It’s Been A While . . .

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything to this blog. This hasn’t been an accident. Today has been a particularly bad day, but overall, I’ve been feeling more normal lately. But even that, I don’t mean in an entirely good way. I feel like I’m turning back into the person I was before I ever met K. I feel like everything I’ve learned, and all the growing I’ve done, is slipping away. I feel like I’m slipping back to the point where, if I ever get into another relationship (wether with K or someone else), I will be starting “from scratch” rather than building on what I’ve gone through since meeting K. This doesn’t make me happy. But then again, I may be single for the rest of my life, which will make it all a moot point.

But anyway, none of that actually addresses why I haven’t posted in a while. So there were three different things that came together over a period of about the last two weeks, which all kept me away from this blog. First, I went away to visit family out of state for about 5 days. Getting out of town isn’t great but, its better than being here. This helped to keep me at least a little distracted. Also, I’ve been chatting online with a new, and very interesting girl from okcupid. We’re only just chatting online, but it does seem a little promising. This was a sufficient amount of distraction to make me feel less terrible. I am at a point now where I am able to BE distracted, and that being distracted is very effective at making me feel much less miserable. So thats why I was feeling a little better, and why feeling a little better made me avoid this blog. Oh and the weekend I went to see some of my family, K also happened to go home to visit her family. Knowing she’s away from her bf makes me feel a lot less anxious. I wouldn’t argue with you, if you thought this was not a healthy situation for me to be in, where I can only relax when I know they aren’t together. It’s terrible. But sadly, this is where I am.

But my little bubble has burst, and so here I am. The way my bubble burst was very strange. Normally, given a situation, you can think, ok if it goes well, it’s going to go this way, and if it goes bad, it’s going to go that way. To help keep the distraction going, I offered to help a friend set up her new computer. She’s actually an EX girlfriend but from long long ago. But she was amazingly attractive, well out of my league. So she came over and as the day progressed, the plan was for me to be so distracted just by hanging out with her, that I don’t think of my problems. The same plan you’d have, hanging out with anyone. This was a girl that, I still think of fondly, and given an opportunity, I’d likely date again, but she’s no K. I don’t write this girl 4 page love letters. I’ve never taken anti-anxiety medication to deal with life with this girl. So worst case scenario going in is, we do computer stuff and have fun and K is not on my mind. Best case scenario, we have fun, maybe a little MORE than just computer stuff happens, and even more distraction ensues. But what ended up happening was weird and not something I would have predicted. The more time I spent with this particular girl, the more it made me think of K. While my relationship with K is, in my mind, the best relationship one could ever hope for. My relationship with this other girl, I had always thought of as having been pretty good. But spending time with her, it just very strongly illustrated to me just how great K was, and just how stupid I was to kill that relationship instead of work hard and make it last forever. So once her computer was done, she left, and I was pretty sad. And it wasn’t sadness because nothing ‘naughty’ had happened. It wasn’t sadness even just because she was leaving, and I was now alone for the rest of the night. This night vividly emphasized to me, not like I needed it but, it emphasized just how great a person K really is, and how amazing our relationship was. I try not to think about things like that these days. Not that they’re any less true, but whether moving on means getting back with K some day, finding someone else, or being alone forever, dwelling on what I would easily call this biggest mistake of my life, won’t help any of those plans become a reality. But what was supposed to be a nice distraction, without any warning, turned into the exact opposite of that. 

But wait, there’s more. So this internet girl that I’ve been talking to, “M”. We have a lot in common and we’ve been chatting a lot. And just that chatting, just that potential of having something that might go somewhere, can go a very long way to lifting you out of a funk. But just like she pre-warned me, “M” had a very busy week, with work, school and a halloween party. So when she told me this, I was all “no problem, i’ll talk to you next week when things slow down!” We’ve both mentioned meeting up in person many times. But the radio silence is started to wear on my. I’m starting to think this is situation that is not going to go anywhere. I know it’s generally not a good idea to pin all your hopes on one thing, on one person you haven’t even met yet. But unfortunately I tend to be that way normally. And now…

So those two things ganged up on me tonight. And between them, plus the Red Sox getting screwed over and loosing their game, and the terrible cold temperatures, that make is too cold to even get out of bed. This all game together to give me a very bad night. Bad enough, that there’s really no more downside to updating this blog. 

Moving on to a more general topic, but to do so, lets get specific. 

I don’t enjoy being single. I’ve never wanted to be single. So of course, no matter how hard a try, it is almost impossible for me to find a girl. Relationships for me are very few and very very far between. I’m not sure what it is about myself that tends to repel women, but that’s another discussion for another posting. The fact of the matter is that generally speaking, I manage to date one girl every ~4 years. And those relationships usually only last a few months. So the painful loneliness of most of my life is no secret to me. It’s not something that’s in the back of my mind. It’s something that’ sin the front of my mind. Everywhere I go, everything I do, I always think of how nice it would be to have someone special there with me. But that becomes a pipe dream. Years tick by, and nothing ever comes along. No matter how hard I try, I never make any progress. This is the way it’s always been. And this is where I’m confused, about my own mental state. When I was dating K, I knew without a doubt, that K was the most amazing girl I had ever dated. I would have told you that I’d likely never date anyone as good as K, ever. And yet someone, in the analysis of my situation, my brain blocked out all of the sadness and suffering, and just thought ‘eh you can find someone else’. But that’s not true. And I know that’s not true. I don’t understand what was going around in my head. I wasn’t seeing this for the rare and amazing thing that it was, my relationship with K. I just saw it as “eh its nice but doesn’t feel right and i don’t know why so it’s been a year, lets just end it”. Clearly, looking back, I can see that my thought process should have been, “a person like K, a relationship like this, is the most rare and special thing a person could ever have in his life. So rather than even thinking about ending this, I should be thinking about what I can do to nurse it back to life. What can I do to make it stronger. Even if this has no chance of lasting forever, I should do everything I can to help it last as long as possible. My only defense is pure ignorance. I’ve never been in a situation like this before. I’ve never been in a 1 year log relationship, never mind anything longer. I don’t know anything about taking steps and getting things more serious. And I’ve never been in a relationship with someone I was in love with before. It’s a shame I didn’t realize I was, while I still was. I’d like to think that figuring that out would have given me the power and the drive and the will, to do everything else that I should have done. So if my past is any indicator of things to come, and it has been running in a pretty reliable pattern, it will be around 2017 before I meet someone special again. This 4 year prediction sounds like nothing but the meaningless ramblings of a depressed man who just lost all confidence in relationship, and his ability to be in one. But for meaningless ramblings, they 4 year formula has been incredibly accurate at predicting the future of my love life. 

Looking for a generic status update? K and I are still email pen pals. An email from her can still change my entire mood for the rest of the day. We also do some limited texting.

Here’s a stats update, written in the tone more in sync with the way I feel tonight:

K moved on months ago, her life is humming along, and I am but a distant spec in her rear view mirror. And there I am, hanging out down this dark road, doing very little besides waiting and hoping that some day, she decides to turn around and come back. 

Distraction (that works) is a good thing. Because without distraction, or at least friends to talk to online (even that has been sparse lately), my honest outlook on my future is extremely bleak and painful. 

It pains me to see ass holes and idiots walking down the street, all with woman by their side. Here I am, a reasonable smart, reasonably good looking guy with some interesting things in his life. Not to mention I’m a very nice guy and make a great, caring boyfriend. All alone. Forever.

Status Update

Regarding my last status update, I was wrong. She told me I was reading too much into things, and that she only wants me as a friend.  I told her I wish I could change her mind. Then she said she wished she could change mine.  That last part hurts more than anything anyone has ever said to me.

Things I Would Change About K If I Could

Ironically, this is a topic I thought about a lot before we broke up. That is, before I broke up with her. Or really, before I decided to break up with her, and then in turn started to pull away from her. Maybe that's not ironic. Maybe what is ironic is that I never came up with an answer.

Yes it's true that I hope she reads this blog some day. But I am not filtering this for her eyes. I thought about her likes, her dislikes, the kind of person she is, I thought about her looks, her body, everything. The list of things is so pathetically short and insignificant, it seems to obvious now that I made the wrong decision.

• I wished her family wasn't so far away. Yes this is not a significant factor in anything. But it would be nice if her family was around here. We'd always hang out with my family, and it would be nice if we could hang out with hers. Part of getting together with someone is growing your family by joining them together. And that didn't happen so much because she was here all alone. Plus I just felt bad that she was here all alone. But this is so insignificant. 
• I wish she didn't fall asleep so early. She was always falling asleep while I was still wide awake. It would be nice if she could stay up late with me more. But again, this wasn't a big deal. We'd spend the whole day together, it wasn't a big deal.
• I used to encourage her to grow her hair longer. She was amazingly beautiful the day I met her, with short hair. But I would encourage her to grow it longer, cause I kind of like longer hair. It's not that she didn't look good with short hair, she looked awesome all the time. But here's the thing. She did. She grew her hair longer while we were dating. 
• Where she lived, parking was very tough. Yes, the list of things I'd change about K is so short and desperate for items, that "parking" is an item on the list. 

That's really about it. And the things on this list are so minor and insignificant. 

And what would K change about me? Well, she never really encouraged me or bugged me about anything. But if I had to make some educated guesses... 

• There is the whole lack of passion in our relationship, which I've been over a million times. She interpreted that as us fizzling out, when really it was me pulling away for many [dumb] reasons that I talk about in other posts. So lets just say, lack of passion.
• Beyond that, I was kind of a 'no' guy. Like I never really wanted to do anything. Although that's a stretch, I did want to do things, but I said no too easily. And really, she made it so easy. She is as easy going as me, she never made a big deal about anything. In a way, I wish she had. Also, a lot of the lack of wanting to do stuff, was again, me pulling away, trying to hold the relationship still. We definitely did a lot more at the beginning of the relationship than the end. Although at the same time, the beginning was during the summer and the end was winter and early spring, so there is just a lot less to do in general. 
• She always thought my clothes were too baggy :) They are. 
• I'm sure she wanted me to have my own place, and not still live with my mom at this age. But guess what, so do I. This isn't exactly a buyers market. I've been trying to buy a house for years now, but housing prices keep going up as fast as my budget does, so here I still live. But this isn't something she ever expressed any negativity about. But I'm sure she would prefer I had my own place.
• I think I'm a pretty nice person. But I'm nowhere near as nice as her. I know if I tried harder, I could be a nicer person. I do tend to judge people quickly. And I tend to swear a lot. 

That's all I can think of for me. Hopefully that is all, hopefully she doesn't have a journal somewhere, with this same list, that is a mile long. But I doubt it. We got along so well, and we have so much in common. And I absolutely always enjoyed the time we spent together. Our whole relationship, I was never mad at her once. And to my knowledge, she was never mad at me once. It was more than I could have ever hoped for in a relationship. And I had to lose it to realize this :(

Status Update

It's been a week since I sent K a very, very long email explaining in detail how I feel about her, how I feel about our relationship, and how I've changed, and how & why I think things would be different if we gave it another go...

She hasn't sent me any more direct response to that email, other than the original short message that it was sweet, and that she didn't really know how to respond to it. Also, her grandfather died, and the day after she got that long email, she also got a bunch of flowered delivered, from me. With a nice note about remembering the good times she had with him.

So, she hasn't said anything more about the long email. But our daily emails have been more regular. And the emails shes been sending me are longer, more detailed, more personal than previous emails. Given what I said in that email, and given that we seem to be getting a little closer, as opposed to her pulling away, I have to say that it's a pretty positive sign. In fact, all this past week, has been a pretty good week for me. I had much less anxiety after writing that email. And during the week, I had sort of a feeling of... well that I'm going in the right direction, and that we are heading back towards each other. And that's a great feeling to have.

If you are reading this, and you've read all my other posts, then I know exactly what you are thinking. You are thinking, "Noooooooo! You're falling into a trap! You can't take a little positivity as a sign she wants you back! You're only going to get hurt again! Can't you see what's happening!"

Well first of all, I'm not convinced that it isn't better for me to believe we're going to get back together, than it is to believe that we're never getting back together. And yes, I see how this can be a trap. Not any kind of intentional trap by her, but a trap in a sense, by me. But I love her. I need to do everything I can to get her back. How can I succeed at that task, if I can't even believe I'm making progress when I may be. Also, she's a very caring person who looks out for me. Not only would she not intentionally lead me on, but I don't think she would even unintentionally lead me on. In other words, I don't think she would be sending me more personal emails. I think she would be pulling away, and having less contact with me, if she thought there was no chance of us getting back together. If that email didn't leave a real impression on her.

It may not be healthy to pin all my hopes on this. To think, every morning, that maybe this is the day that she will come back to me. But maybe it is. And if it's not, maybe tomorrow will be. And if not, hopefully some day, will be the day.

Email to K

A few days ago, I wrote K an email. It was late and I was feeling particularly sad, so I was going to write her an quick email, basically just telling her I was thinking of her. It ended up not being a quick email. As far as a response, her only response directly to this email, was that it was sweet, but she didn't know how to respond to it. We still exchange regular emails, so who know what effect, if any, this email had on her.

I already sent you a regular email. But now I'm just sitting around thinking about you and I felt like reaching out to you again. I really don't even know what I want to say in this email. If we were still together, I'd just send you a quick 'miss you and can't wait to see you', and you'd read it with a giant awww instead of a short bah. I know these "mushy" emails make you uncomfortable, but I always do feel a little bit better after sending them.

I know you want me to give up on 'getting you back' and move on. But the only thing I want to do, is get you back and start all over again, but this time with a significantly greater understanding of my own feelings towards you, what i want out of a relationship, and what to put in to one. I'd never been in a relationship past 6 months, and I spent the last 6 months of our relationship pushing you away when I should have been pulling you closer. Everything is obvious, so crystal clear, in hindsight. I don't feel guilty, in the sense that I always did what I thought was best. It just wasn't. I've learned a tremendous amount about myself and about what love really is, over the past few months. I feel like I would thrive in a long term relationship now, instead of before when I was just confused all the time, unsure of myself, or what I was "supposed" to do. But what I've learned doesn't bring me any joy at all, without the prospect of entering this new level of "relationshipsness" with you. I know you are not interested in this right now, despite my best efforts, and it really has been my best effort, of anything I've ever done, but just please don't close the door on the idea completely. Please keep your heart open to the idea that some day we could be together again. In a few short months, I feel like my life has completely changed. Greg mentioned to me that you said you felt like after a year, our relationship was in the exact same place it was when it started. My response to that is of course it was. I was like a deer in the headlights, not sure what I was feeling, not sure what a relationship like this was supposed to be like. I didn't know what I was doing so I just tried to keep things exactly as they were. When people asked me if I thought you and I might get married some day, I would look at them funny, as if this was a question that didn't even compute in my brain. I mean, I'm looking for a place to live, and your lease was up, and moving in together didn't even occur to me. My whole mindset was based on 'this is good, lets just keep doing this'. For what it's worth, now when I think of you, first I think why didn't I spend more time with you. (well, because I didn't want things to get too serious, I wanted the serious level to stay right where it was). But more than that, I think of you as someone I would be incredible fortunate to spend my future with. I had never met a girl like you before. And while I was unsure before, I'm totally sure now that KSG is just the girl for me :) This email isn't meant to be a proposal, far from it. In fact, this email was meant to just be me saying hi. But I want to say this, that thinking about a future where we do stay together forever, that is a timeline I think about fondly. That would be the least dark timeline. My desire to get back together with you is not just because it's "easy", or that being with you was so "easy". I want to be back with you because I think you and I are, not to overstate things, the greatest couple the universe has ever known. My timing sucks and I didn't realize you were the one for me until I had already 'run you off' by treating you for months, not like a romantic interest but like a childhood best friend or something. You've said many times that there was nothing I did wrong, that I treated you well in our relationship. Of course I never treated you badly directly, I always cared deeply about you. But what I did seems like the worst thing of all. I broke up with you so slowly and nicely, that you completely un-fell for me. Usually I apologize to you when an email gets mushy. I try to 'play it cool' cause that what everyone says you have to do. But I do not apologize for the mushiness in this email. This is how I feel goddamnit *fist pound* and it's important to me that you know it. (that was fake anger btw) I wish we had more (any?) personal talks while we were dating. We both dropped the ball there. But now my only choice is to tell you how I feel over email. Which isn't so bad, it lets me think about exactly what I want to say. This is the longest "hi" email I've ever written. 

While I'm letting my feelings flow, I also want to try to explain what it means to "not be sure" you're in love, and then change your mind. In a way, that's a very insulting thing to say to someone you dated, or want to date again. When we started dating, I was completely infatuated with you. I used to just stare at that first picture of us on my boat out in the harbor, and think wow i'm so lucky. As weeks went by, that infatuation went away. I didn't understand what I was feeling. What I couldn't see at the time was that infatuation isn't love. Love it what you feel after that. Love is why I kept wanting to see you all the time, even after we broke up. Love is why I walked you to your door every single time I dropped you off. Well, except that one time it was like -10°. Previous girls I've dated, I've certainly liked them, but I was not in love with them. Thats why the relationships were short. And there have been girls I thought I was in love with, but never got the chance to date. But how can you love someone you haven't even dated? This infatuation was my basis for what love 'is'. So when it faded with you, I couldn't figure out what was going on. You were the prettiest girl in the world, I loved spending time with you, you did interesting things, and though the things that i did were interesting,  you were super sexy, you were all I could ever ask for and more in a girlfriend. What I never realized until you were gone, is that I was in love with you the whole time. Not knowing you are in love, sounds dumb. That one hasn't made it into many movies. Of course, if my life were a movie, I'd be chasing you through an airport terminal right now, not sitting in bed writing you an email. I could write a whole separate novel-sized email about the reasons I now know I was in love with you. But if I had to boil it down to one, I'd say it was the way I treated you. I always treated you and cared for you like someone who was deeply in love with you. I remember watching you sleep in the truck at red lights, as we were driving home from NH on the 4th of july. It's so obvious now, looking back, that I was in love with you. But my brain just hadn't figured out yet, that infatuation isn't love. Had I known then what I know now, I would have tried to touch your heart like *this* all the time. Things were 'dull' in the end, but there was definitely a spark in your eyes for me in the beginning. And I, out of simple ignorance, took that spark and smothered it, instead of helping it to grow.

I also didn't intend this email to be another 'i love you, leave him' email. I just wanted to say hi. As I write this, I do feel like myself again. It feels good to say all this, to say how I feel. When you are trying to get a girl back, you're supposed to hide how you feel, and just be cool, be your normal charming self, let her fall for you all over again, etc, etc. It feels good to take a break from that, to tell you what I'm really feeling. This doesn't bode well for the future of your in box :) One time, after we broke up, you told me something to the effect of, you wanted me to let you go so you could keep searching for that special someone. I want to be your special someone. You definitely are mine. 

Someone on an IRC chat, of all places, told me that our problem was that we had no conflict, that we got along too good. While I don't believe that, at least not from my end, my response was just that, well now I do have something to fight for, her. 

I'm not really sure how to end an email like this. I guess I'll end it the same way I wrote it, from the heart. 

Goodnight K. I miss you, and I hope that some day we can be together again.

p.s. hi

Why Did I Break Up With Her? / What IS Love? (Part 2)

... Continued from Part 1, more or less.

Lets talk about effort. Effort was one of the great strengths of our relationship, but it turned into a great weakness. At least on my side it did.

Our first date lasted 8 hours. We sat around Davis square talking, every 5 minutes we'd check the time, and every 5 minutes, another 2 hours had passed. It was an amazing phenomenon that happened through the first two days, and possibly third. It was that amazing of a connection. We didn't have to DO anything. There's was no effort required. We'd just get together, I'd be myself, she'd be herself, and it would be amazing.

But even amazing relationships need effort if they are going to last a long time. That's my theory. I was only in one long term relationship and I never gave it any effort, so it tanked. There's a lot more to it than that of course. I mean K always meant and still means the world to me. But the actual "relationship", I just felt like whatever it was, that's what it was. It had never needed effort in the beginning, so the idea of it needing effort now, seemed like a red flag. Now, looking back, that was no red flag (indicating maybe the relationship wasn't right). It was just normal. Things don't build themselves, people get together and build things.

Looking back now, I see so many easy solutions to problems that weren't even problems. But while it was going on, I was in a situation I had never been in before. I didn't really know what it was, until it was over and I was able to look back at it.

There were other small things in the relationship that, as it progressed, certainly could have used a little effort. At the time, it was like any effort whatsoever was a harbinger of doom for the relationship. Now looking back, we just need to work at it a little. Very little. We were the match of matches. We had basically everything in common.

So to summarize why I broke up with my girlfriend:

• The relationship was old enough that it was starting to require effort. I mistook that as an indicator of a relationship that was destined for failure. 
• I truly believe that my brain had love and infatuation confused. Fading infatuation felt like fading love to me. 
• I'd never been in a relationship that lasted this long before. From my experience, all relationships are short. Ending this relationship seemed like it's natural conclusion. 

And the opposite of that, what I've learned from all this:

• I'm an idiot. I mean, I'm actually pretty smart at a lot of interesting things. But I couldn't hold on to the best girl the universe has for me. My goal in life is to get her back, somehow.
• That warm fuzzy feeling I felt towards K is love. It's the best feeling in the world. Knowing she's always there for you. Knowing if she ever needs you, you're right there for her. Her beautiful face and smile that lights up my whole world. Her super smoking hot body :) The so many common interest that we share. Her kindness as a person, her abundance of empathy towards people, animals, inanimate objects, really the entire world around her. 
• What did I want out of this relationship? I didn't really want anything out of it. We got in it, I enjoyed it, and so I stayed in it and it was good, and that was that. I didn't really have any long term goals. I hasn't been in a relationship in so long, and never one that lasted even 6 months. So these types of questions never occurred to me. Now, with everything I've been through, what would I want from a second relationship with K? Everything. I love her, I want her to fall in love with me, I want to put in every bit of effort I can muster, to make this hypothetical second relationship, one that lasts forever. 

I saw a quote from Dr Suess on the internet today. Turns out he was just re-quoting. But it made me smile and think "SEE, we were in love!"

"We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love."

Why Did I Break Up With Her? / What IS Love? (Part 1)

From a purely logical point of view, I feel like the one best piece of information that would help me get K back, would be a sound, clear, reasonable explanation of why we broke up (I broke up with her but she was in agreement by then). And also a clear explanation of why I think a second round would be completely fundamentally different. Different from the ground up.

So lets start at the beginning. I know, hows about a graphic.

This chart represents my 33.5 years of existence. The red portions represent the time I've spend in relationships. The time K and I were together, was longer than all previous relationships combined. The reason I point this out, is to point out just how inexperienced I was at that 5th month of being in a relationship. And of course, all months after that. 

Moving on from there, lets talk about love for a little bit. Most people have been in love. My biggest love was a girl named D. I was in 8th grade and I fell in love with her. All through high school, I loved her like I had never loved anyone before. She never knew it though, I was always too shy to talk to her.  So that was the big love of my life, "the one", the one that got away, etc etc. 

So what is love? How do you know when you're in love? The answer is always the same: "Oh you'll just know, you won't have to ask." "You'll know it through and through". 

That may be ver true for most people. But isn't it possible that certain people, that have certain unusual histories with love, might not have it quite so cut and dry? Spoiler alert: yes.

So why did I break up with K?

Let me assemble all the pieces that made it happen:

My brain recognized love as the feeling a teenager has to a girl that he has never spoken to. 

I had no idea what a 1 year long relationship was supposed to be like. I've never been in one. 

To me, all relationships seem like they are going to be short-lived, just by default.

And perhaps worst of all, I had a long time family friend, that I had that stupid teenage infatuation for. 

So my brain is telling me, "you don't love K, you love A. Forget common sense, that's useless."

And my brain is telling me, "how long can this relationship with K possibly last? It's past 6 months, it's gotta end sometime."

While I always treated K like the most important person in my life, I thought I had to 'wind things down'. And so for months, I was very standoffish, but only romantically. We had very little sex those last few months. I was just running out the clock, because my brain was telling me I was wrong. My brain was using bad data to make it's decision.

While I was still with K, and thinking about what I should do, I talked to my friend L. I said to L, that I think I should break up with K. And maybe try to start something with A. But even if I don't do that, if the relationship with K isn't right, then I should end it anyway. But then, I said something that, if my life were a movie, they would have played some seriously dramatic, ominous music.

I said to L, "What if I'm making  a huge mistake. What if what I feel for K is love. What if I just don't have the life experience to recognize that. And what if what I feel towards A is just stupid childhood infatuation, and can't tell the difference." If only I had said this to more people, not just L. But I didn't because A is a family friend, and I was keeping my feelings for her a complete secret. So I couldn't talk about breaking up with K, because it would not make any sense without me having to tell you about A. So I didn't get a lot of 3rd party input. This was one of my big mistakes. Because my worry above is, as you are reading in this post, SPOT on. And if enough people tried to talk some sense into me, maybe one of them might have succeeded. 

In other conversations about breaking up with K, that I had with L, I remember trying to think of reasons. Why do I want to break up with her. What does she do that bothers me. What is the down side of this relationship. Why do I really want to do this (without the value of hindsight). There were none. She was the perfect girlfriend for me and an absolutely amazing, smart, beautiful woman. Did I mention she's a PhD. There were no downsides. 

So based on this terrible information, and this terrible reasons, I came to the conclusion that I had to break up with K. But she seemed to be in love with me, though we had never shared those words with each other. I didn't want to blind side her. So that's when I started winding things down. What she referred to as "things fizzled between us". In trying to get her back, I tried so hard to explain that things didn't fizzle, I ruined them, because I didn't know what I was doing. So in trying to break up "gently", I ended up doing things in such a way that make it nearly impossible to undo them. 

So what is love? How do I know I'm in love now if I didn't before. Don't I just want what I can't have?

Being without K was exactly what I need to allow me to understand how I feel towards her. Being without her showed me that what I want most in life, is simply to be with her. I loved getting delicious sandwiches and eating them in her little kitchen. I loved snuggling up and watching ST:DS9 on her couch. Most of all I loved always having someone to talk to, someone to confide in. Someone who would confide in you. I knew I was a better person, and my life was a better life, when I was with her. But I didn't see just how big an effect this was, until it was gone. Love is not "oh my god that girl was so hot, i'm in love". Love is "here I got you a cute (stuffed) pet alligator because watching your face light up, lights up my soul" Love is a girl you look fondly at while thinking, I could be with this girl forever". That's a thought that never occurred to me during the time we dated. Now it's all I think of. K was exactly the person I've been looking for my whole life. I just wasn't able to recognize it until I killed it. I have no doubt that I am in love with her. Maybe my logical brain stops me from exercising my love in as many foolish, ridiculous ways as the average person might. But if there's one thing that's clear to me now. It's that I broke up with K because I didn't understand how I felt about her. Once I lost her, my feelings for her became crystal clear, that I am deeply in love with her.

K, being a scientist, would probably appreciate the scientific method here. Date a girl, really like her. Do you really, really like her? Un-date her and see how you feel, then re-date her. Now you've verified your results. This if course wasn't what I was doing, but it is a little ironic.

Lets talk about what a breakup is. In my breakup letter, I told her I still wanted to be her best friend, I still wanted to hang out all the time, I didn't want anything to change, except, essentially, our relationship status on facebook. When I think about what I actually wanted our breakup to be, and how incompatible that is with her dating someone else, it makes me think, did I really want to break up with her at all? Maybe the previous paragraph was my plan after all. Maybe I did just want to slow things down for a bit. 

See Part 2 for more on this topic...