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hi, Kaila. I just got off the phone with my therapist. She had a very different reaction than I thought she would to me calling him an asshole/idiot; I thought she would be angry with me for sending yet more mixed/hostile signals but she, instead, was calm: “It’s neither here nor there.”
I feel a bit resentful towards her; for the past 3 years, she has been pushing me towards telling him how I felt… not because she wanted me to get crushed, but because she was the only one who ever believed in our connection, that I had been and was still important to him. Today I feel like she and I were both the only ones in the relationship.
As for what he told me that night, I agree with your option “a”. I think he did want to hang out with me (why else would he have picked me up on the street and invited me to have ice cream with him?), I think he was having fun, and I think he did drunkenly say what he was really thinking. His friend even corroborated it last weekend when he told me, “That thing at my house, that was all you guys. I didn’t want you to come.” But, obviously, F thought better of it and backpedaled. It doesn’t really matter why. He wanted to communicate to me that there is nothing between us. He was uncomfortable and made up that crap about his friend so that I could save face and not embarrass the both of us.
I see him differently now. I realize how much I’d idealized him. All of his wonderful qualities. I still love those, but I now also see him an insecure, immature being with low self esteem – why else run after a series of young girls? Yes, yes, we get it, you’re ridiculously handsome, but what about a real woman? An equal, a partner? It’s easier to be seen as a stud when you impress a young girl than by pulling and keeping an accomplished woman. Even if he wanted me, he might not even have been right for me. I want a family, I want a partner. He’s at that stupid bar until 3 in the morning every night. What would my life be like if we were together? I’m certainly not going to be out until 3 every night keeping tabs on him!
I’m telling more and more of my friends that I’m planning on leaving. I even gave my boss my long notice today; I told her that it’s very possible that by the new year I won’t be here any more and she might want to start looking at hiring some new teachers. Both of us started to cry.
Hi, Kaila… welcome back. I hope you had a great time, I hope it was a vacation and that you met interesting people…
Thank you as always for your input. I’m not doing too great right now. I’m more upset, actually, about what I did Saturday night; I think my behavior was childish and tacky. I know that I had been repressing a lot of anger over the way he’s treated me this past summer. The sight of him frolicking with that young waitress in front of me and the way he minimized our fun day sent me over the edge, I guess, but that’s still no excuse. I’m mad that I lost control after having been so good about behaving like an adult even though I felt heartbroken. I was so shocked when I heard that word come out of my mouth! It was the last thing I’d expected to say. I’m afraid that this will kick off another of our cold, horrible periods. Why does this always have to freaking happen – every SINGLE time we have fun together and feel closer, one of us has to wreck it?
Yeah, last night was a total bust, a total missed opportunity. He was there and the waitress was elsewhere, at work so i could have just had a nice fun time with him but instead i completely dropped the ball. I’m so ashamed. I think i really jumped the gun, too; maybe he wasn’t even pretending he didn’t see me. I really lost it. I’m angry and hurt right now but i don’t want to tell him mean things, i want to tell him wonderful things.
My friend didn’t help. She thinks i’m just crazy and see things that aren’t there so having her whisper in my ear, “stop looking at him. Stop dreaming” was not conducive to my well being.
I feel so ashamed of my behavior.
I swing so hard between thinking he cares and tjinking, as all my friends do, that i’m nothing to him.
well, not tonight. tonight was not great. i went to an event, knowing he’d be there working the sound. i’ve been so tied in knots these past few days… i don’t think i realized how angry i was, or, i guess, how much anger i’ve been holding on to since last july when he started pushing me away by being cruel after having let me feel close to him again. When I saw him I had every intention of being friendly and nice, to smile through the pain and keep the status quo, but he passed by me and pretended not to see me! I lost it; i reached out and tagged him and said, “yo!” He stopped and smiled and kissed me on the cheek and to my shock, i muttered: “idiot.”
He looked at me in surprise, but was grinning widely when he said, “Hey!!!!” I grinned, too, and he went back to his soundbooth. I couldn’t believe that word had popped out! I’m so ashamed. Later, he was walking by me again and he smiled at me and tapped me on the arm so it doesn’t seem like he was upset… but i feel like a prize jerk. i’ve been trying so hard for the past few months to hide my pain and anger from him – to be a grown up – and in that one word, my anger came out. I also saw him flirting with some other random trashy looking woman and bring her to his soundbooth with him! What the hell! But I didn’t stop there! I then got drunk and hung out with my guy friends, including one who most people in town think I have something with. I flirted with them openly; something I never do. He was dancing with a friend; so cute. I just kept getting madder and madder at myself. I didn’t engage with him for the rest of the evening (i figured it was wiser, since i was drunk).
On our way out of the bar, we passed F’s drunk friend, the one we “saved” the
other night. I stopped to say hi to him. He said something interesting. He said, “Yeah, the other night when you guys came to my house to make me dinner…. I don’t know what that was about. THat was all you guys, I was fine, I didn’t want you guys to come over.”“Oh, really?” I said. “Because F said it was all about you, that it was what you needed.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said the guy.
“Well, one of you is lying,” I said playfully.
“Then it was probably because…. well, never mind. It’s not important.”
I still feel bad about what I said. It wasn’t classy or grown up. He seemed to be taking it as a joke – anyway, I’m a stupid foreigner, I mix words up all the time – but I still feel embarrassed and bad. Then again, he’s been such a jerk to me so many times in the distant and recent past…
Whatever.
By the way? I don’t even know his stupid drunk friend. Why the hell would he need both of us to “save” him? That guy is a career drunk. A stupid plate of pasta isn’t going to save him. He meant to tell me that he bumped into me on the street that afternoon and asked me to get gelato with him was all destined to help this guy I don’t even know?
In one fell swoop, he reduced the whole fun day to nothing. Maybe that’s what it’s always been to him – nothing. Maybe it’s just time to face the fact that I’ve been dreaming alone for five years.
One thing I am glad about, though, is that I tried to get up the nerve to ask, anyway. And – I know it might sound strange – but I’m glad I let him see that I was upset and disappointed. I usually work hard to hide my feelings from him, and ever since that crap with his ex last July, I’ve been swallowing my heartbreak to keep our relationship consistently friendly. But the other night I let him see that he can affect me negatively. That he can hurt me. I don’t think he’s ever known that.
They don’t know about this, they don’t speak English. Penelope is a common enough name here.
I tried to ask him to dinner but he cut me off at the pass before I could even ask him. I tried to use what he’d said about our fun, unexpected encounter on Monday being destiny and fate as a jumping off point but he claimed that he’d been talking about his drunken friend, who needed us to rescue him from a bad mood.
I’m left, as always, wondering if I’m crazy.
He didn’t even let me ask.
Penelope is the name I use here; Penelope, the wife of ulysses who waited for him to return for 20 years even when everyone in her life told her he was dead and she was crazy….
Well, I guess I am crazy after all. I did try to talk to him. I decided to use his final words to me as a jumping board to invite him to dinner at my house. After all, what else could he have meant by “life is strange, we didn’t run into each other today by chance, it was destiny, and it was really needed. you know what I mean. it’s something between you and me. do you understand what I’m talking about?”? I didn’t dare to hope for anything romantic behind his words, but at the very least I thought he meant that he’d had as much fun with me that night as I had had with him and that he’d be open to having dinner with me at my place.
There was a concert. He was happy to see me; he brought up our crazy night a few times: “You and I opened the fifth portal Monday night! We visited the seventh dimension!”, but he was flirting hardcore with the 25 year-old waitress. I started to feel heartsick and ridiculous but I made myself talk to him anyway. I said, “Hey, listen… I was thinking about what you said at the end of the other night about destiny and nothing happening by chance and I agree with you and I’d hate for it to take another 5 years before we -”
“Rescued someone?” he said. I was completely confused.
He said that his spiel about destiny and nothing happening by chance was about his friend, who had been having a bad day and needed “Rescuing.”
As you can imagine, my face dropped. He said, “why, what did you think I was talking about?” I said, “I was clearly mistaken.”
He said, “Oh, I think I knew what you meant…. well, anyway, yeah, life is strange, the situation was strange, but all the events happened and contributed to that one end.”
I said, “If you had told me that morning that you were going to cook me dinner at that guy’s house I’d have said -”
He interrupted me: “Unlikely!”
“Impossible,” I said. “It had been five years since I’d had your cooking…”
“Yeah, well, don’t forget, I’m the best chef in town!”
I think I looked upset because he reached out and rubbed my arm reassuringly. Then he turned to talk to someone else. I wished everyone a good night and went home. I passed him on the way out of the parking lot and said goodnight one more time, cheerfully, so that he didn’t think I was sulking. I noticed he was leaving alone on his scooter; the waitress was heading to her car with another guy. He told me, “I’m going to go make two [didn’t understand what he said] and go home!” Great.
I drove home myself. Burst into tears as soon as I got in the door.
Business as usual. Picking up the pieces as usual.
Oh, two random things:
While F and I were chatting with his friend, the bar owner came over to sit with us. The bar owner said, “Oh, F is such a great guy. But he can’t have women. He has no clue how to keep them.” F just kind of laughed it off but I thought it was an odd thing for the bar owner to say.
While F and I were at his friend’s house, the friend was getting drunk and kept forgetting my name (my real one, that is). And randomly, he called me Penelope!
Thank you so much for being so kind and supportive, Kaila. I’ve been trying to do what you suggested – taking care of me first and foremost. I’ve just booked a trip to Milan with some friends for the Expo and I’ve been buying a lot of new clothes and getting rid of old ones. I’ve been sleeping a lot and just kind of keeping to myself. I think I’m really starting to accept that he moved on a long time ago and now only sees me as a friend; that I most likely magnified his positive attentions towards me and any weirdness probably had nothing to do with me.
That said, he and I had a totally random, totally unexpected encounter tonight. I was feeling upset since yesterday afternoon because a friend told me that he had seen him rollerblading with “some woman… not his ex”. But today I ran into him on the street and after we had clowned around a bit, he asked if I wanted to go have a gelato with him. We ended up going to our favorite bar and getting wasted together, along with a friend of his who I hate but finally made peace with tonight.
The waitress was hanging out with us and he was flirting with her a lot. She is very sweet and very, very young – even younger than his ex (who is 13 years younger than him). At one point, after we were all pretty wasted, he insisted we go have dinner at his friend’s house. He, his friend (my former enemy) and I went to the friend’s house and F made us dinner. Had you told me this morning that F would cook me dinner at my former enemy’s house I would have said you were insane. It made me feel nostalgic for the times F came to my house and cooked me dinner. Over the pasta I said to him, “life is strange.”
After we ate we all went back to the bar and drank and hung out with various people until 3 in the morning. I’m almost positive he went home with the waitress. I don’t love it, I feel a bit sad thinking about it now, but I’m not devastated. She was very sweet but she doesn’t have much to say that’s interesting; maybe that’s really his type.
It was a warm, fun, friendly encounter. He did say something that I liked: as I was saying goodnight to him (the waitress and some other people were next to him) I thanked him for having kidnapped me on the street and for having shown me a really random unexpected evening. Someone interrupted me and F said, “Quiet! She’s laying down some real truth here!”
I asked, “What do you mean?”
And he said, “Tonight. What you were saying earlier about life being strange. But, you know, everything happens for a reason. And I think tonight was long overdue/what we needed” (translating roughly)
One of the people next to us said, “What do you mean?”
F said, “She knows exactly what I mean. It’s… it’s between us.”
Well, whatever he meant, he was flirting with the waitress all night long and most likely took her home. Perhaps mild flirting with me? Smiling at me warmly a lot. No… better not to go down that road. I don’t love that he was flirting with her in front of me but… well, I guess that just helps hit home that he only sees me as a friend. Which I think I can finally accept.
there’s this little voice inside me… maybe that’s my gut. i used to trust it; i no longer do. or at least i don’t want to. throughout these past 5 years, no matter how bad things seemed – when he stopped responding to my calls, when he was seeing his ex, when we ignored each other in public for a year, when he was interacting with me but still seeing her – that little voice always said, “it’s not over. there was and will be something important between you.” i spent three years in therapy learning how to trust my instincts (that he had feelings for me) and take responsibility for my actions (my hot and cold mixed signals in the past and in the present; his reaction to my behavior). But now it all feels like a lie. now i see his actions towards me these past two years (since we reconnected) as him only enjoying my company. I even re-read my original post here and want to cry from humiliation; it seems obvious to me now that he was just being friendly and never wanted anything deeper.
so i want to write him off. but there’s still that little voice inside of me. it doesn’t say “he’s the one” or “it’s not over” anymore (or maybe it does but i refuse to listen to it). instead it says, “this is a mistake.” As in, it’s a mistake to write him off without talking to him. So I’ll talk to him. I even think I know what I’ll say. But as I said before, I just don’t know when.
i’m on the long road out of here. i’ve decided that as soon as i find a job i’m gone. my belief in love/destiny has been shattered; at least let me have a shot at a career. San Francisco, I think.
my friends are very upset. They say, “you’re being an idiot. you live rent free here. a man is not a reason to leave a country and uproot your whole life.” Technically, they’re right – you don’t move after every break up to start over. But I was here because of him. Five years of my life spent so completely sure that he was the love of my life. If I stay, I’ll never be able to move on – even when we do have that big conversation and he rejects me, even if I start seeing someone else. Everything reminds me of him.
I haven’t told my friends and family back home yet. I can’t bear to get their hopes up prematurely.
Maybe I haven’t lost all faith in romantic love; otherwise I guess I’d have accepted the first proposal I got (i’m very fortunate; a lot of men want a shot with me).
The talk is coming, yes, of course. I understand that I need to do it. The when is trickier. As you know, I don’t have his number or a way to contact him. I rely on luck to find him. And right now, I feel like I need to be closed off to him because I don’t want to trust him again, nor do I want to turn to putty when I see him smile (as I do). Last weekend I saw him at a bar – talking to some whore I didn’t recognize – and I pretended I didn’t see him (only because it was possible; my back was to him). On my way out of the bar, I waved and said hi as I passed. He smiled back goofily. I’m sure he thought (or feared) that I’d stop to talk. I did not. I’m through chasing him. I know I made a lot of mistakes in the past, but I feel like I’ve busted my can this past year trying to show him that I care and create opportunities for us to interact. He knows where to find me. When he wants, he’s perfectly capable of trying to get my attention. At the moment, he is not reaching out. So the talk is coming, but I don’t know when.
hi, kaila… thanks so much for checking in! Nothing really new to report. My trip home was emotional; I was feeling very depressed about my life and about him, but very displaced at the same time. I’ve been back for almost two weeks now; also very emotional. I was dreading seeing him. We finally interacted a couple of days ago. It was fine. He was happy to see me and in a good, silly mood. But I think I’ve finally accepted – though it has been very hard – the fact that he simply doesn’t return my feelings and perhaps never did. I find that I haven’t been trying to read more into our encounter. He was happy to see me and that’s it.
I’m numb for the most part (100% protective mode, as you noted a while back) but I guess underneath I’m still pretty confused about what happened. When I got back, I was planning on showing him a different Penelope; a nice, polite Penelope behind a shut door. I don’t want to give him the opportunity to let me feel close to him and then shut me out again. Which is always what happens. But when I saw him the other night, I was shocked by how easy it was to be nice to him. As soon as he smiled at me… I didn’t feel angry any more (and trust me, I’ve been very upset for weeks now). My friend later told me that when he watched me interacting with F from afar, he could see that I was giggly and acting girly. That was not the plan and I’m annoyed with myself. But I guess it’s a process.
My therapist has warned me about “writing him off” – she says that talking to him is essential because I really don’t know what happened. I know she’s right.
