Dying Inside

I was chatting with a friend and he mentioned that he and his girlfriend were fighting.  I sympathized and said how much I hated getting into fights with people I care about.  He went on to share a bit of his feelings:

"Our fights are retarded though
we get mad over the smallest things
well I'm normally fine
just oversensitive with her
not necessarily oversensitive with everyone
I don't know if you know how it feels
like
I care about this one person more than anything in the world
and I do something to upset her
it upsets me
it kills me inside
and if she hurts me it hurts even more
it'd be like your role model insulting you
bad metaphor but I think you get it
it hurts more when you know how much they care about you"

I just sat there and read the words as they popped into my chat box.  It made me so sad.  I know exactly how it feels.  When I care about someone the smallest jabs can feel like stabs and the stabs send me reeling to the floor.  The silence is even worse though and with it comes the realization that to that someone, to him, I'm just another face on the street, not even worth a nod of the head or wave of the hand.  The little dot next to his name in my chat list switches from grey to green and then, an hour later, it fades back to grey, without even so much as a "hello".  I watch him disappear and the tears fall.

So what makes it worth this?  Why do I endure all this heartache?  I don't know.  The thought of what he could be?  The memory of how he was?  The hope for what he is?  Something inside of me insists that things will change.  That if I wait long enough, that if I love him hard enough, that if I have enough patience then it will be alright in the end.  That it will work out.  That he just needs time to grow.  That he just needs the space to mature.  That he can be the man I see in him.  I suppose it's just irrational optimism, but if there's anything I can do to make it work, I want to make sure I do it.  So, really, it comes down to this.  I endure it because I love him and the only thing that makes everything worth it is the hope that one day he will love me in return.