The Price of Vulnerability.

A recent interaction with Almost Love made me firm my decision on downloading a certain dating app. Since my colleagues and I have been single for so long, we thought it was the swiftest way to get to know strangers without having to divulge ourselves too much unlike the more conventional ways to meet guys through the means of connections. At first it was just for fun—as an inside joke between my close friends at work. 

But then came a forgotten part that I despise the most: being vulnerable with a stranger.

I have learned, through numbers of interactions including with Almost Love, that I built too high of a wall. This brickless invisible wall has been keeping other people out, and keeping myself in. A defense mechanism that I built after years of deliberate neglect and alienation. This wall has succeeded in being indestructible with its unwavering ability to be robust and impermeable. The only time I lowered this wall was when I let An Almost in, and it was assembled into a congregation of clamour that ended in a barely whimpering clutter.

Through numerous of so-called trial-and-error moments in which people either overestimated or underestimated the bearing of my wall, I decided to create a more elaborate wall—a labyrinth of traps and snares that unwittingly trick you into walking barefoot on the leftover remnants of countless wars between me and myself, but also with others.

This painstakingly detailed labyrinth is the cheapest form of defense mechanism. It has been with me throughout the years I grew up. This labyrinth, even though I personally built it brick after brick, you could still see some influences from external lack of care. There are numerous little icy pricks caused by external heartache, large blobs of insecurity that throb so loudly and painfully whenever someone comes near the wall with unclear intentions, shrapnels of general distrust, and toxic waste of loneliness.

I will never believe in the genuineness of anyone, not unless they would willingly dismantle this giant labyrinth by going through it while fighting my demons at the same time.

And I know, baby, I can never be someone worth your time and effort.

Perhaps, I was born right, but assembled wrong.