a quick rant

By Gigi_GNR · Apr 18, 2015 ·
  1. I know I've posted in the unhappy thread - and even started a new thread - about heartbreak, but I feel the need to rant a little right now about weird feelings, and this is the place for it. I've posted a little about what happened, and I'll probably make another blog entry detailing fully what happened, but basically I'll quote my post from the heartbreak thread here:

    In September, I transferred to my current college after the first year spent at home and going to the smaller college near my high school. This has been my first (and only - I signed an apartment lease two weeks ago, WHOOO :D) year in the dorms, and honestly, this year has been an incredible one for me and my life. My relationship with my parents has never been good and getting away from home in a more permanent sense has really made me come out of my shell and has reduced my S.A.D., depression, anxiety and OCD in major, major ways. It was actually the first winter that I spent not depressed or terrified of falling in a hole.

    Anyway, I won't go into terrible detail here, but basically I really connected with this guy last semester, we both opened up, shared a lot between each other, I got to know the real him that he told me he's scared to let others see, we started flirting and hooking up and everything was really great, and then he called it off, said he didn't want "things to change between us" and started sleeping with some other girl, and it broke my heart. I basically told him - yesterday, actually, after a month of deliberation and trying to be friends again - that I couldn't be his friend anymore because of it. I don't understand anything about where his head is at, and I don't get how he could see what we had and not want to continue it, or not see what we had in the first place.


    It's been a month since I started that thread and 2 months since the shit all hit the fan, and over 3 weeks since I talked to him last, and honestly, I'm in a much better place emotionally than I was 2 months ago, or even a month ago, or even three weeks ago. I still see him on campus or in the dorms - it can't be helped, we live literally across the hall from each other - but it's pretty rare. I don't think we're avoiding each other; I know I'm trying purposely NOT to avoid him, because I don't want him to have any more effect on me living my life than he already had when he broke my heart.

    I don't feel as affected by this as I was. And honestly, I can say that I'm over a large part of it. I'm not in love with him anymore, I'm not actively stressed or upset about it anymore, I'm not thinking about it like I used to when it all happened, trying to find a way to make it all work out. I genuinely do feel better, and I've been doing things for myself, doing fun stuff with my friends, working on my life, making sure that I realize that I have a life outside of him, and that I've made a lot of friends here, and that there's been amazing things that have happened to me in these dorms in these past 8 months that had nothing to do with him, and that I have an apartment, and a new job, and potentially another new job, and that school is done soon, and that I'm going on a cross-country road trip with my best friend in August, and that life is still good and it was good before him and good during him (not just because of him) and good after him. And honestly.... I do feel like I've moved on - far, far more than how I felt in February by a long shot, and more than how I felt in March.

    And I really, really don't regret telling him we couldn't be friends anymore. Honestly, I feel so glad that I did tell him that, in late March. Because in early March, I was still ass-over-elbows for this guy, and I thought, hey, the bottom dropped out from under me so suddenly, and what they have seems to be casual, so maybe if I stick around, he'll stop going around with her and realize I'm still an option! I know, I know, that's fucking stupid and awful and even then I think I knew that, I knew that I shouldn't settle for being some kind of back-up plan, and I knew that it was stupid to hold out for something that, for all I knew, he had shut the door forever on and not just "for now" on... but he was (is? I still care about him, and respect him for the most part, even though we don't talk anymore) one of my best friends, and the first person I fell in love with, and he was - and is, I still do believe this - a good guy, so maybe, maybe, maybe. I mean, after all, the bottom dropped out from under me with basically no closure, so who the fuck knew, right? But this whole time, he was still hanging out with her. Still sleeping with her. I don't know how often and I don't know how casually - I know they were casual and I know that they're casual still, but I don't know the finer details and honestly, I both don't care and really don't want to know, because it won't help anything - but he was.

    And in mid-March and late March, he and I were still talking, because I was in this weird headspace of trying to get over him while also maintaining a friendship, because I both a) realized "us" wasn't happening right now, and wouldn't for a while, b) We would have conversations that were... god, so fucking weird. Because I would talk to him, and suddenly it would feel like nothing had changed, like it was still so fucking easy to talk to him, and we would shoot the shit in person in the hall and over text and it felt normal, but also so... not. Because we weren't flirting anymore, and I missed that, but also because our conversations felt normal, but they also felt stilted, like we had suddenly been reset back somewhere between close friends and acquaintances. We would have these conversations, but it felt so weird, because they were both easy to have and yet they felt meaningless, like conversations you would have with a new friend. So not only were we not flirting, we weren't having our old deep conversations about anything anymore, either. And we had gone from texting multiple times a day to maybe twice a week. In essence, not only had I gone from being with someone I really liked (which I could have gotten over) to nothing, it felt like I went from being close friends with this person to nothing at all, or like I was being held at arm's length. And it was that duality that I couldn't deal with.

    I realized that I needed space, because of that duality. Because on the one hand, there were the romantic feelings, and on the other hand, there were the friendship feelings. I never expected us to be in a relationship, and I made sure during the entirety of everything that I was okay with that, and that I wasn't asking for more than he was prepared to give. And I didn't, and I wasn't, and I thought I could handle all of it, I really did. I never felt entitled to his feelings - and I still don't, honestly, I never would - but at the same time, hanging out with him, knowing full well he was sleeping with someone else, felt like a punch to the face every time. Because I would see him and still feel this complicated mixture of want and affection and anger and betrayal and sadness, and I wanted to maintain our friendship for both those reasons and for sheer friendship's sake, but I couldn't handle knowing that we had what we had, that trust and that deeper knowledge of each other and that attraction and that tension and all of it, and that he wasn't acting on it, and that he was sleeping with someone else. I couldn't handle that. I knew I needed space, because I knew that I wanted to still be friends with him for friendship's sake, but that there was still a part of that that wasn't at all altruistic, and that I couldn't be around him without still wanting him and still hoping for something, anything.

    But on the other hand, I knew I needed space because I felt so taken for granted as a friend. I mean, all feelings aside, I had been nothing but honest with this guy from day one. I had been an open book and he had opened himself up to me in turn and I asked him to be honest with me, back when this whole arrangement started, and that that was my only requirement, and he agreed and told me he would be, and then he wasn't. He had issues from before the semester started - at least, that's what he told me when shit hit the fan, and I'm inclined to believe him because he had no reason to lie, and because I could drive myself crazy thinking up possible other reasons when that sounds like an honest answer, and because if he lied again about the reasons it would just be yet another thing to make me angry - and he never told me, and then he pulled the rug out from under me instead of talking through his issues and respecting me enough to tell me to my face, all because he's conflict-avoidant. Which... I understand, to an extent. I mean, when I was a kid, and I fucked up, I would avoid telling my parents, not because I didn't respect them, but because I didn't want them to think badly of me and because I wanted the good things to continue instead of it causing a rift between us, but of course it only caused a bigger rift and made them angrier. So I get why he wouldn't have told me at first, but at the same time... I deserve more respect than that. And that's the kind of behavior I pulled as a fucking child, not as a college student who... maybe doesn't know everything, but should be more emotionally mature than that. So I get it, and it's understandable, but that doesn't make it okay. And okay, to stop flirting with me and sleep with some other girl without telling me... yeah, that's shitty. And yes, he should have told me, and he told me that he knew he should have told me, because we had a FWB arrangement, sure, but it was an exclusive FWB arrangement. But I would have gotten over that a lot easier if the friendship didn't also shatter alongside that. I would have gotten over being dropped like that if he had told me instead of pulling the rug out from under me. I would have been hurt, and I would have been sad, and I would have had to have some space, probably, but our friendship would have been intact, and I would have respected that he told me and was honest when I asked him to be. There would have been hurt feelings, but in time I would have been more okay, because our friendship isn't some consolation prize.

    But it suddenly also felt like he wasn't my friend anymore, either. Or that he was putting me into a clearly labeled box of his own choosing and expecting me to go along with it. He clearly wanted me to still be his friend, and he clearly cared about me enough to make some kind of effort to be my friend still, but it felt like he was closing me off, putting me into this box and keeping me there. Mid-March, I was still talking to him, but I felt like I was hurting and he was clearly over it, or pretending to be over it, because he would act like there was nothing wrong, and that we were still the best of buddies, and I couldn't deal with that either. A friend who I had considered to be a really close friend had lied to me, and here he was acting like our friendship was still the same as ever, like things were hunky-dory even though it had been only a few weeks since this had all happened. From a romantic standpoint, I couldn't deal with that, but even from a friend standpoint, it felt like he wasn't putting in any effort for the friendship, either. Things felt like he was trying to push them back to being normal, but he was barely even texting me in a friendly way, and we weren't hanging out like we used to, either. I just... I started feeling like I was being pushed along on his schedule. Like, he was conflict-avoidant and he knew he made a mistake, but he was trying to heal the mistake as quickly as possible, or push it under the rug, and have his cake and eat it too. Honestly, that's what it felt like - like he was trying to find a way to have both this girl fucking him and me being his best friend and emotional support at the same time. Not intentionally; nothing he said felt actually manipulative, and he's definitely not that type of guy, so I know that whatever he was doing, it wasn't an intentional thing. But regardless of intent, I felt like I was being pushed along on his emotional timeline and that he was ready for things to go back to normal, and I couldn't fucking be normal then. I was trying to get over romantic feelings while also trying to rebuild a friendship with trust, and here he was, both acting like our friendship was okay and also fucking this other girl and expecting me to just go along with it, and I couldn't fucking deal with it either way. I felt like I was being stepped on, walked all over, so I told him goodbye.

    And honestly, that was a brilliant move. It really was. I know that if I hadn't told him that, and if we were still "friends" right now, I would either not be over my feelings the way I am, or that I would be both resenting him, hating this other girl (who I know nothing about), and hating myself because I would be feeling like I was being walked all over. I'm over a lot of my feelings now and in a better place precisely because I told him that I couldn't do it, and I'm glad that I did. I will never regret that decision. Because I didn't feel prioritized. I felt like I was prioritizing our friendship and him in my life, while he wasn't prioritizing me, or worse, was prioritizing this thing with the other girl over our friendship.

    But basically, what I wanted to make this post about was.... none of this actively bothers me anymore. That is to say, I don't feel about it the same way I did in February, or in March, where it was very consuming and something I worried about near-constantly, because I was heartbroken on multiple levels and hurt and I wanted a lot of things. I'm not actively upset about this stuff anymore. But I'm still passively upset, in some ways, meaning... you know when you look back, years later, on something that went wrong, and you get upset about it again? You're not actively upset in the way you were, but you're still passively upset about how things turned out? And it isn't strong or all-consuming but there's still a part of you that thinks, what the fuck? Why did that happen the way it did?

    I feel like a fucking psycho for letting this affect me this way - I'm not hurt the way I was, and now if I think about it, it's more because of the still-proximity (there's a month left of school and dorm life) than anything else, really, so I'm not still upset about this the way I was, but there's still those kernels of passive upset-ness. Which is probably normal, and I know I'm in a healthier place mentally than I was a few months ago, but there's still a bit of me that thinks, "geez, what the fuck, why did it end up like this?" And honestly, most days I'm okay. People change, things change, shit happens, it wasn't my fault. He said so, I know so, no one else thinks it was my fault here. That helps. And this isn't going to affect my grades or how I view this semester or dorm living as a whole, because life has gone on and continues to go on outside of him or my feelings about him, whatever they are at the time, and the future is bright, and I know that too. I'm not hung up on this the way I used to be, but parts of it still frustrate me to some extent, and I've been trying to think of why that is.

    I think a huge part of it is because this is the 2nd semester of college. Last semester, if this had all happened then, at least I would have the security of knowing there was another few months of the same old, same old. But because this semester is ending, and our friendship is either ended or up in the air if we ever speak again, it feels like things are all ending and the security of having this dorm environment and these people close to me in this particular way isn't there anymore.

    And another huge part of it is because I can't really... the thing that gets me is the thought that I'm not as important to him as he was to me. That's what's lingering. And I don't get that. I don't. I don't measure my self-worth by other people, and honestly, if he hates me now or doesn't think of me, it's not gonna wreck me. It'll sting, but it won't destroy me. But all the same, that's a hell of a sting. I mean... the first night we met, we talked for hours. We built up this great intimate friendship before we started hooking up, and he was (is?) one of the people I'm the most glad I met here, still after all this. And I may be over it, and getting over it, but that doesn't mean I don't still think of him fondly or respect him. And I'm not looking to be his friend again, at least not for months, and I know I would be okay with not being his friend again - honestly, I'm past the point where that sounds devastating to me. But I'm not okay with him feeling those feelings. It's so fucking weird. I know I would be okay with not being his friend, but the idea that he would also be okay with that is kind of hurtful. Which is so stupid, but I can't... there are times when I can't stand the thought of this other girl meaning more to him than I did, or do. And sometimes it drives me crazy that I don't know what he thinks of me anymore, or what he thinks of her. I don't know if I've gone down in his estimation, I don't know if things would ever be the same, I don't know if she's now "one of the coolest girls" he's ever met, like he told me, and that now I'm a memory. I can't stand the idea of our friendship becoming nothing more than a blip. I mean, it's not like we dated or knew each other for very long, but he's an important chapter in my life, and the idea that he'll be one for me, but that I could fade into a blip for him, that drives me up the fucking wall. That when he looks back on his college experience, I may not even be in it. And I don't know.

    But mostly I think this still bothers me because... there was really no closure. I mean, things dropped out from under me really suddenly, and to be honest, I still don't know why. He told me it was his fault, and that "things would have changed between us" and that it wasn't a comparison between me and her - and I believe him, he's not the type to mince words and at this point he had nothing to lose by lying, anyway - so I have no idea if it was because it was easier to fuck someone he knew for three weeks as opposed to someone he had known and grown pretty close with over the course of months, I don't know if it's because he liked her better than me, I don't know what any of the reasons really are, and honestly when we were talking it all over and I was asking him why, he didn't know either, because he's impulsive, and bad with relationships, and didn't think, and now we're not talking anymore, and I just.... I mean, at this point I'm okay either way. I know I'll be okay if we never talk again, and I'm honestly not holding out for it or hoping for it, because I know I have other friends and I'll make new ones and there will be other people to fall in love with (and honestly, I'm not in love with him anymore, and I wouldn't be looking for that either), but... he was (is?) important to me. We clicked hard in all the ways. I don't want us to end a friendship this way.

    I'm not actively bothered by any of this anymore - it sounds like I am, I know, but honestly, this isn't something I think about often anymore. It's just... it's a mess, and it's a mess that crashed and burned so suddenly after looking so solid for so long that I don't know what to do about it. It would have been better, I think, if we had dated. At least that way I would know why things ended and would have had a chance to properly test things out before ending it or having it ended on me. This way, there's no closure. Shit happened and I just have no idea.

    I'm in a much more positive frame of mind, I feel, than this post suggests, but this is just something I needed to get out.

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