KB (No Toys)

So, there I was at American Eagle, minding my own business and trying to decide if I wanted to buy this one pair of shoes. I finally put them back on the shelf, and glanced around.

There she was. That Girl. Hmmm.

I started walking out to the mall, and turned around - for no good reason. Just to look, I guess. I saw her awkwardly trying to navigate a path out that didn't involve coming near me (and failing). I finished exiting, and took a left. I stopped and turned around again, thinking maybe I could or should talk to her. She turned the opposite way and kept going - I didn't follow.

I was surprised that seeing her didn't make me feel anything. No anger, no resentment, no sharp pangs of hurt. I thought perhaps it would hit me in a minute or two and I'd come home and write a terribly emotion-laden entry about how much life sucks and how I'll never have any self confidence again, and how - everything, but no. Really, I wish I'd gotten a chance to talk to her.

I didn't want a confrontation, I didn't want any hurtful exchanges - it just would have been nice to talk to her, and finally find out exactly what was going on for those 5 months. I wish I knew her at all, and knew what kind of a person she was - she honestly doesn't even look like the sort of person she'd been characterized as.

When I was a kid, the fact that I had that attitude would drive my parents nuts. I would let all sorts of things happen to me that should have been hurtful, or that I just shouldn't have put up with (from a kids on the playground perspective, nothing else lol). I couldn't get upset, though; I'd just want to get to know the people. I like people, and figuring out what makes people tick. As I've gotten older, of course, I've started to react a bit more. I couldn't have seen her a few months ago without feeling tremendously hurt, but I guess I'm really over it now.

This was the girl at the center of 90% of the tension that came up between myself and that one ex... Whenever I was around campus with him and he caught sight of her, he'd automatically push me away and make it look like we weren't together. She apparently used him, and apparently hurt him by "never being there" - looking back, I suspect that things weren't so simple as that. She's supposedly a heavy drug user, although again - she doesn't look like it. She's the girl that he never really had a clean breakup with, that caused him to lash out at me when he was talking to her online and I was anywhere remotely near the computer, that made him lapse into utter depression when she told him she'd been fucking his ex-roomie. This is the one that he never had a consistent story about, that he could never talk about without getting defensive. She was the one part of his life that he seemed totally unable to completely manipulate into something that would fit nicely into his self-created and imagined universe. In other words, she seemed to be the one thing that made him react genuinely to - anything. She probably is much better suited to him than I was.

My guess, although I'll never know for sure, is that I was simply the girl that looked better on paper. I had better grades, was more attractive, had a steady job and a plan for my life, was emotionally stable, knew how to really put others first, and wanted things like a family and kids. I was totally open to whatever manipulation he wanted to throw my way, and I let myself get pretty hurt. I was looking for someone who wanted the same things out of life as I did, and when I realized that he wasn't offering it, I just ignored that and tried to make it fit anyway.

My guess is that he felt obligated to date me, given my better qualifications, but was really more comfortable with her. She really did understand him better, I can't deny that. I felt jealous and threatened by her, and I think I was justified - I'm pretty observant and I can usually tell exactly how people are feeling. I should have walked away from the relationship instead of letting all those fights, all that hurt, all that resentment totally ruin things - maybe I could have been a better friend for some of the things that really mattered, instead of letting those things drive me away even more and make me completely incapable of having any sort of real empathy. I think I'm always going to be sure that he was either fucking her, or at the very least, spending more time with her than he let on, for at least some of the time during our relationship.

In some ways, I can't blame him for that. Everyone needs someone they can relate to. We were so diametrically opposed in some ways, and I am so idealistic and - just naive - that we didn't really relate much. What hurt the most was that it always ended up feeling like there was nobody left there for ME - nobody close to me, no person that I could trust absolutely, rely on, nobody that actually understood me and wanted to be with me for my spirit (vs my resume...) I've always wanted to have that "dating my best friend" feeling, and - it just wasn't there. I always ended up feeling just - cold, and alien, and awkward. I wasn't myself at all.

I did learn a lot more about what I'm looking for, though, and I did learn quite a bit about trusting my instincts and intuition. I know that it's going to be awhile before I date anyone again, because I realized this evening that while seeing Kara didn't upset me at all - I'm still getting rid of a lot of attitudes, assumptions, perspectives, and - emotional baggage (sorry to be emo) - that I've been slowly gathering up over the past few years. I'm going to have to be totally back to myself - back to good, if you will - before it's even possible for anyone to approach me and interact with me the way I really need. (Right? I need to be all the way myself before anyone else can appreciate me for who I am...makes sense...)

So, the past is all done now, thankfully. The summer's been a good time for me to start feeling like myself again. I wish him (and her) nothing but the best.