Heartbreak pt.I

    I’m going through a breakup. Well, I’ve gone through a majority of it I guess. I’ve never experienced this before. It’s honestly been a roller coaster of emotions, as cliche as that may sound. Somedays I view him as a villain who never really cared about me. Sometimes I see him as a sweetheart that I just wasn’t meant for. Other days I feel like he was able to get to know me on the surface, but just kind of wound up stuck there. Most days it just hurts. It was a three month relationship, but most of my days were filled with him. Constant texting, a constant thread of thoughts that I didn’t think would end. But it was only three months. Why does it hurt so bad? 

   Those first couple of days I didn’t have an appetite. I ate enough to keep functioning, but it felt like there was no room left in my body. It had become overgrown with grief, yearning, confusion, and frustration. I was caught between wanting to throw up or let my bottom fall out from all of my crying. Maybe that was it. My body was producing so many tears that it forgot to leave room for food. For a long time I couldn’t understand how three months could affect me so deeply, not until I realized that it hadn’t been three months. It began eight months ago (not including the four months of my brooding). That’s when he set his sights on me, or at least that’s when I became aware that he had. It was a day where I had said yes, where a no could have saved me a lot of future heartache. It was the day that I volunteered as tribute. 

   Okay, it was nothing crazy or serious. I just volunteered to help students move into the residence halls. Did we spend much time together that day? No. I actually don’t recall where he was; probably working as per usual. But it was that short conversation, which led to that invitation, which led to more congregation. We slowly but surely began spending more time together, bumping into each other at all of the campus events. We went so far as to join the same organizations, or mostly the same (I’m sure it would be awkward if he had popped up at a Sister Circle meeting). He would walk me to my car, and we’d stand in the parking lot talking, sometimes for half an hour. I had an inkling that he was interested in me, but I didn’t want to acknowledge it. I wanted to savor the idea that I could enjoy spending time with a guy platonically. Mutually. However, he did end up making it known that he wanted to be more than friends, which I had to respectfully decline. I had never been in a relationship, and I did not feel emotionally prepared to be in one anytime soon. 

    We agreed to be friends, though our dynamic exceeded that of a normal friendship. We essentially acted as a couple without the label. He was naturally a gentleman, so that was quite unhelpful in our strictly “just friends” dynamic. I occasionally secretly toyed with the thought that we were a couple, and it didn’t feel bad. I felt at peace with it, though the pressure of a label always seems to find its way in anyhow. We would always discuss our dynamic and how unfriendly our friendliness really was, but it never changed. It was to the point that I was reevaluating our friendship as a whole. Should we even be friends if this is how we’re going to act? Should we just go our separate ways? Selfishly, though, I didn’t want to lose our connection. My first male best friend, who would have thought? 

    Certainly not me. I’ve never been close with males. I’m unsure if it’s due to my family being comprised mostly of women, or some other factor unknown to me. If I’m on good terms with a guy, they keep their distance, which I can respect. However, whenever they want to get close to me, it’s either to date me or for their own hormonal satisfaction. Either way, it’s never been a reality for me, which may explain why I didn’t want to let him go. I mean, he’s a great guy: sweet, intelligent, kind, funny, and so much more. Why say no to that? Now… What if I said yes? A relationship is basically just a more intimate form of a friendship, right? And he’s someone I wouldn’t mind spending the rest of my life with. 

    So I asked him to pop the question. And he did. And we dated. Then it ended. 3 months later.