Dear RL my ex-girlfiend,
After waiting patiently to date you for three years, I can finally say I did. You were always this mystical goddess to me since I was 16 years. When we finally started seeing each other when we were 22/23 circumstances wouldn’t allow it, the distance was too much. I remember asking you out on a date again that spring and you were seeing someone else. Although surprised, I did what I do best. Wait patiently. When that relationship ended the next summer and we started seeing each other I felt like I was in heaven. Sleeping with you made me want to give up everything in my life. Then you told me you were going on a two month trip at the end of the summer to Thailand and you didn’t think it was best for us to be committed. I understood again and waited patiently. You continued to text me throughout the fall when you thought of me. I couldn’t help but wonder why you were communicating with me but still fooling around with other men. As your trip concluded and my winter break began we reconnected and I felt whole again. Then you asked me to be your boyfriend and I was the happiest man alive. As I graduated college and made my way back to you, it was finally here and I thought it was going to be happy ever after. But your job continued to make you miserable, the circle of friends continued to be a bad influence on you, and you believed that it was my job to make you happy and meet your every need. Being who I am, I held on for the rollercoaster and did everything I could to help you. You decided that it was wrong for me to see my family without you, or that I shouldn’t see my friends without you. I tried to get you involved in everything but all your response was “I’d like to see my friends this weekend”. As I continued to grow as a person and establish a direction for my life with a career and hobbies, you continued to stay stagnant and bounce from job to job you weren’t happy at, continued to seek the ideal person, and disregard who I am as a person and as a man. You ended it with me again that summer of 2016, because you didn’t feel like the priority. Unfortunately, if I made you the priority over everything and everyone all the time, then I would just become another broke 20 something floating through life. I had aspirations of getting us a home, making enough to support a family, and trying to provide the life you described you wanted. I held on, and vowed to change what I could, even with my father having cancer and me not knowing when it could become terminal. I won you back again in the fall. Then it continued again, I rented an apartment sacrificing saving money for a house so we could have our own space away from your room mate. I paid for all the dinners and our activities. But it was never enough. You complained about your job, how every married couple you knew were best friends and never did anything without each other, regardless of them being together for at least 5 years. You also forgot that they have arguments and disagreements too. I stayed calm every time you would explode at me, I would shower you with affection, until I couldn’t any longer and began to stand up for myself. Your mother even said that she would feel safe knowing you were with me. But it was never enough. You worked a job that would take you away for weeks, and after an argument in which we called each other sweeties that morning, you broke it off 36 hours later via phone. I’m embarrassed, not because I failed. But because I didn’t recognize I can’t change your life for you. I tried to do everything and would’ve continued fighting. But you did what you do best. You ran. I realized now, that even though you say you want to meet someone and settle down, you’re full of it. People who want to settle down don’t go dancing at a bar all night long every Friday. They don’t travel for months at a time and take some photos, party, and fool around in hostels. They are busting their ass like me to make that dream become a reality. They don’t surround themselves with people who have anxiety because that does nothing to help them become stronger people. Someday you might figure it out, someday maybe you won’t. But you need to figure out a job or career that makes you happy, you need to stop contradicting yourself by actually committing to staying away from a bar (even if it’s “only” a gay bar), you need to have a more clear vision for your life and a better understanding that you don’t always need to be the center of attention. You don’t need to have friends who are swingers that make comments about wanting to sleep with you in front of your boyfriend. And you need to stop calling yourself a prude, just because you didn’t sleep with them, but performed oral doesn’t make you an innocent woman. You can still catch the same diseases you idiot. You need to find a way to understand your way isn’t the only way. But most of all RL, you need to understand that one person can’t meet everyone of your needs. They need to have a life too. So I’m sorry that I wasn’t making you feel happy, and warm feelings all the time. But that’s an impossible task to ask of me. I know you will miss me someday and even consider getting back in touch after figuring out how good you had it with me. But honestly, I can’t wait for you to grow up anymore. I need to continue my path forward. So thank you for doing what I suppose I couldn’t. Because I know you’ll be looking in the rear view mirror while I walk the other way, and that person I end up with is going to thank me for coming into their life and showing them the adventure of a lifetime.
All the best,
S