovable.

i looked and i stared and i imagined... and it felt weird as fuck. i guess the one thing it taught me is that love will find a way to make itself work out. no matter how weird you are, someone out there will still love you, somehow.