I don't know you personally. I only know what I've seen on ABC's The Bachelor, which is like saying I know all about defusing bombs from watching Die Hard. I'm sure you're a really nice guy, even if ABC's editors made you look like a douchebag on national TV.
Truth is, I was as uncomfortable as you were when Chris Harrison kept trying to get you to say "I love you" to your chosen mate, Nikki, on the "After The Final Rose" post-finale episode. You kept deflecting, and Harrison kept at it, all but demanding you say "I love zis girl," as if those words would magically make every woman in the room shed their clothes and launch into a orgy of epic proportions. Harrison acted as if he couldn't understand why you couldn't say "I love you" to a girl you'd only recently met on a reality TV show.
Here's the thing. I said "I love you" to plenty of girls in my unbridled youth, most of whom I now realize I didn't actually love. Was I horny for them? Did being in their presence give me a giddy high, as if I'd just entered an Amsterdam coffee house? You betcha. Back then, however, I couldn't distiguish that from real love, which, as you and I know, Juan Pablo, is far deeper than--"her melones estan grande."
The truth is, love is kind of like quantum physics. Let me explain, Juan Pablo, because I know soccer is more your area of knowledge. See, physicists, studying the tiny atoms that make up our world (and Nikki's masivo globos), discovered that the tiniest parts of our universe are both particles and waves. They are both something that can be held in place like a grain of sand--and something that floats about in space, undefinable, here and there and everywhere at once. Love is like that. It's both a feeling-- those butterflies you feel when Nikki's picos gemelos are pressed against you-- and something more practical and real, like mutual respect, shared interests, similar values, unified goals. The things you know and want to know about each other. Any "love" that just has one part but not the other isn't real love at all.
You recently Instagrammed a photo of Nikki, and said: "Mi Catira @nikki_ferrell LOVES her JOB and thats ONE of the things I LOVE about her... #NikkiTheNurse." Rumors also indicate that you may have told Nikki the actual words, "I love you." But I'm not so sure that you do. On The Bachelor, you never asked any of the girls anything about themselves. When Andi called you out on seeming disinterested, you said you were just being honest. "It's okay," you said, over and over. But you kind of missed her point. Part of finding love is discovering what makes up another person. Finding the pieces of them that fit the pieces of you, and I'm not just talking about salchichos and bollos. Your Instagram caption? Well, I think it shows that you don't quite understand the meaning of love.
Loving a job isn't the same as loving a person. Loving one, or even a few attributes of somebody isn't the same as loving her. Love is when all the pieces fit. Even the ones that don't. Even the annoyances, the "dark matter," as the physicists would call it, are so bound up in what you love about someone, that you can't take them away without bursting everything else apart. Love is when your waves and your particles are one and the same, even though you're still two separate people to the untrained eye. You orbit each other, even from far away. I'm sure Nikki gives you some good feelings. Those waves are strong. But when I look for the particles, I just don't see them.
I wish you the best, Juan Pablo. I don't fault you for keeping the word "love" close to the vest. That's the way it should be. Just do yourself a favor and take Andi's advice. Get to know Nikki. More than just what she does for a living or how delicioso her gato is.
Sincerely,
Adam's Life
