My iCloud keeps a secret album for me. It's likely one of the few secrets I haven't shared. The album had pictures of me with each of my boyfriends, which I either didn't want to or didn't dare to recall. Later, that album transformed into my time machine; each image or screenshot transported me to a particular moment in time or location and restored my feelings there.

2019.11.13

I met him at the Halloween fair.

I love flowers, and on Halloween, he had a booth selling roses made into different colors and wove together with elaborate strings of light bulbs; compared to the raucous, cheesy high school atmosphere around me, the psychedelic romance was wildly stimulating my serotonin.

Our love was passionate. I wanted to spend every moment with him, tweeted about him five times a day and felt a sweetness floods my heart whenever we were together. I love him, and I love being with him even more. I bragged to my friends about how much a difficult dude likes me and his friends are like mine. They warmed that winter, like a beam of light that penetrated my loneliness.

I was happy, really, and that's all I wanted.

But we broke up, because I didn't want him to get overly connected with my friends. The passion had died down, and we were no longer what we wanted each other to be. Expectations kept out loving feelings such as acceptance and letting people go. It was never him that I fell in love with, but the vibrant, authentic self that I was with him.

2021.7.11

I met him at my internship.

Our coworkers snapped this photo while working in Yunnan, we were deciding who would take on the toughest client in rock-paper-scissors.

He was different. I didn't have to worry about him being flashy, and I had a rare sense of security with him. He would take me to my friends' parties, stay up late with me at the office to finish writing my proposal when I couldn't, and answer all the questions in my childish little head. We both aspired to creative work, and had endless conversations both at work and in private. What I liked most was how he drove; the mature charm he projected when he held the steering wheel with one hand had left me unable to control myself.

He pampers me, but everything is based on not flattering, not condescending and not making me laugh with childish jokes like the boys before him. That's another thing I was obsessed with; he brings our relationship back to a normal value, without using gender advantage to profit.

I first grasped the adult world while with him, and that realization catalyzed my future-focused ideas. “Where is the best apartment in Beijing? " “What skills do creative workers need?" became my browser's search phrases, while "debt," "unemployment," and "reality" progressively replaced my high-frequency words in conversations with friends.

Of course, we broke up. He had to find someone to marry; obviously, I wasn’t qualified.

We don't have the same frequency. I knew.

But I've made progress; I don't attach my requirements for the "ideal lover" to the relationship. I just focus on enjoying the process of falling in love with him and exploring love itself.

2022.2.1

I met him at a friend's birthday party.

This photo was taken on the first day we met when we went to buy milk tea.

He was clean, sincere, and simplistic. When I was with him, I got a little scared and would even start thinking about whether to start the relationship or not - something I had never done before. I'm afraid I became accustomed to unstable relationships and thus would dismiss his feelings, and I can't do what I used to do, enter the relationship with the mindset of pulling away at any time.

With him, I suddenly realized that it was as if I never had self-disclosed in my previous relationships.

I would socialize with their friends, get to know them, and inquire about their lives, but I would never allow them to get into mine. I was afraid that their departure would cause me to torment myself to death once I connected emotionally with someone.

But his tolerance and the most pristine of emotions have taught me to relax.

Perhaps it was more like peace of mind.

And because of him, I understood why many previous relationships failed. We couldn't meet each other's core needs in life.

Roses were exquisite, romantic, but also thorny. It was like a love born out of a social and moral system. I loved the feeling of being with him because of the resources around him and their interaction with me, I attributed my emotions to our relationship. Compared to him, I loved the envious glance of my friends and the way his friends treated me. Mature and stable too. Is it really a partner I want that I need to look up? Do I like this seemingly stable lifestyle? I kept asking myself. Our ideologies were different. And this boy, who was clearly less romantic, even a bit lumpy, and didn't have much social experience to be my teacher, wasn't supposed to be my type.

But his pace of life and mine are almost the same, we have enough independent space on both sides when we're busy, and we do childish things together when we're free; he completely respects any choice I make and the way I live my life based on my personality; he has even adapted to my behavior patterns and thinking habits, and always has a word to make me laugh when I'm angry. He has made me more emotionally stable - which is what I desire, and I have been able to give him some help with his career - which is what he needs.

I'm staring at the photos again, each one documenting every stage of my socialization process.

I struggled with coping with ex-boyfriends, and the album is a result of that. I never felt like our relationship ended since the feelings never went away. But now that I've seen these pictures again, I don't feel the same way. And that, the last stage of my socialization, was letting go.

There has never been and never will be a Mr. Right; there’s only favorable growth. I no longer feel pain and resentment for anyone's departure, because they essentially document the process of enriching my personality and finding balance with my inner self.

I deleted the album, eventually. This is the most responsible way to treat people in front of me.

But there are some things I can't delete, like I still buy myself a bouquet of roses on a lovely day.