There’s a bittersweet illusion in a love that surrounds you without truly touching you. That feeling when someone sees you, but at the same time, doesn’t see you at all. As if you are just a silhouette on the canvas of his dreams, an ephemeral idea that he carries in his mind but who is not really you, not you-you.

He loved me. But he didn’t love me. Not the woman who braids her hair in lazy mornings, not the girl who laughs with a mouth full of joy or cries quietly, hidden under the blanket when the world collapses into chaos. He loved the image of me projected into the corners of his mind, that idealized portrait painted with the colors of his desires, like a picture of impossible perfection.

It was as if I stood before him like a mirror, reflecting all his fantasies, all his unfulfilled dreams of love. But who was I in that mirror? Was it really me or some other version of me—softer, more perfect, with no shadows, no sharp edges?

I saw the way he looked at me, but I didn’t see a desire to truly know me; I saw a desire to validate a story he had written silently in his own head. In every gesture, every word, I felt it wasn’t about me. It was about who he wished I could be.

I swirled around him, like a butterfly caught between the petals of paper flowers, trying to find a way out of that dream. But the dream was too sweet, too warm, and too safe—even for me. I pretended to be that girl, that ideal love, because I was afraid that if I were me, he would leave.

And perhaps he didn’t even know that he only loved me halfway, that he loved me only in the way he wanted to love me. In his mind, I was a siren song that lured him to imaginary shores but had no soul, no desires of her own, no past, present, or future. I was merely an echo of his dreams, born in the silence of the night.

I wished I could make him see me, see my truth—see every mistake, every vulnerability, every moment of weakness that defines me. To see that girl who doesn’t smile all the time, who has deep imperfections, and who sometimes crumbles under the weight of her own emotions. To see my living, breathing soul, full of contrasts and depths, not just my image wrapped in ideals.

But he loved me as we love a clear summer sky—beautiful, but flat, without depth, without storms. He loved me with closed eyes, with a heart full of the need for perfection, without realizing that perfection is just a myth. And maybe it was too late to make him understand that perfection doesn’t need to be sought after—it needs to be accepted in all its forms, even in its imperfection.

So, slowly, I untangled myself from this dream. I stepped out of that mirror, out of that illusion, like a cloud that dissipates in the gentle wind of reality. And with that, I felt a wave of release. I understood that I didn’t want to be that ideal girl, that false reflection. I wanted to be me—whole, complicated, imperfect. To love and be loved not for what I should be, but for who I truly am.

Maybe he will never understand that. Maybe he will continue searching for his perfect girl in other mirrors, in other hearts. But I… I chose to love myself, to free myself from the burden of being anything other than what I am. And in this act of liberation, I discovered that true love isn’t about being perfect in someone else’s eyes, but about fully accepting yourself in your own.

I was loved, but I wasn’t loved for the real me. And in the end, that’s what matters most—to be loved for everything you are, not for everything others hope you could be.