I guess one of my biggest flaws is that I am a hopeless romantic. I typically go nuts over chick flicks and love songs. One of my biggest wants is to be swept of my feet. I have so much love in my heart to give away and I crave someone to serve and to tend to, to be best friends with, to laugh with, to motivate me into becoming a better person.
But guess what? I am an absolute failure when it comes to dating. I don't do it right. I don't know exactly what I am doing that is wrong or where I am screwing up, but I am a hot mess when it comes to romance. I think I don't date well because I definitely don't deal well with break ups either.
Let me share with you (in chronological order) a bit about my major love life experiences...
~*(For the sake of privacy, I have changed the names.)*~
- Gary (The Manipulator) - I remember my first "real" crush. I met Gary when I was a freshman in high school. He was a sophomore. He had his learner's permit. He was absolutely gorgeous. Long curly hair, big brown eyes, an amazing smile, funny, popular. He was one of the top debaters at the high school, which made him very smooth with words and made him impossible to argue with. He was the whole package, at least in my 14 year old eyes. We became fast friends. It wasn't until the next year, when we attended the same school, that I started to develop actually feelings for Gary. He noticed right away and used it to his advantage. There were various situations were he had asked me lie for him to prevent him from school disciplinary actions. Gary blinded me by making me feel special. He would tell me I was such a great friend to him, but things never got beyond friendship. He was not a member of my faith and we would have conversations about how wrong he thought the teachings of my church were. I allowed him to sway me into believing my church taught false doctrine and declared to my parents that I was done with religion. It wasn't until then, when I faced my parents and challenged their parenting, that I realized how much I let myself to get manipulated and pushed around by Gary merely because I wanted him to like me. From that day, I withdrew myself from Gary and allowed my friendship with him to dissolve. Our friendship never actually ended as we still talk from time to time, but we definitely grew apart.
*We never were officially together, although everyone around had assumed so.
- Paul (The Best Friend) - I met Paul while I was going through everything with Gary. We had many mutual friends and I thought he was very attractive. He was on the swim team and kept himself active. He had a big smile and always greeted me with a hug. Being around him always brightened my days. Paul knew what was going on with me and Gary and was a huge support to me. He allowed me to lean on him and he helped me out a lot with everything I was going through. I started to develop a crush on him a few weeks after distancing myself from Gary and my feelings developed fast. Luckily for me, he liked me back. We decided to give ourselves the "boyfriend-girlfriend" label shortly after my 16th birthday. But things just didn't feel right. I could tell that something about him was off. So, we had a talk about a month and a half of "dating" and he confessed to me that although he liked me, the only reason he was in a relationship with me is because of the pressure everyone was giving him to be in a relationship. His mother also felt that he should not be exclusive with one girl in high school, which added more stress. Needless to say, we ended things immediately. We both wanted to continue as friends because we had grown so close. Little did we know that neither of us were mature enough to do so at that point. We became really good at hurting each other's feelings (without meaning to) and argued more than anything. So for a few months, all communication between us ended. We saw each other often and may have waved hello in the hall, but never hung out or had a real conversation. It wasn't until my next break up were we able to become friends again and start over. He came back into my life as a very dear friend and he was my shoulder to cry on during my troubled time. To this day, he is still one of my dearest and closest friends.
*We were officially together for a little less than two months.
- Kay (The One That Got Away) - Kay was captain of the swim team and best friends with Paul. I knew his name but I never actually met him until Paul and I were on our downward spiral. My friend Ashley was the one who introduced me to him and we ate lunch with him everyday for the rest of the school year. I found Kay to be more reserved and quiet than both Gary and Paul. He was refreshing, but I didn't allow myself to get emotionally attached to him until I knew for a certainty that he liked me first. Kay would ask me how I was doing regarding everything going on with Paul. Unfortunately, he got caught in the middle of our battling but he never complained or really even said a word about it. As Kay and I started getting to know each other more and more, we would instant message and email each other for hours. He was the most easiest person to talk to that I've ever met. It was not hard to like him. Both of us were very hesitant on doing anything about our crush on each other because neither of us wanted to hurt Paul. But regardless, we started dating right after school got out for the summer. Kay and I had a very stereotypical summer fling. We both had summer jobs but got together as often as we could. We went to parties together. We talked every night on the phone for hours. Whenever one of us left on vacation and were not able to talk on the phone, we'd handwrite each other letters. Kay first told me he loved me on the 4th of July while we were waiting to see the fireworks. I was surprised to hear it because we had not even had our first kiss yet, but I knew at that moment that I loved him back. When school started again in August, we would always eat breakfast together. We'd hold hands in the hallways and kiss each other goodbye in the parking lot at the end of the day. We truly loved each other as much as high school kids could love. Everything was perfect between us until the last semester of our senior year began. He had a heavy school workload and was stressed out about getting ready for the swimming state championships. I didn't know how to deal with his stress and looked at it as if he was pulling away from me or that I was doing something wrong. I basically freaked out a bit not knowing what to do and thus I became more clingy to him, trying to get him to pay attention to me rather than being wrapped up in his stress. (Obviously now I realize that this was NOT the way to handle things.) Towards the end of January, not knowing what to do, I issued him an ultimatum. I told him that if something didn't change that he'd lose me. I didn't hear from him for the rest of the weekend (which remember, was very rare because we literally talked EVERY night on the phone.) The next Monday morning, we met for breakfast. He handed my a piece of paper and on it was a note he had written me the night before. In it, he explained to me that he felt it was best to end things before they got worse. I looked at him and asked him if this is what he really wanted. He nodded. So, I gathered my things, gave him one last hug, kissed him on the cheek, and went to my AP European History class to take a test. I got through the test and then excused myself to go to the bathroom where I had a complete meltdown. I was absolutely crushed. I was still very much in love with Kay. I had never felt pain as sever before this break up. I felt completely alone because my parents and two older sisters were on a cruise for that week. I had no idea how to cope with a break up like this. So, I got home from school and slept until the next morning. I did this for almost the rest of my senior year of high school. I didn't "get over" Kay for nearly 9 months I didn't talk to Kay until Paul arranged for us all to hang out together 3 years later. It wasn't weird to be near him again. In fact, I just had flashbacks and was reminded how great he is. When I listen to Katy Perry's song "The One The Got Away," Kay is always the one that comes to mind.
*We were officially together for 8 months.
- Ryan (The Thinker) - Ryan lived in my building my first year of college. I always admired him for his maturity and views on life. He always treated everyone with respect. After a few weeks going out of my way to get to know him better and trying to spend more time with him, I expressed my interest in him. He told me he wanted to think about it and then he'd get back to me. A few days later, he mentioned a few concerns he had, like how I was 18 and he was 23. I had already had two boyfriends and he never had a girlfriend, nor was he much of a "dater". But he also said he was ready for a new adventure and for something different. Thus, we became "boyfriend-girlfriend". Ryan and I were around each other a lot, especially since we lived in the same building. It definitely was more a relationship of convenience rather than one of affection. I was young and obsessed with the idea of getting married and therefore fell in love with Ryan for that reason. I had met his family very quickly and felt completely out of place amongst them. When he met my family, they felt the same way, that he just didn't fit in well with us. Despite all that, we did grow very close emotionally to each other. He opened up to me about things he never told anyone before and I slowly started to open up to him. We talked about getting married and what life would be like together. We both knew we could be happy with each other. But he had some really weird ideas about women that I didn't agree with. For example, he told me that he'd think less about me if I put on weight while pregnant and didn't lose it. As school ended and he graduated, we started planning a life together. We'd go look at houses and talked about what life would be like. We were basically unofficially engaged, without a ring. However, it hit me one day. Ryan had never once told me he loved me or how he really even felt about me. It was a month before school would start and it got to the point where I needed to decided what I was going to do in the fall and if I was going to go back to school and where. I got up the courage one night so I turned to him and said "Ryan, do you love me?" He was quiet for what seemed like a million years and then replied "You know, there are just some things I haven't figured out yet." The result of that conversation was that I decided that we needed to take a break and he needed to figure some stuff out before we moved forward. I also decided to go back to school without him. Ryan drove almost 2 hours to visit me every other weekend while I was at school. But he never brought up if he figured anything out or was even thinking about it. He never would bring up any serious conversation like that. I was the one who had to address the issue. Each time, he'd say he was still working on it. Each time he didn't have an answer, I grew more distance from him. Finally, during Christmas break, I told him I was done waiting. I told him if he hadn't figured out what he needed to by now, he never would and I was tired of waiting. He understood but stressed how much he wanted to stay friends with me. We grew pretty apart and talked every other month or so. Eventually, he started dating another girl and wanted to do something special for her for Valentine's Day. He called me and asked what I thought he should do, which actually turned into me planning his entire night to the minute and making his dinner reservation for him. He told me how wonderful the date had gone, but I have hardly talked to him since then.
*We were officially together for 6 months. We were "figuring things out" for 4 more months.
- Norman (The Indecisive One) - I thought Norman was such a pessimist when I first met him my third year of college. He hated everything I liked. I was good friends with his roommate, which is how I came to know Norman so well. I eventually grew to realize that my first impressions of him were wrong. He actually was one of the most sweetest guys. Flirting with him was always so much fun. We started to have frequent NCMO (non-commitment make -out) sessions and I started getting attached to him. It was starting to get too hard to be just friends with him, so I told him how I was feeling. He came up with a lot of excuses about not knowing how he felt or didn't know where this would go. So I responded by telling him I never wanted him to kiss me again unless he meant it. We parted ways for summer break but came back together when school started. Within the first week, he kissed me. He kissed me multiple times over the next month and I assumed that it was going somewhere. I let go and just allowed myself to fall. And I fell hard. And then, just like that, it was over. He told me that nothing was ever going happen and he wanted to date someone else. Although I wasn't as crushed with him as I was with Kay, I found myself in a world of darkness. There were other things going on in my life at that point and he was my rock. I felt like I had lost everything. I resented him for several months and could not have a conversation with him without getting upset. I couldn't escape him. It didn't help that we had so many mutual friends and saw each other on a daily basis. It also didn't help that he eventually ended up marrying my summer roommate. Although we kind of tried to be friends again, our friendship never really recovered .
*We were never officially together. Some people suspected we were, as did I, but we never were.
- Hans (The Luster) - I hated Hans when I first met him. I found him to be self-obsessed and arrogant. He treated people like crap and didn't really care much for other people or their feelings. I thought he just cared about himself and violent video games. I blamed him for the bad ending of my "relationship" with Norman, as Hans was a confidant to him. I tried really hard not to judge him and to give him the benefit of the doubt and eventually stopped looking at all the reasons I didn't like him. While morning over losing Norman, Hans knew I was vulnerable and used that to his advantage. We ended up having a NCMO. My excuse for doing it was to make Norman jealous (which I never knew if it worked or not) and Hans did it cuz he was horny. After that, I felt it was best to just hang out with the girls for a while and I didn't really hang out with him anymore. For a few months. During Christmas break, Hans and I were the only ones left and we had a chance to spend some time together and get to know each other better. He eventually became my best friend. I spent most of my time with him and started to get deeply emotionally connected to him without even realizing it. I told myself over and over that I would not fall for him, that I would keep my emotions in a box and never let them close to him. But my life became very complicated due to outside sources and he was the one I leaned on. He too was having major life issues that he leaned on me for and we were able to help each other through them. Somewhere in the mix, my feelings for him grew and grew. I assume it was the same for him as well because we became official soon after. This came as a surprise to a lot of our mutual friends because when they asked him if he'd ever date me, he responded and I quote "Not a snowball's chance in Hell." When I asked him about it, he just brushed it off like it wasn't a big deal. I didn't see how big of a deal it was until after we broke up. I loved spending time with him. I felt like he knew me better than anyone else and saw me differently. I missed him when he was gone and was always so happy when he'd walk into the room. I left for a week for spring break with some friends and when I came back, everything changed and I don't know why. The first thing I noticed was he didn't even get up when I got home. He sat in his chair, leaving me to give him a side hug. He then basically stopped communicating with me about anything of any importance. He would get irritated with me about dumb things and complain when I asked him to go somewhere with me. I really felt so alone and I felt like he just shut me out. He made me feel so worthless one day that my roommates walked in on me sobbing on my kitchen floor because I was so upset. I couldn't take it anymore so I let him know how I was feeling and he said that he just didn't see our relationship going anywhere. But he did something that surprised me. He held me as I cried as we were breaking up. It was a very bittersweet experience. Then, a month later, we decided to get back together. That lasted less than a week and we didn't tell anyone. After the second breakup, I went almost a month without talking to him. I received a text from him asking me if I wanted to come hang out. I went over and we got back together. For three weeks. And then we broke up again. And this one was, by far, the hardest of the three. All my friends had moved away for the summer and all I had going for me was my job, which was only part time. I cut myself off from the rest of the world and consumed myself in loneliness. Although my biggest heartbreak came with my breakup with Kay, I was the most hurt with Hans. I spent months trying to put my life back together and figuring out who I was after Hans left my side. It wasn't until I accepted that I did, in fact, fall in love with him that I was able to begin to move on.
So there you have it. There's the dirt on my exes. I'm not sure why I wrote this post or what I was trying to achieve by writing it. I don't even know if I will leave this post up very long. But it feels kind of nice to get it all out of my head and down into words.
