[EDITOR'S NOTE: This blog post went up, and then came down, went up, came down, and now I'm putting it back up, mostly because I want to have it out of me, and also because I can't imagine that it's going to do any more damage than what has been done. It's a really long one, because I'm the kind of person who has a lot to say when things matter to me. I hope that those who read it do so with an open mind and heart.]
Let me tell you a story.
Oh, gosh. I'm already regretting this.
First let me warn you. This is going to be a long one. Like, a really, really long one. It'll be interesting to see how many people get offended by what I write here, entirely independent of any intention on my part. I'll probably think better of this in a couple of days and take it down, fearing that it'll somehow make things worse. I can't really imagine how that could happen, but whatever. We'll see.
Secondly let me say that these are the events as I remember them. It's possible that I got some of the details wrong, but I'm going to portray them as honestly as I can. The last thing that I want is for someone to think that I put words in their mouth.
Thirdly let me say, I don't really do this often. I'm pretty much assuming that nobody's going to see this, or, if they do, they probably already know me and so know that I'm not one to vent out in the open like this. Otherwise I would never be this detailed. And I'm not doing this to say that anyone wronged me, or that anyone is a bad person, or whatever. I don't have any angry feelings toward any of the major players, and I'm not really even trying to convince anyone to change their minds or the decisions they've made. It's just that this has been a really frustrating situation and it would be nice to get it all written down, just so I can start to get it out of my system and get over it.
Sigh.
So.
So there's this girl. For now, I'll call her * (I'm going to use puncuation marks instead of names for anonymity). I met * a few months back, and didn't really think much of it, to be honest. She seemed cool enough, but I didn't know her very well, and our friend circles didn't really overlap at all, so I didn't see her much at all, and it was no big deal.
Eventually, through mutual friends of friends in the ward, our friend-circles did overlap, and we started hanging out more. We played a board game called Nuns on the Run, which is incredibly fun, I think (although I don't know if * liked it all that much [she claimed she didn't, but it seemed like she might have been enjoying herself while we played, so I dunno]).
She seemed really cool at that point, as I slowly got to know her a bit better. We had a lot of similar interests, it seemed, and we enjoyed each other's company. She even pinned a note to my door at one point (whether it was early morning or late night I don't know, but I believe we had played Nuns on the Run the night before) with a drawing of a nun that said "this nun [hearts] you - it's her secret desire" (if you know how Nuns on the Run works this makes more sense).
That was the first time that I started thinking she might really be interested in me. Before then, we had spent some time together in groups and that was really fun, and we'd had a good time, and I probably thought she was really cool and really pretty, and I probably entertained the idea of asking her out, but I assumed that she wouldn't be interested because, well... I don't mean to sound self-deprecating, but it's just a fact that it's rare for a girl as pretty and cool as she is to be interested in me. It just doesn't happen. So I figured that was the case.
So then she pins this note to my door, which is a rather flirty note, so I decide to step it up a bit. I set up a halloween party where we watched a movie so I could sit with her, sort of testing the waters to make sure I wasn't fooling myself. That seemed to go pretty well, so I decided to ask her out on a date.
I should note here that this all took place over the course of probably a month and a half. Maybe a little more or a little less, but it would have been around that. I was probably over at her apartment at least once a week during that time, maybe two or three times on a good week. Right now I'm just going over the highlights, but there were other things that went on that led me to believe she was interested (sitting next to me at institute or church, whatnot; not that she came out and said "omg ur so hawt" or whatever, it was pretty subtle and subdued [other than that nun note; holy cow that seemed blunt! Pleasantly so, but still], but it was there, it seemed).
So! I asked her on Sunday if she would like to do something on Friday. She said yes, that would be really cool, so I said great, I'll touch base with you later on when I've got it planned out. Good night! and whatnot. I was pretty excited about this.
We actually also made plans for the next weekend to go to the Festival of Lights. That was more of a group thing than a real date, but I was still excited about it.
Anyway, I got everything planned out for our actual date, and it was good to go. Mid-week (Wednesday I think), I was at a show my band had played at and I called her from the alleyway behind the club to make sure we were still on. No answer. I left a message, just wanted to make sure we're still on, if you could call me back that'd be great.
No answer for a while. I went home after the show. Still no answer. I think I texted her after a while, we still on for Friday? Finally I get an answer.
Actually, me and [a guy I'll call ! from now on] are kinda dating now, so we probably shouldn't go out.
Oh man.
That sucks.
You couldn't have been dating for longer than a few days at this point.
Why would you do that?
Who says something like that over a text?
Can't you at least answer your phone?
These are things I was thinking and did not say back to her. I said something like, okay, well, I guess I understand. Thanks for being honest with me about it, at least.
No response. Like, ever.
It actually ended up that neither of us went to the Festival of Lights that year.
As is pretty understandable, I think, I was kinda messed up about this. I mean, not that I was weeping and writing sobby poetry in my diary or whatever, but I was pretty disillusioned. I had thought something cool was about to happen (finally!), and now nothing was going to happen. * was dating !, not me, and that was that. I was a little down for a day or two, and then I forced myself to get over it.
Let me make another note here: I don't have any hard feelings at all over this. I do think it was a pretty lame way to tell me she couldn't go out with me. I think * should have at least answered the phone and told me that way. That would have been courteous. But I assumed she was just in a tough spot, not sure how to handle it without hurting anyone's feelings. Obviously, that wasn't going to happen. I guess I just assumed she didn't know how to handle it, and didn't handle it too gracefully, but who can blame her? Who hasn't done that? I never felt like she wronged me, and I still don't.
Anyway, back to the story. Over the next... oh, what was it? A month, maybe? ! and * started dating in November, and I didn't hear from * again until early to mid December, so maybe about a month. Over the next month, I moved on. I even started looking at dating another girl, who I won't give a silly puncuation-name, because it didn't really go anywhere (although holy wow, there's another, very different story to tell there; we don't have the time right now, though).
Early to mid December, I get a random text message from * in the morning. I miss seeing you around, it said. Wow. Pretty out of the blue, right? She hasn't said a word to me, verbally or otherwise, since that text that said she was dating someone. I answered cautiously, not mentioning ! and just saying that I guess I hadn't been coming around very often. How are you? I asked. We texted back and forth for probably half an hour, catching up on life and school and whatnot. Just like old times.
Half an hour into our conversation she says, So I kinda regret not going on our date. Bam. I was not expecting that. Well yeah, me too, I respond, but it's understandable since you and ! are dating right?She goes on to explain that they won't be dating for much longer, for a variety of reasons that decency won't allow me to go into. Suffice it to say, she wanted to go out on that date with me again.
So here's what I'm feeling:
1. Surprise - holy cow, what? Where is this coming from? I was definitely not expecting anything like this. I mean, like I said, we hadn't spoken since that text, and she had always seemed perfectly content to keep it that way.
2. Annoyance - I'll admit it, I was kind of annoyed at first. I mean, she said yes to a date with me, dropped the plan when ! came along (and did so in kind of a lame way), and then as soon as things start going sour she wants me to jump back in again? Why should I have to say, how high? when she says, jump. Part of me is kinda ashamed of this reaction, and I got over it pretty quick, but again, I want to be honest here.
3. Confusion - so, what is it she's looking for? Is she just looking for a one-time thing? Does she want to try a relationship? That's what I thought we were kinda maybe sorta heading for before, but I didn't know what to think. And what about this other girl I had been kind of going after? At this point, there still seemed to be some potential. Should I just drop that? I wasn't really willing to go after both of them, for fear that it would insult either of them.
I decided to go visit her the next night. Not as a, hey what were you meaning with those texts the other day? sort of visit, just a hanging out thing. That also happened to be the night that she broke up with !, so I heard that whole story (that part was a little awkward; I wasn't sure if I was supposed to hear that, but she didn't ask me to leave when she started talking about it so I didn't). For the next couple of days we texted back and forth, just talking, not really making plans or anything. I was still feeling out what she was up to, trying to decide how to react to the whole situation.
* and I agreed to have lunch. We met at school and had lunch during finals week, a couple of days before we both would be going home for the winter break. It was pretty great. We talked better than we ever had, I felt like, and we went and walked around the book store for a bit (she showed me some of the books she would need for the next semester, and they were pretty cool stuff).
Winter break started, and we went our separate ways back to our home states. The whole time, though (and I mean, pretty much from after that lunch date to... well, till about three days ago) we were texting almost constantly. We would ask eachother how the day was going, what we were up to, how travels were going, how's home?
We talked about other things, too. Like, we talked about our plans for life, what we each wanted to do and how we wanted to affect the world and better it. We talked about our dreams (both in the literal and figurative senses), we talked about our fears (both the silly, irrational ones and the more profound ones). We talked about things that really mattered. To me, anyway.
I even told her that I had never kissed anyone before. That was a big one to me. She was asking me 'Truth or Dare' questions, and one of them was, when was your first kiss? She told me hers, and I told her that I hadn't had it yet. It was a weird moment. I kind of wished that I could lie to her and say it happened whenever and it was no big deal, but I didn't feel right lying about that. I don't know how she reacted to this, really, because it was over text, but she seemed to be okay with it. The next morning she told me about a related dream that she had. For the sake of her privacy I won't divulge the details, suffice it to say that I thought it was rather significant that she had the dream at all, and much more so that she was willing to tell me about it. This was one instance of a time when we told each other things that I considered pretty personal, that I would really only share with someone I was interested in. Maybe that was one of my misreadings of her, I don't know.
Anyway, things seemed like they were going pretty well. We made loose plans to do certain things after we got home, like visit the planetarium together, go to this museum or see that movie or whatever, and I was getting to a point where I was actually thinking this might go somewhere. That was a big thing for me, because, well... things haven't really ever gone anywhere. With anyone. I've never had what I would call a meaningful romantic relationship with a girl. Don't get me wrong, it's not for lack of interest. It's just that every time I'm in a situation where things are going well, something goes wrong. You don't have to tell me that I'm the only common factor of all these situations; believe me, I've told myself that plenty of times.
So let's fast forward a bit, to when we got home from the break. We had still been texting a lot, and things were going just as well as ever. * and I decided to go out and see a show on campus, and before that she showed me her work area at school. It was really awesome, and we both had a great time. Well, I should say that I did. I think she did, too, and she said that she did, so she probably did, but at this point I say who knows what the heck she was thinking. I'm willing to bet that I don't.
So, we decided that we should go out again. We actually had dinner later that next week on Wednesday, after which she came to see my band play on campus. It was pretty great. I really just loved spending time with her doing whatever. In fact, later that night I went over and helped her with her homework. She was sure I'd be bored out of my mind by that, but I wanted to do it anyway because I wanted to spend time with her. Actually, I found all the stuff she was working on really fascinating, but even if it had been skull-numbingly boring I would still have wanted to go, because I just wanted to spend time with her. All I knew is that I was happier when I was around her than I was when I was not around her, so I wanted to be around her.
Here's where the story is going to get complicated and, to me at least, really confusing.
Really frustrating.
And painfully familiar.
We set up another date for that Friday. We went to dinner, which was great (we spent a majority of the time talking about life and making fun of our waiter) and then visited the planetarium, and we had a great time. Oh man, it was so fun. It was definitely one of the best dates I've been on, probably just because she was so fun to be around and we shared this sciency thing that we both loved, and that allowed us to spend time together. She actually told me about a date that her roommates were planning for the next week, and we decided we'd do that too. That night we actually made plans for a few different things we wanted to do together, such as the Festival of Colors in March. This was another sign that things were going really well - she wanted to make plans with me two months in advance. That was good, right?
I'll make a note here that, when she mentioned the Festival of Colors, my mind immediately jumped to the failed promise of the Festival of Lights a while back. But I thought about it more with hope that, this time we'll go, rather than, oh sure that's what you said last time.
Anyway, so this was a great date. On the way home we were talking about a friend of hers who I've met on a couple of occasions, and how this person desperately wants to get married. This flowed into talking about relationships in general.
By this time we've made it to the parking lot.
She tells me that she hates the buildup to a relationship. You're either in one or you're not, and people should just go for it. Yes, it's scary to be so open with your feelings, she says, but it's something you need to do.
Now, as you may have guessed at this point, I was planning on asking her if she wanted to be "dating" eventually. I was planning on doing that sometime in the next month or two. I was definitely not planning on doing it that night.
But when she started talking like that, it made me think that she was hinting that I should ask her and we should be "official." Is that understandable? I feel like that's a natural assumption to make. We just finished an awesome date, and now she's talking about how people should just jump into relationships, and the buildup is something she doesn't like to deal with. Especially when you paint this with how her last relationship looked to me (it appeared to basically start in two days), and how she approached me (she approached me about our date before she even broke up with him). I believe it was only natural for me to assume that she was saying I should ask her to be "dating" me for real.
Before I go on, I'd like to point out that I recognize that I may have observed her past relationship incorrectly. As far as I know, * and ! had had dinner together once before they were dating, and then all of a sudden they were together. Maybe there was more to it than that. I'll also say that I now know that I definitely misinterpreted what she was saying at this point as we were talking in the parking lot. She wasn't hinting at what I thought she was hinting at, so I guess she was just talking. I still think, though, that my interpretation was understandable.
Now, here is where I made the first of what I think were three mistakes.
1. I did not ask her to date me right then.
If I had done that, she probably would have said that she wasn't ready for a relationship and I would have felt very embarrassed for misinterpreting her words. However, if I had done it, we would have talked about it in person and I think the situation would have been easily salvageable. We could have talked it out and discussed our feelings and how we see our situation and, even if we still decided to call things off (which, I'm not certain we would have), we would have still done so as friends.
However, as I said, I wasn't planning on asking her things like that for a while, so when she brought it up (or, when I thought she was bringing it up), it really threw me off guard and scared me a little, so I didn't say anything. I mean, I continued the conversation of course, but I didn't ask about our relationship at all. The date ended very well and I went back home happy, although a little concerned that maybe I should have asked her about that.
I resolved that what I would do is that I would ask her the next day if she would like to do something that night. If she did, then I would have the opportunity to talk to her then, and we could do it in person, and things would be great. If things had worked out that way, by the way, I think we'd still be fine right now.
The next morning I woke up and saw that she had already texted me asking if I was busy that night! What in the world was I supposed to think?! Awesome! She's obviously interested, she wants to know if I want to go on a group date to a movie that night (a sci-fi movie, by the way, because she's cool and likes that kind of thing). Well, she didn't actually use the word date, but that's what it would have been. Of course, I said I would love to.
We actually also made plans to go to the Museum of Art that afternoon, but she had a family engagement that ended up taking longer than expected, so she got home too late and we weren't going to have time to go see the movie. I suggested that we could go to my place and watch a movie there, but before we left a few other guys showed up at her place, and we ended up just talking to them for the evening. Eventually it got late and those guys and I left.
Here's where I made mistake number two, and arguably the biggest of them all.
2. I texted her that night.
Not that texting her was the problem, but here's what happened. I apologized because of how awkward that situation had been (one of the guys who came over had also been crushing on her, and she was not reciprocating but he was pretty persistent, so it was weird). I told her that I had kind of wanted to talk to her more that night.
What about? she says.
Well, I don't really want to do it over text, you know? That's kind of lame, I say.
Well, what is it?
So I tell her. Last night you said this thing that made me think that you wanted me to ask you to be dating, and it kind of caught me off guard so I didn't, but I was thinking maybe I should have, so do you want to date?
After an agonizing time, she texts back. She's not really ready for a relationship right now. She just got out of one, and wasn't ready to jump into another one. I hope you aren't mad, she says.
Of course I'm not mad, I say. I didn't tell her that I was confused and flabberghasted, though. I mean, hadn't she been the one to move on me first? Before she had even broken up with !, no less? She always seemed like she was interested. And then the other night... anyway. I told her that was fine, I understood, I would still like to keep going out with her though.
We should definitely do that, she says, because we have a great time together.
Oh good, I say. I was worried that even bringing this up would freak you out.
No, it takes a lot to freak me out, she says.
:), she says.
Crisis averted.
Right?
I'll see you at church tomorrow?
No response.
I did see her at church the next day, but things were different. Actually, they were really weird. She didn't really talk to me unless I would talk to her. When she did talk to me, because I asked her some question, she would answer me in just the same way as ever, just as happy and nice as ever. But then she wouldn't say anything to me until I talked to her first.
Later on, things got weirder. We went with the group from church to visit the hospital across the street and sing to the patients. We do this every week. We enjoy it. Actually, neither of us really enjoys it, but we do it anyway and we enjoy eachother's company at least.
Same sort of thing. She doesn't talk to me unless I start, but when she does she's just as friendly as ever.
There was one patient though, who kind of broke us out of our funk. He commented on how the two of us sang so strongly despite not having hymn books with us. We thought it was funny because we were really stumbling over the words at some parts (or, at least, I was), and we even shared a fun elbow-nudging as we left his room, grinning. We talked a lot more on the way back from the hospital than we had all the rest of the day.
After that though, we were back to awkwardness. She barely said a word to me the rest of the night. I got the chance to ask a person I'll call & what she thought I should do about it.
& said that I should probably back off a little bit, maybe not ask her to go check out the Museum on Monday like I was planning, give her a little time. & thought that she was a little freaked out because she felt like I was moving too fast.
Moving too fast? Again, she approached me before she broke up with !.
No, it takes a lot to freak me out, she said.
:), she said.
Right.
So I thanked & for her time and support. I really was grateful that she would talk to me and help me out a bit, even if it was just with advice.
Now we come to where I made my third mistake.
3. I did not follow &'s advice to the letter.
Specifically, I did ask * if she'd like to go to the Museum. Now, I seem to remember that & said her "don't ask * to the Museum" bit more like "well, I guess you could if you want, but..." sort of a way. I don't say this to show that she's wrong and I'm right or she led me astray or whatever, not at all, I only mention this to show that there was something there in my mind, a little window, that could be allowed to open. By morning I thought that if I could just do it non-committally enough, it would all be fine.
Hey, what are you up to today? I ask. I was thinking maybe we could go to the MoA later like we were talking about.
After a long while, she says, I was thinking about what we were taking about on Saturday and I don't think we should go on any more dates.
Ouch.
Okay, well, I understand why you might feel that way. I shouldn't have said the things that I did, and I'm sorry. I misinterpreted what you meant, and I thought you wanted me to do that. I wasn't going to have that kind of a conversation for a long time, but I thought you wanted to, so I did. I'm sorry for misinterpreting, but I really think we should talk about this.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
I don't know what you mean. I don't know what I said. We have a great time together but I only saw this as a friend thing.
Hahahaha.
Okay, seriously?
Bull crap.
You came to me while you had a boyfriend and said you wanted to go out with me.
You made me tell you all those personal things that I was okay with telling you because I liked you.
You told me you had a great time on our dates.
You were the one who said you wanted me to write a song for you.
You said you wanted to do all of the things on our 2012 list, which, while it was all mostly in jest, represented to me the idea of us spending time together.
You wanted to go with me to the Festival of Colors.
Just like you wanted to go to the Festival of Lights.
You wrote the nun note that said I was [your] secret desire.
Yes, it said I was the nun's secret desire, but come on.
That's pretty blunt language. You can't say that and not know what it means to me.
These are all the things I wanted so much to say, but I didn't. What good would it do to accuse her? What could it possibly help for me to say, nuh-uh, you totally like me. Even if I was right, at that point she was probably well past admitting it. It was obvious there was not much I could do about it.
Well, if you were never interested in me, I say, then I must have misread a whole lot of things before now. I really want to talk to you in person about this. Can we please? I'd appreciate it a lot. But if not, well, then that's fine I guess. I hope I don't sound angry or anything. This is just a sucky situation, is all.
No response.I was pretty beaten, at this point, and emotionally and physically exhausted. I needed to vent about it to a friend. The two roommates that I can vent to were unavailable, so I went to another friend who lives nearby. I told him about what happened (he knew what had happened up to that morning already), and he let me vent. He said the things that everyone's friends say when something crappy happens. He said things like, girls suck, or girls are lame, or girls are fickle, or whatever. I'm sure girls say the same things about boys when it happens to them. It's not really meant to be the friend's real opinion, it's just supposed to make me feel better.
Of course, it never really works.
Whatever.
I'm going to make a mean note on her Facebook wall, he says. He was just joking around, but I still reacted to it. No way, you can't do that. That's stupid. It doesn't help anything.
He writes something out. It's poorly arranged and sounds kind of stupid, because it was meant as a joke that would not be posted, but it was still something that could be really hurtful if it was read.
No way, man.
Don't you dare post that.
You know I'm not angry at her.
You know what, by the way, my faithful reader? That was true. I wasn't angry at her. I was angry at me, of course, and at the situation, and I was certainly frustrated with her because she wasn't talking to me, but I wasn't angry at all. I was feeling just about everything else, but not angry.
He posts it.
He didn't really mean to, he accidentally clicked it, but he still did it.
He immediately deleted it, but he still did it.
I was furious.
She's going to think that I put you up to that! I shouted.
She's going to think that I was saying things like that!
She's going to think that I'm angry with her, and she's either going to get angry at me, or get really hurt by this, or both!
She won't see it, he says. It was only up there for a moment. I was still seething, but whatever damage would be done was already done. No use shouting about it anymore.
Later on, she texts me again.
No offense, but what [my friend] said was really rude.
No offense? I thought.
Why would I be offended? I agree!
Oh my gosh, I reply, I am so sorry. Please believe that I begged him not to write that. He was just messing around, but it's still terrible. I begged him not to write that. Please don't be angry with me. I am so so so sorry.
No response.
I got the chance to talk to & later on. We both agreed that what my friend had done was absolutely awful (he tells me that he apologized for it, but since * won't talk to me I can't know that for sure), and & berated me for not taking her advice, which I deserved. She said to just back off, if anything happens in the future then that's cool but it might not. She says that * probably wasn't interested in me anyway (which I assume * told her, and therefore the way that I've seen things just makes that sound so bogus), and I should forget about it.
I agree, but I say that I just wish she would talk to me. If we have to end our going out, I'd like to at least do it as friends, rather than... whatever this is.
No response.
This brings us to now.
As far as I can see, * is not going to be speaking to me again in the near future. She might never speak to me ever again. Experience would certainly indicate that that's likely. Who knows, though? Last time we weren't on speaking terms she approached me again.
No, I need to stop thinking that way. Down that road lies only disappointment. I need to forget about it, take my grieving period and move on. This has just been such a colossally frustrating experience, mainly because I feel like I didn't really do anything wrong. I made three mistakes, none of which I really think were that serious. I shouldn't have talked to her over text message, that's true, and that was probably the worst, but I said to her several times I'd rather talk in person. There was the thing my friend did, but that can hardly be counted as my fault. It was in no way my doing.
I just feel like I've lost something big here. I'm not even talking about the potential relationship. I'm really just talking about her friendship. Her friendship is important to me, and it kills me to think that I've lost it again, due to things which felt like they were mostly out of my control.
No, it takes more than that to freak me out.
:).
So how come things got so weird then? I thought we were good. I guess not. I'm not sure what changed between then and the morning, but whatever it was must have been big enough to change her opinion, but not big enough to tell me about.
Huh.
Like I said at the beginning of this gargantuan post, I'm not writing this out to harm anyone's reputation, or to say that anyone has wronged me or hurt me or anything. I'm not doing this to paint myself as the tragic hero or the put-upon sad person. I'm really just writing this out because it's going to hopefully help me cope with it and move on. I doubt she'll see it. I don't think anyone reads this anymore. If she does see it, well... that's fine. I mean, she's not talking to me now, so how could it get worse? Maybe it will help her see my position on this.
I should also note again that this is my recollection of these events. If there's any part that makes her seem like a bad person or like she can't make up her mind or whatever, I recognize why you might think that (I've thought it more than a few times myself), but please don't judge her character from it. I'm sure I could be remembering things wrong, and I'm sure that if she told her side of these events it would come out looking differently. Actually, I'd love to hear her side of these things, but, alas, I don't think I will.
Anyway, if you've made it through all this, I applaud you for your resilience, and I thank you for going through this with me. I hope it helps me out. The wounds are still fresh and red, but give me a couple of days. I'll mope around for a bit, write an angry song that nobody will ever hear, and then pick my head up.
Then I'll see her outside, and the wounds will open up again. But they won't be as deep, and they'll close faster. Then the next time I see her, they'll be more and more shallow, and close quicker and quicker. Maybe in a week or so it won't suck so bad to see her anymore. Who knows.
Again, thanks. I'll probably think better of this in a couple days and take it down, for fear that she'll see it and that'll somehow make things worse. But for now, this is all I've got to say on it. Have a better night than I'm going to have.
Goodbye.
-A
