The other day, someone asked about the boy. Well, here's the answer:
Source: wordle.com
I never really liked him. That’s the thing.
From the very beginning, it was about the idea
of him. The actual him was not nearly as attractive to me.
I never
thought he was cute. In fact, most of the time, I thought he was aggressively uncute.
While we were dating, I spent hours trying to convince myself that he was
attractive. Physically appealing in some way, any way. I looked through his
pictures on Facebook, stared at his face from every angle. But I could never
see it, no matter how hard I tried.
It’s a
cliché for middle-aged women to say that a guy is perfect on paper. Well, I
hope it’s slightly less of a cliché to say that when you’re eighteen. Because
that’s what he was. He had the blond hair. He was improbably from the same
hometown. He wanted kids and a serious relationship and he was serious about
school. All checkmarks.
All those
checkmarks, and yet, from the very first conversation we had, I knew I didn’t
like him. If we hadn’t been dating, we wouldn’t have been friends. It was as if
dating was what we had in common. It was the subject we talked about the most.
It gave us an excuse to talk about intimate things that we would have never
talked about otherwise. It was as if we were just filling the societal
convention of “boyfriend” and “girlfriend”. It wasn’t like we had anything in
common.
I’ve always
been obsessed with romance. I read all the books, follow all the tv shows, and
watch all the romantic comedies. I’ve always had an idea of romance. That’s why
the idea of him was so appealing. I wanted to be like my favourite heroines; I
wanted to make him into my favourite love interests. But our story wasn’t like
any of those stories. It was more painfully real: his awkward attempts to kiss
me, my reflex to run away. It was so much less perfect: his expectations, my
inexperience. In the books, the well-written relationships weren’t easy, but
the romance, the attraction was always automatic. We weren’t that way. We
didn’t fit; there were no fireworks. I didn’t know what to think.
Source: http://weheartit.com/entry/21086101
Of course,
it ended. Sooner than I hoped, but longer than I expected. All throughout, I
felt a lack of control. A lack of understanding of why he would pick me. Like
he could realize he was wrong at any moment. As much time as I spent trying to
like him, I spent ten times more trying to not to get attached to him. I knew
it would end. I couldn’t trust it, and I suppose I was right. It did end after
all.
When it was
over, I expected to be hurt. But, instead, at least at first, I felt relieved.
I had spent so long pretending. Trying to like him, trying to fit into the
definition of why he liked me. I felt so out of my league, and I was in so far
over my head. Every moment we were talking, I was rushing ahead to make sure we
kept the conversation going. Every moment I was thinking: am I doing this
right? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with him?
So,
initially, it was a relief. But then, it was just awful. Because I had built my
life around him. My nights. My thoughts. My idea of myself. And I lost all of
that. And it’s taken so long to get it back. And I still have so many
questions.
I want to
ask him if I was the best he could get. I mean, he wasn’t that cute, and he
wasn’t that nice. So maybe he didn’t really like me—maybe I was all that was available,
so desperate for something, so inexperienced at everything, that I’d fall for
anyone. I want to know if it was only the sex thing that made us end. Because
so much of me believes it was more than that. I start thinking that that was
just an excuse. That really, he realized he didn’t actually like me. That I did
something else to screw it up.
Source: http://weheartit.com/entry/16419149/
I wanted to ask him all this; I would have
been friends with him. But, instead, he just left. We live fifty metres from
each other, and I have literally never seen him since. That’s beyond
improbable, so close to the edge of impossible. I want to know where he’s been
hiding.
But I don’t
know. So I still have questions. And I’m still left with a hole. Because even
if I never really liked him, I allowed him to know me in a way no one else ever
has. He saw me in a way never else ever did, and now he owns a piece of me I
can never give to anyone else. He will always be my first kiss, my first
boyfriend, my first break up. I will carry his name around for the rest of my
life, telling our story to future friends and boyfriends. Even though he’s such
an unimportant, unattractive person to me now, the idea of his was so important
and so appealing for so long that he’ll always be a part of my history.
Because even
though we only dated for a month, I was waiting for him so long before that.
And now that I know what it’s like to find him, the waiting is so much
harder.
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