DISCLAIMER: You know who you are, read this at your own discretion.
So much energy, I want the other person to just give up and say I’m a freak so I can try to live alone.
Even if the truth is that I don’t want to live alone.
Today, I had a painful conversation with someone I consider to be my friend over this guy I’ve been seeing that I met with online dating. I liked him, he’s pretty cool and what not, but I just don’t feel it’s going to work out. And its him, really, not me, for once for sure this time.
Firstly, I felt like she wasn’t exactly being attentive to the conversation, as I was hurting pretty badly and just barely holding it together. Maybe she was dealing with something else across the country, since we were instant messaging. Maybe I was in heartbreak bullet time and she was on normal time–whatever, I’m not going back to look at the time stamps on the IMs. Hopefully, it wasn’t knitting, a second conversation, and “True Blood” slowing her down (I don’t think she’s that insensitive, I owe her that much credit). Whatever the case, I felt like her responses were lethargic.
At first the conversation was okay. I was hesitant to talk to her about it because even she admits that she has little to no tact and I was really trying to hold the pain back. But I couldn’t think of who else to talk to.
I told her, and I meant it, that I think I was actually doing better before I talked to her, at least after the latter half of the conversation. I started crying pretty bad the more she responded, whatever she might have intended with her words.
It all started to sound like several things together because of how she said it:
- You sheltered, inexperienced thing, this was a good experience for you even if it was bad and I hope you come to think so too and appreciate it. (The last thing you say to someone in pain)
- If you decide to never date again, that’s your choice, okay. (I was just feeling really bad, I don’t think I was serious)
- Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
- Don’t drag me down into your pit of despair.
- You had a good run, nice going.
- That’s life, stop being sensitive.
- You’ve made up your mind to be miserable, I can do nothing–oh well, bring out the yacht.
- I don’t hand-hold.
Is it really that everything sounds bad when you’re hurting and nobody’s saying anything inspiring? If that is the case, then I owe her an apology. If not:
The conversation just really made me feel bad because I felt many of her responses in the latter half of the conversation were abrasive given the situation. I blame myself for trying to hold it in, even though I didn’t realize how bad I was hurting.
I wasn’t looking for pity and I certainly don’t view myself as comically naive or virginal. I just wanted to know that someone cared enough to try to help me pick myself back up, to feel some hope after this experience. I didn’t want to feel left in the mud and be dragged lower with every sentence, words which felt insensitive to me.
Once she told me that she believed/thought I wouldn’t be alone forever, that she just didn’t see that for me. It made me feel like a shard of hope was alive and I wasn’t a fool for believing it too despite all the odds and how I feel sometimes. I felt happy and relieved.
Sometimes I need to be reminded that I believe. But there are days talking to her where I am just not sure of anything anymore.
T.A.