I think I’m falling in love

Hi people,

This isn’t a question and I’m not really expecting comments, I just have it so heavy on my heart I feel like I have to talk about it, to say it out loud, to relieve myself.

Six months ago I (24F) moved overseas for work, from a beautiful and vibrant capital city in Europe to Toronto. Beginning was really hard, I immediately became heavily depressed. Then after a couple horrible months I figured I have to put my life in order, find an activity that I enjoy, that makes me go out, have something to think about other than work, and on top of it obviously socialize and make friends.

So I decided to try salsa and bachata dancing. I was starting from scratch, had never practiced any kind of physical activity let alone dancing, so beginning very low but progressively getting better. I feel like the deeply ridiculous times are behind me now (hopefully) but I’m still at a rather basic level.

I am going almost every day to a very nice place where I actually meet a lot of people, as was my objective, mostly foreigners like me looking to build a social life as well, I even have made excellent friends and we go out all the time and have fun. My mental wellness has considerably improved and I actually feel very happy now.

Now, I don’t want to brag or anything, but I am physically rather good looking, tall, slim, blonde with long hair and blue eyes. I have a very feminine style, dress in a sophisticated way (always cute little dresses), do my makeup in a light manner that suits my face but is more on the sexy side (rocking that red lipstick every day). I come from years of school bullying based on my physical appearance as a kid and teenager so as an adult I put great care in my looks.

I am very aware that I generally appeal to men, I get accosted in the street, in bars, supermarkets etc all the time, and at my salsa class I get asked out by my dance partners all the time.

Upon moving to Canada I broke up with my long-term boyfriend and have been single, flirting around, ever since. I feel like for all my life I’ve always kinda been into long-term, serious relationships, more out of comfort than anything else. Looking back on it I don’t think I’ve actually loved any of my long-term boyfriends of 1, 2, 3 years.

I deeply enjoy being single for literally the first significant amount of time since finishing high school. I love the thrill of feeling a world of opportunities open to me. I love catching eyes for a second, feeling their gaze lingering back, I love receiving compliments, I love being asked to dance all the time to the point where I hardly get a second to catch my breath even though my dancing skills really don’t deserve that amount of attention. I just love my life as it is now and really don’t want to commit into anything serious again.

Now, around a month ago, when I upgraded from level 1 to level 2 (out of 5) at my salsa class, I started sharing classes with *this guy*.

He is an outstanding dancer, he’s actually at level 3 or 4 but keeps coming regularly to level 2 classes. I remember on the day I first laid eyes on him experiencing a weird sense of curiosity about him. My eyes are always dragged towards him and I feel this irresistible urge to go to him, to ask him to dance with me.

It is incredible sometimes how the world seems to arrange things for you. My favorite book, that for a decade has obsessed me with its intricate marvels and poetry, is Salammbô from Gustave Flaubert. Reading and re-reading it, especially the last chapter, always bring my heart to a race. As a teenager I was obsessed by the story of the two main characters, I was talking and writing to their imaginary figures, I was particularly obsessed by Salammbô with her beautiful, poetic name, I was calling her “Sam” in the intimacy of my mind.

There is this paragraph in the very last chapter, the apotheosis of the book, where my breath is always taken away:
“””
At the first step that he had taken she had risen; then, as he approached, she had involuntarily advanced by degrees to the edge of the terrace; and soon all external things were blotted out, and she saw only [him]. Silence fell in her soul, – one of those abysses wherein the whole world disappears beneath the pressure of a single thought, a memory, a look. This man who was walking towards her attracted her.
“””

Guys usually ask my name and tell me theirs on the first occasion they dance with me. He didn’t. It wasn’t until the 5th or 6th time I danced with him that I finally dared ask him what his name was, and he said Sam. I went scrolling through the attendance list where you only have people’s firstnames, and the only one that sounded like it could have Sam as a nickname was Somanshu, which I immediately felt was such a graceful, poetic name.

He doesn’t really notice me at all. He dances with me occasionally of course, because in classes everyone dances with everyone, we’re constantly rotating partners, that’s how you practice and get better. Spontaneously though, he only really goes to ask the more advanced level girls, which I totally understand since they’re way more interesting to dance with than me, and also he is more friendly to them since they share the same advanced level classes, have been dancing together for longer, etc.

I have this extreme, constant, longing for him. I go to class and keep irresistibly checking the corridor if I see him arriving, all the while putting great effort not to catch anybody’s eye who would then ask me to dance instead. I go to great lengths to put myself in his way towards the end of a song / beginning of a new song so that he’ll just spot me hanging there and ask me.

I keep thinking about him all – the – fucking – time. Day and night. When I get in his vicinity I feel weirdly dizzy, my heart races all the way up my throat and I am incapable of focusing on anything else than the thought that he is so close to me. When I get to dance with him my heart races and my legs feel numb, I am focusing so hard on trying to keep up with him, and a lot of the nice fancy moves that I perfectly master with any other partner I just fail pitifully out of nerves.

I’m usually a very warm and friendly person to all the people I have no romantic interest in, and I’m afraid I am so defensive about not making my infatuation with him obvious that I might come across as cold or uninterested. I make compliments all the time to the people I appreciate but to him I just can’t because my heart is dying to tell him how beautiful he is and the words expire before reaching my lips.

He is very nice to me, but so is he with everyone else. He doesn’t really pay me any particular attention. I want to talk about him all the time, to everybody, to the entire world. When I’m alone working from home or in my bed I keep murmuring Somanshu, Somanshu, Somanshu, it just sounds like the most beautiful poem. I don’t even know anything about him. I would give absolutely everything in the world for him to just notice me, to just talk to me. Never in my life have I felt so deeply obsessed with a person.

It feels so wonderful to write it all down, to share it with you, I already feel a bit lighter.