Meet The One Who Isn’t The One But We’ll Call Him That Because It’s Easier

This is going to be the first of many, many entries about Chris.   He was technically the focus of this post but I’ve never actually revisited the whole situation.  I know I was brief in describing how we met.  It was at a party of a mutual friend who I spent so much time with I’m surprised I hadn’t met him sooner.  Anyway, it was a party that started at noon (day drinking is popular during baseball season…okay any season) and for me ended 12 hours later when I had to go rescue a friend from a creepy dude a bar.  People later asked why I left since things were going so well with Chris but I didn’t have a choice.  I couldn’t, in good conscious, leave my friend stranded.  Duty called.

Anyway.  The day went well and we were hitting it off – so much so that I pulled my friend aside to ask her what she thought of the whole thing and she told me something I will never forget but wish I had listened to: “he is a terrible boyfriend.  don’t go there.”

I should have listened because she’d known him longer and had proof.  But I didn’t.  I didn’t because I had never felt that way about someone in such a short period of time, possibly ever, and I wasn’t going to just give it up because one person thought I should.  So I persisted.

Early in the evening, the party switched apartments.  At the second apartment there was an entirely different crowd.  Chris and I huddled in a corner by ourselves until someone came up to us and asked us if we were wearing the same color shirts on purpose.  He wrapped his arms around me and said, “No, but don’t we look like a couple?”  Then when he was getting us drinks, someone asked me how long him & I had been together.  I was elated that everyone ELSE thought we were together.  But as the night wore on, I started to get more upset.  He hadn’t even asked for my number at that point, so I was starting to assume this was all in my head.

And then – finally.  He said I lived in the vicinity of a lot of good restaurants and he wanted to take me to dinner the following week.  We exchanged numbers and then he asked me if I wanted to go up on the rooftop deck with him.  We went up and the view of the skyline was striking.  Especially at dusk on an unseasonably warm evening in May.  As we stood there he asked if he could kiss me and I said yes.  So he did.  And it was one of those kisses where the world falls away, and you think that as long as you can kiss this one person for the rest of your life then all the pain and rejection and heartbreak before them was worth it because it GOT you to them and now everything is glorious.

Eventually others joined us on the roof and then I had to leave for said rescue mission.  He kissed me goodbye as I left and I spent the next three days floating on air until it occurred to me that he should have called me by that point.  Day six rolled around and I witnessed him exchange numbers with another girl in front of me (as detailed in my first post).

And yes, after that I was dumb enough to get involved with him.   It just sort of happened, a month or so later, the beginning of a vicious cycle that would test me in ways I didn’t think possible (and of course I failed every freakin’ one).

One night he told me he never wanted to get married.  It was during one of our many sleepovers and he asked me if I wanted that.  I said I did, eventually, and he said he didn’t.  And then he said quite possibly the saddest thing I’d ever heard: “I don’t mind being alone.”  But then after that night, there was a slight shift.  He started to act more like we were together.  And as soon as I started to let my guard down, he pulled away again.

There was a period of about two months, after that, when we didn’t see each other.  Every day was agony because I had no idea what was going on.  I just couldn’t believe it was possible to feel that way about someone and not have it reciprocated.  Right around the time I was moving on (after I met the Vampire) he resurfaced.  Like a little weakling, I ran back until he disappeared again.  I couldn’t tell him no.  I imagine this is what it must be like to be addicted to heroin (just kidding…no I’m not).

So this cycle continues for two years.  But finally, FINALLY, he did something so unforgivable that I finally hit my limit (the limit I should have hit six days after meeting him.  I’m a slow learner).  We were at a party at his place.  It’s one in the morning.  We’re sitting on his porch with some of his friends.  At this point I’m mostly listening to their conversation rather than participating in it.  Out of the blue, and in front of EVERYONE, he looks over at me and says, “I would really like you to leave.  You’re making me uncomfortable.”  Please keep in mind that I was doing NOTHING that would have made him uncomfortable and have witnesses to back me up who apparently laid into him so badly after that he started to feel guilty (but never actually apologized).

That kicked off the summer of rejection ’09 and for a long time I was very gun shy about a lot of things, even with my closest friends, assuming that out of the blue they’d just want to stop being friends with me.  They had to keep reminding me that they weren’t Chris and wouldn’t stop liking me for no reason.

There was never any closure.  After that, when I saw him at events, it was very difficult to be around him.  The first event he tried to overcompensate by being so nice to me it was as if nothing ever happened.  I spent most of the afternoon trying to avoid him while he followed me around.  The second event, he completely ignored me.  The third event he reverted back to his behavior from the first.  It was exhausting.

Around the holidays I finally realized that I’d moved on, that I was detached enough to really see the situation for what it was.  If anything, it was a learning experience.  But there is no greater relief than knowing now he’s out of my system.