But what would it take?

Isn't it a pity
Now, isn't it a shame
How we break each other's hearts
And cause each other pain
How we take each other's love
Without thinking anymore
Forgetting to give back
Isn't it a pity

Forgetting to give back ... but, even if they do give back, can we recognize what's being given?

What would it take for me to believe that I was being offered love?

There was a time when I thought it was holding hands, kissing, being willing to tell people "this is my girlfriend". But that wasn't really it. Bryan liked to hold hands, but there wasn't love there. And Jorge wasn't good at those kind of outward trappings of affection, yet, I know he felt something. Besides, I was thinking of those outward trappings in an adolescent way.

There was a time when I thought it was sex, which I suppose isn't really a surprise -- lots of girls make that mistake. I mean, when people love each other they make love, right? So, if a guy would have sex with me, then he loved me, right? Or, if not at first, if I got him to have sex with me, then he would love me afterwards, right?

ha. As we know ... WRONG and WRONG.

Flowers? Could be... I got those once and I was impressed, but nothing came of the relationship.

The words .... "I love you" ... the holy grail! You know, none of the boyfriends, not even the two partners, ever said those words to me. Even more, I've found that when it's someone you're not interested in, and who knows you're not interested, yet he keeps saying "te amo, te amo, te amo", a tiredness seeps into your being. How strange to find that the holy grail can be empty.

Yet, when a friend says "te quiero mucho amiga, cu�date" it feels like that holy grail, even though it's filled with something else.

I haven't seen the movie, but I've been told that the one valuable thing in Superman 2 was the advice: if you want a girl to fall in love with you, try poetry.

Could be ... But my response was: how do you tell if it's poetry that you should fall in love to? And not just poetry that the guy is sharing with you? His answer: "Pienso luego existo" ... think it and it will be.

Could be ... in fact, I do believe that our thoughts bring things into being

Yet ... it takes two people to be thinking the same thing into being ... doesn't it?

When I was with Jorge, I didn't think he really loved me. Toward the end, during the last few years of our relationship, I accepted that he had become accustomed to me, and even believed him during that summer in La Paz in 1987 when he remarked on how close and comfortable we were together, that he felt like we were already married.

But, living in Bolivia would have been too hard for me -- the politics, the ramifications for him of being with a white woman from the US (and it wasn't theory -- he'd seen what happened with his brother and his wife from the US). I came back to the States, and the next spring I told him I couldn't do it anymore. We had been apart since August 1985 by then, seeing each other when I would visit him, spending the summers of 1986 and 1987 with him, writing letters (no email, no MSN, in those days). But I'd lost hope ... I couldn't go month to month anymore, waiting to phone, writing letters, waiting for letters.

We still stayed in touch. I received letters until 1992. He contacted me in 1994 when his daughter was born, and again in 1997 when his son was born.

I kept all of the letters, in a box, which I didn't review although I looked in the box from time to time.

Two years ago I decided it was time, and I got the box out and collected all of the letters. Arranged them in order from oldest to newest. And started reading.

By the time I got to the letters he wrote after he returned to Bolivia in August 1986 through to the end, I knew, for the first time, how much he had loved me.

But I hadn't seen it then!

It's true, he never said it. He never really did anything that I can remember to demonstrate how he felt.

Or... maybe it was me, me who was unable to see it ...

And now, trying to say what it would take for me to believe ... I find I don't know what it is ... something to do with actions (but, not the vacuuous actions I've experienced before), something to do with words (but, not words empty of meaning)

I hope it's only true that I can't define it because there is no one who is trying to convince me that he loves me.

(or, is there, and I just can't see that it's happening?)