Robert, Her Billionaire Widower

Robert hugged her. She was surprised, but pleasantly so. She had not been expecting such an open display of affection but she was elated nonetheless because Robert was not the kind of person that would show affection for no reason. Robert was not the kind of person that would hug somebody and not mean it from the very bottom of his heart. He did not give out affection freely. On the contrary, he was the kind of person that reserved his displays of love for people he truly felt it with, because otherwise the displays of affection would be diluted somehow, they would become less potent, and when he did it with someone he truly loved that person would not feel the extent of the love that he was trying to give them. That person would perhaps feel like this was just something that Robert did, this was nothing special, and Robert never wanted anyone to feel that way. Vanessa knew this because she knew Robert. She knew this because he was an open book, he wore his heart on his sleeve and simply could not let anyone feel anything but what he was truly feeling. She loved this about him.

She hugged him back and they went to his sitting room. They were sitting differently. More intimately, in a way. They were sitting, for the first time, the way friends would sit with each other.

They drank coffee and ate snacks and began to talk.

“So what is your love life like?” asked Robert. “I have been telling you so many stories about my wife but I have no idea what life is like for you in that department. Please tell me, what do you feel about love? Have you ever felt it before? If I am prying or making you uncomfortable in any way please let me know.”

“Not at all,” said Vanessa. She was ready to talk about this with him. She felt like he would understand what she was feeling, not just because he was an empathetic person in general but because he made an effort to understand people, and he did this especially with people he connected with. Vanessa was comfortable discussing this with him because she knew that they had connected, which meant that he would not only not judge her, he would make an active effort to understand what she was trying to say. If she was a gambling woman she would have placed all her money on him fully understanding what she was about to tell him.

“I’ve been in love before,” said Vanessa, “at least… I think I have. It’s not that simple, I think. You can love someone but where is the line between loving someone and being in love with that person? How can one tell when one has stopped simply loving and started being in love? It’s not an easy thing to understand, I would say. I would go so far as to say I have never been able to understand the difference.”

“I think that loving someone is when you like everything about them,” said Robert. “Or, at the very least, you like enough about them that the rest does not matter to you. Being in love, this is trickier. I think being in love is when you love yourself when you are around them. Does that make sense to you? You don’t just love that person, you love yourself. You love who you are, who you become. And true love… true love, I think, is when you love who you are around somebody but that person is who you truly are. You are not wearing any masks, you are not pretending to be someone that you’re not. You’re not pretending to be the sort of person that the person you love would like. No. True love is simple. True love is when you are who you are around somebody and you still love yourself. When that person makes you love yourself. It’s a rather cheesy way of looking at it but what good is living if you are not cheesy about it? That is my rather boring view of what love is.”

“That is such a beautiful way to think,” said Vanessa. “I’ve never thought of it like that. I think it makes perfect sense, because being in love is the purest and truest form of love, and how can you truly love someone else when you don’t love yourself? I don’t think I have ever been in love. I have loved, however, I have loved several times.”

“Have you been in many relationships?” Robert asked.

“I’ve been in a few,” said Vanessa. “I’ve been in about five so far, if you include my first boyfriend that I got in high school.”

“Do tell,” said Robert, settling into his leather armchair. “I would love to hear about it.”

Vanessa laughed and said, “Really? Alright. Shall I start with my first boyfriend?”

“Please,” said Robert, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Alright. His name was Jake. He was an athlete and I was a cheerleader so it was inevitable that we get together. You know, head cheerleader and quarterback, we were the couple that practically everyone in school expected. I think that’s why we got together, which is rather odd because we started liking each other quite a lot. Even though such relationships generally don’t last, our relationship lasted all through senior year, and that is saying something because relationships in high school normally don’t last more than a few months.”

“That sounds nice,” said Robert. “What did you like about him?”

“I just liked how he wasn’t a typical jock,” said Vanessa. “In retrospect he wasn’t exactly right for me but I think I just liked how he surprised me by being so sensitive and in tune with his emotions. I liked that about him. I liked that he was affectionate. My next relationship was in my freshman year of college and it didn’t last that long. It only lasted a few months. I think that was just me trying to get over Jake. The guy’s name was Leo and he was a very athletic guy too. I think I just missed Jake. We had not been able to stay together because the universities we were going to were so far apart and neither of us wanted to try long distance. I think that was the only reason we broke up, although if we had continued dating it would have been due to some other reason because we weren’t all that compatible in the long run. I don’t really have much to say about Leo. Dating him was a mistake. He was your standard jock and he basically just wanted me for s*x.”