Yesterday a friend asked me if I believe in love.

I have relived this moment at least 7 times per hour from yesterday until today. I continue asking myself “What brought me to this conclusion? Good God, am I driving myself through the road of bitterness?”.

I answered “No. Love does not exist”.
And now I have flashbacks towards the moment in which I looked at her with a firm, self-sure face, and she responded my look with a confused one. She said nothing more and nothing less than “It does exist, it’s that guy that made you think this way”.

Thinking of what she told me- I realized my friend was right. That man which, as the expression would say, “broke my heart”, brought me to the conclusion of how love does not exist. Not now, not ever.

He helped me reach reality. It is all part of Custom.

“Love” is Custom.
We get accustomed of being with someone, which is why at the end of the relationship it hurts. It’s hard for us to “unaccustom” ourselves.
The mistreated and abused get accustomed to their mistreat and abuse, which is why they never run away or give up on their ‘loved’ one; Instead, they continue “loving” their partner. But that is not reality. Reality is that this victim has gotten accustomed to their mistreat and they cannot imagine their lives otherwise.
The unhappy get accustomed to their unhappiness. This is why many unhappy marriages do not divorce. These have also gotten accustomed to their unhappiness.
As for other couples who divorce, there are two cases: those who run back to their partner, run back because they never get accustomed to being apart from one another; they do not know what to do without the other person’s company. They feel lonely; therefore, these wrongly accustomed their selves. On the other hand, we have those who succeed in running away forever. Those who succeed forgetting. These tend to learn faster. These tend to get accustomed to their single life easily.
Singles get accustomed to their solitude, while others get accustomed to different personalities per day: like the “players” we claim to have dated. These don’t succeed in accustoming themselves to one firm person; Therefore, they never get to “love” someone.
Also, when a “loved” one dies, it hurts as if the world was about to end. For you had accustomed yourself to their presence. Time flies by; days, months, or maybe years, and we finally forget their existence, or at least we can continue with our lives as if nothing happened. You, dear friend, succeeded in accustoming yourself to their absence.

In life, many people are born with gifts. In this case, some are born with the gift of being able to accustom themselves easily, and others might take a little longer.
But what about me?
I was born with the gift of never in my entire life accustoming myself to another being. With the gift of never in my entire life suffering for whichever “non-accustomable”.
With the gift of accustoming myself to happiness and happiness only. Happiness alone. I was born with the gift, over all gifts, of accustoming myself to the existence of Custom.

And then I go back again to the moment in which my friend had asked me the question, and I would have just loved to answer “Love does not exist. ‘Love’ is some incorrectly used term. ‘Love’ is probably what some indian with a horrible pronunciation yelled in the beginning of times when what he truly meant to say was ‘Custom’. Because that is ‘love’, my friend... It is a fantastic term which in actual life should mean ‘Custom’”.