Love is simple. Love is complicated.
First time he got some weird emails or letters from fans, he just ignores it. People are silly and creepy. He shows it to his cousin and both of them stare at each other, scrunches up their eyebrows and fall into awkward laughter.
People are weird.
You don't fight or shout or act like you hate each other, that means you don't love each other. That's what they say in the movies. True sexual tension is when you act like you can't stand being a mile from each other because you're hiding all the undesirable, uh, desire deep underneath. Very deep underneath.
So he doesn't love her.
Because he doesn't want to fight with her. When she looks at him with that cold stare, arms crossed and practically mumbling under her breath or ignoring him altogether. He doesn't like it. Is he supposed to? Is he supposed to think it's funny or a challenge to upset her? What if he isn't sadistic or masochistic? What if it got to him too? That it upset him?
When he was fighting with his cousin it was okay, kinda. They're family. They can't escape each other. Eventually you have to tolerate all the annoying bossy stuff your cousin does because she's family.
When he was fighting with his best friend it was okay, sorta. Boys did that. They would get into testosterone matches on wheels or with powers until someone got fed up and shut the both of them up.
When he was younger he could argue with his grandpa, but when you respect someone you try to avoid it. Until you get to an argument where you know you're right. Because it involved saving someone.
He really doesn't like fighting with his parents. Maybe because his mom and dad can still intimidate him until now, even after all the alien fighting junk.
So maybe that means he doesn't love his parents too?
But he definitely doesn't love her. Because they say so.
Love takes a long time to happen. So all those much too quick stuff like physical attraction and stuff, that's stupid. Nobody tries to actually try to get together when they start admiring someone else from afar, right? I mean, you gotta start somewhere.
Maybe they ought to not date first and then wait for ten more years, then say they now officially have license for a romantic relationship. They have to have a degree for it, laminated and everything. She's gonna like that. Laugh at it.
The dating part apparently doesn't count as trying to get to know each other. You have to be friends first. Friends are the only ones that have a true romance.
So he totally doesn't love her or anything like that. It's just a teenage fad. Like that vampire series that Kevin likes. What a loser.
There's only one kind of love, not a lot of ones.
So he doesn't love his family the way he thinks he does? …Awkward.
Friends, his pet dog, even the people he saves on the random everyday side job. What about them?
Yeah, he heard from his cousin - or maybe at school - about someone called Caligula who was crazy and didn't try to tell the difference between loving people and a horse. So.
He's quite sure he loves everyone all the same, just differently. There's no end all and be all in love. Love is this positive feeling that you express for different peop- Now he's feeling really fruity. Kevin would laugh at this if he just hears it so it's good he doesn't.
So maybe he does love her, but she's totally not special or anything because love is all the one kind. When you don't love everyone romantically, it must mean you love everyone platonically. Like he loves his dog. And smoothies. But smoothies are better than anyone, hands down.
Apparently they don't have chemistry or something. He's always been kinda weirded out by the chemistry word because it's so wishy-washy, like something that apparently clicks to you when you watch romance movies. Too bad he falls asleep in them. Not enough shooting.
So he must have been really bad at picking up at what chemistry's supposed to look like but he was kinda just winging it with the feeling thing. He likes her, she likes him. Isn't that what the stuff was about? The stupid awkward shy stuff, the badly trying to hit on the girl, the giggling, the staring into each other's eyes and then looking stupid thing, getting jealous of her pet stuff. Some people have the staring but you turn away last minute thing, getting defensive, making fun of that person to try to hide the admiration, saving each other's skin in battle, and totally ignoring your cousin or your best friend because being busy helping each other instead stuff.
'Cause it's always different. Someone stays together in marriage for twenty-three years without so much as a flower or chocolates being given to the girl? Really? That happens? Nothing exciting like love triangles or sword fights? They barely fight? That can't be real. They can't possibly have chemistry because it's boring. They'll divorce or something because it's not the romance on TV.
Then there's two other people who are complete opposites of each other but absolutely adore each other. They must fight a lot though, having such different attitudes and opinions. His family doesn't like the catty, ambitious woman that married their brother but the two stayed together so long and love each other so dearly. Well, that's exciting. A 'you and me against the world' sort of deal. It's real too.
He hates and loves his fan letters. Some of them are awesome and love him to bits, some of them are freaky, freaky things and also love him to bits.
They always try to tell him what he's supposed to feel. Which is just strange when they just can't follow his story without trying to push him along one way or another, misinterpreting or interpreting badly. Sending him emails about how much they love him when they plan to kill someone he loves. Probably not gonna happen because sending him a warning first means he's gonna put a stop to it, but still pretty creepy stuff.
Love really is different all the time. Even the letters prove it. They can love you so much they hate, hate, hate you and don't wanna see your ugly stupid face on TV. They hope you and your pet rock die. He frowns and wonders what pet rocks have done so wrong to deserve that.
He stops taking the weird letters so seriously after some time. He knows about the importance that people play in his life, knows he loves them similarly and differently.
People are weird.
Love is simple. Love is complicated.
A/N: Got this amazing idea while I was reading a comment again somewhere. I keep thinking Ben's probably getting strange letters and even weirder things than Harangue's obsession to slander his name after he got famous. One of the things I thought of would be a particularly crazy fangirl letter which he answers inside his head. Doubt he'd actually respond to someone that delusional.
It's nice to delve to his dynamics and relationships he has with everyone. Including smoothies. Because he definitely loves those. Platonic, romantic? Only he would know. ;)
In case it wasn't clear: About all the sarcastic proclamations of not loving "her", he's talking about Julie. Crazy fangirl letter would definitely include the bit about hating the girlfriend.
(The examples given of two different kinds of romance: the boring twenty-three year marriage and the exciting opposites attract marriage is my parents and my uncle and aunt, respectively. For some note of realism in this piece. Yeah, my dad never gave my mom flowers. My mom's folks liked my dad and vice versa. Their idea of exciting 'conflict' is fighting about how to pay the bills. And they still snuggle on the couch while watching movies until now. It's that boringly sweet. HOSHIT PUT THIS INTERESTING STUFF ON TV SO MARKETABLE XD)