Thursday, March 23, 2006
The Other Shoe Has Fallen
33 days.
And it all stops here.
Me and Shadra are done. We had that talk yesterday. We're not dating anymore, but we're hopefully still friends. I'm surprisingly optimistic about that.
And I saw it coming. Yesterday, at about 12:39pm, just before my history final, I composed a text message that I was very very tempted to send her. It said "Unless I'm reading things wrong- in which case you should call me a moron and smack me-you're done with this thing between us. Y/N?"
I ended up convincing myself to just wait till I was done with my final, and then take things from there. So I sent the message to myself instead of her.
After my final, I was feeling much less stressed, and much more optimistic. So I decided to give it another shot and ask her to lunch with me. I called her, and we ended up having lunch. After lunch, we headed over to the Emerald office for a while. Later, walking back from the office to my place, it was kinda awkward between us. She was really quiet the whole time. And that set me off. Things have NEVER been awkward between us. Never. So I thought that was weird.
She suggested that we hang out at my place for a while, so we came up to my room. I closed the door and she sat down on my bed. "So I need to talk to you," she said.
That's when I knew. We were done. "You're done with this whole thing aren't you?" I said.
And then it all came out. It'd be way too much to type here, so in summation, I'll just say that she wasn't comfortable being emotionally connected with a girl in a relationship like this. She said the exact same thing had happened with the last girl she kinda dated. She'd been totally fine with things at the beginning, when it had all been just a physical attraction, and they were just physically involved. But when Shadra realized that she was beginning to see more in the situation than just a physical element, she stopped being comfortable with the physical part of it.
As in, once she starts getting emotionally involved, somehow she's no longer comfortable with being physically involved. And she said she felt obligated to tell me because right from the start, we'd made a pact to be up front with each other all the time, and she'd promised to tell me if she wanted to stop doing this.
She was actually surprised that I wasn't more upset. Because she said her ex had been pretty upset when she'd broken the news to her.
And I've spent the last 12 hours thinking about that. Why aren't I devastated? I'm disappointed for sure. And kinda upset. But I've still got it together. And weighing this against how strong my feelings for her were-- and still are-- why aren't I more upset.
I finally figured it out. I'm not more upset because there's absolutely nothing I regret about this entire situation. I think it's the healthiest relationship I've ever immersed myself in, and the neatest breakup. I'm happy with the way I handled everything. I gave it my best effort, made her see that I liked her, made myself understand WHY I liked her, showed her all of me-- the good and the bad-- and was honest with her the whole time. We didn't play games, I never hid anything from her. I was always straight up with her, and in turn she was always straight up with me.
She's made me feel emotions that I haven't felt for another person in recent history, and I did things for her that I've never done for anyone else. But when it comes down to it all, we tried to make it work, and it didn't. Maybe she's straight. Whatever it is, I have absolutely no regrets about any aspect of the situation. If I had to do it all again, I'd do it in exactly the same way. And that's just it: I'm not torn up about it because I'm not playing "what-if" games in my own head. I gave her me. The best part of me, and it wasn't enough. So that's that.
I played my hardest. And I lost. But there's nothing to be ashamed of in an honorable defeat, so you accept the loss and move on. And live to play again another day.
And from her, I learned that it is possible to find someone that you connect with. It is possible to find someone who's enough like you that you communicate the same way, and approach relationships the same way. The only problem with us is that she's not gay.
After she told me, the awkwardness was gone. And we lay on the carpet in my room, just talking, for two hours. The magic was back. The connection was still there, but in a different way. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have feelings for her anymore, because I still do. And I think she understands that too.
But at the same time, we both realize that it's more important now to keep this connection going and to preserve the friendship. She kept saying that she still wants to see me, still wants to hang out with me. None of the awkward, "Uh now that we're not dating, let's take a break from each other so that we can freeze out what remaining feelings there are." She's still gonna drive me to Portland on Tuesday to catch my flight to Telluride.
At about 8pm, I went off to have dinner with Sarah, and she went to a dinner date with her friend. In my garage, she hugged me before we parted and told me to call her after I turned in my fucking thesis on Friday so that we could go celebrate.
She's not shutting me out. Things ended as neatly as they started, no loose ends, no animosity. There's nothing about the situation that I could possibly be bitter about.
And it all stops here.
Me and Shadra are done. We had that talk yesterday. We're not dating anymore, but we're hopefully still friends. I'm surprisingly optimistic about that.
And I saw it coming. Yesterday, at about 12:39pm, just before my history final, I composed a text message that I was very very tempted to send her. It said "Unless I'm reading things wrong- in which case you should call me a moron and smack me-you're done with this thing between us. Y/N?"
I ended up convincing myself to just wait till I was done with my final, and then take things from there. So I sent the message to myself instead of her.
After my final, I was feeling much less stressed, and much more optimistic. So I decided to give it another shot and ask her to lunch with me. I called her, and we ended up having lunch. After lunch, we headed over to the Emerald office for a while. Later, walking back from the office to my place, it was kinda awkward between us. She was really quiet the whole time. And that set me off. Things have NEVER been awkward between us. Never. So I thought that was weird.
She suggested that we hang out at my place for a while, so we came up to my room. I closed the door and she sat down on my bed. "So I need to talk to you," she said.
That's when I knew. We were done. "You're done with this whole thing aren't you?" I said.
And then it all came out. It'd be way too much to type here, so in summation, I'll just say that she wasn't comfortable being emotionally connected with a girl in a relationship like this. She said the exact same thing had happened with the last girl she kinda dated. She'd been totally fine with things at the beginning, when it had all been just a physical attraction, and they were just physically involved. But when Shadra realized that she was beginning to see more in the situation than just a physical element, she stopped being comfortable with the physical part of it.
As in, once she starts getting emotionally involved, somehow she's no longer comfortable with being physically involved. And she said she felt obligated to tell me because right from the start, we'd made a pact to be up front with each other all the time, and she'd promised to tell me if she wanted to stop doing this.
She was actually surprised that I wasn't more upset. Because she said her ex had been pretty upset when she'd broken the news to her.
And I've spent the last 12 hours thinking about that. Why aren't I devastated? I'm disappointed for sure. And kinda upset. But I've still got it together. And weighing this against how strong my feelings for her were-- and still are-- why aren't I more upset.
I finally figured it out. I'm not more upset because there's absolutely nothing I regret about this entire situation. I think it's the healthiest relationship I've ever immersed myself in, and the neatest breakup. I'm happy with the way I handled everything. I gave it my best effort, made her see that I liked her, made myself understand WHY I liked her, showed her all of me-- the good and the bad-- and was honest with her the whole time. We didn't play games, I never hid anything from her. I was always straight up with her, and in turn she was always straight up with me.
She's made me feel emotions that I haven't felt for another person in recent history, and I did things for her that I've never done for anyone else. But when it comes down to it all, we tried to make it work, and it didn't. Maybe she's straight. Whatever it is, I have absolutely no regrets about any aspect of the situation. If I had to do it all again, I'd do it in exactly the same way. And that's just it: I'm not torn up about it because I'm not playing "what-if" games in my own head. I gave her me. The best part of me, and it wasn't enough. So that's that.
I played my hardest. And I lost. But there's nothing to be ashamed of in an honorable defeat, so you accept the loss and move on. And live to play again another day.
And from her, I learned that it is possible to find someone that you connect with. It is possible to find someone who's enough like you that you communicate the same way, and approach relationships the same way. The only problem with us is that she's not gay.
After she told me, the awkwardness was gone. And we lay on the carpet in my room, just talking, for two hours. The magic was back. The connection was still there, but in a different way. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have feelings for her anymore, because I still do. And I think she understands that too.
But at the same time, we both realize that it's more important now to keep this connection going and to preserve the friendship. She kept saying that she still wants to see me, still wants to hang out with me. None of the awkward, "Uh now that we're not dating, let's take a break from each other so that we can freeze out what remaining feelings there are." She's still gonna drive me to Portland on Tuesday to catch my flight to Telluride.
At about 8pm, I went off to have dinner with Sarah, and she went to a dinner date with her friend. In my garage, she hugged me before we parted and told me to call her after I turned in my fucking thesis on Friday so that we could go celebrate.
She's not shutting me out. Things ended as neatly as they started, no loose ends, no animosity. There's nothing about the situation that I could possibly be bitter about.
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