Lili Taylor played the leading role in the 90s film “Things I never told you.” In this gem of a movie, she utters an immortal phrase that struck a chord with me and has stayed with me for much all of my adulthood life: “ The things that we never tell each other are usually the most important ones”.

This quote has echoed through many of my adult relationships.

Not only does it pain me to write this, but it also takes an insurmountable amount of courage to confess to you, who are kind enough to read me, my thoughts on this.

My (sometimes) assertive, cool, calm and collected self is at odds with the feelings and unpredictable emotions that come when embarking upon romantic relationships.

Dear reader, can you relate or am I all alone in this?

I thought I had learnt valuable lessons, and, hell yes, I did, but when we scratch beneath the surface, we are still that same person trying to hide their deepest and most vulnerable self, under a protective shell for fear of being hurt. Rejected or otherwise completely exposed.

Any relationship is tricky to navigate, and there is no set route map – and if there was how boring would that be? –  Relationships continue to be tricky no matter how old, wise or how much expertise we have to our name.

I fondly remember a conversation I once had with a dear friend of mine. The conversation was, as I remember it, dazzled and doused in wine.  I  was 30 at the time and my friend, who is four years older than me, confessed that she had given up on falling in love relentlessly and unapologetically, no longer was she letting herself free fall as she did when she was in her 20s.

“ Now I put on the breaks; there are diminishing returns in going with the flow all the time. It’s just not sustainable”.  She said.

My younger self, who never really put on the brakes and pretty much let herself go (in a very healthy fashion, mind you) nodded intently but could not quite agree with her.

“I just cannnot help but letting myself go,” I told her. 

“ You will learn to curb your enthusiasm, believe me “ she replied.

As we grow older, is there a “smarter” way of falling in love?

Now, I feel like like going back and asking the twenty-something me: place your bets: do you think that as you grow older, wiser and more “mature,” there is a smarter way of falling in love? Do you really think you can pick your infatuations carefully and sensibly?

No matter how mature and savvy we are, we are living an era in which sexting, dating apps and unsolicited penis pictures circulate freely over cyberspace thanks to the wonders of instant messaging, andverbalizing our fantasies and desires is effortless. What is painfully difficult, is talking about love.

That is why we hold back from revealing our true feelings;  for fear of being rejected and let down. That is why we – intentionally or unintentionally – give mixed signals if we are unaware of the other person feelings. That is why we feel incapable of deciphering the triggers behind hesitancy and certain behaviours which put us off.

As my friend told me, as we approach a certain age, we refrain from falling for someone blind-folded, carelessly and letting ourselves go with the flow… whatever the direction that flow is taking.

Getting older also means that you have more life experiences under your belt. And some of those experiences can act like the devil whispering at the back of your mind: baggage, messy break-ups, hurt, betrayal, wounds, mistrust… how could these things not hold us back and turn us into overly cautious monsters unable to express how we really feel?

It will always be easier to make assumptions, which result in so many missed opportunities and unwritten stories whose main characters were unable to relinquish the fear. Those unconfessed feelings make for the things we never told each other. And, sadly, as Lili Taylor said, those were the most important ones.

Photo credit: Mónica Vila Ferreirós