It had been two years since my last relationship, which ended after my now ex girlfriend took her own life. I had been CONVINCED that I’d never date again. And I kept that mindset.
Fast forward 2 years and I’m starting college, still maintaining that mindset and I befriend this group of roommates. I get close with all 4 of them and slowly throughout the year they all become some of my best friends. Then around February one of them “Hayley” begins to start spending more time with me. We text constantly and spend all of our time together. We sat on the bus everyday and we both opened up about so many parts of our lives.
Hayley becomes engrained in my life and slowly starts to become one of my best friends. I still thought nothing of it until we had been drinking at her place one Saturday night where we just held eachother in our arms the entire night, whispering sweet nothings into eachothers ears. People started asking questions after that, about how I felt, about it what I wanted. And I just didnt know. I denied these feelings because it’d been so long since I’d had them. Hayley and I just got closer and closer we’d hold hands while studying and she told me things she said she’d never tell another. Just a week before we’d both gotten drunk on a park bench and she had been so incredibly vulnerable with me and had tried to kiss me but I pulled away because I knew she was too drunk to want this. We went back to hers and she fell asleep in my arms.
Finally I realized that I wanted her. That I wanted to be around her all the time and make her happy. And I had no idea what to do with that. I asked our friends questions and they all told me I had to do something and I truly just didn’t want to. I was happy where we were. With the intimacy we had, with who we were with eachother, and I just had to ruin it.
We got dinner with our group, and we’d been our usual selves, and then we went back to hers to watch South park, and we did our usual. We held eachother and joked and laughed. She literally pulled me into a hug. We were probably being so gross that everyone else left and it was just the two of us. Somehow it just ended with the two of us inches away, gazing into eachothers eyes, her playing with my hair. I had no idea what I was supposed to do there. I kept asking her what she wanted and she said I didn’t know what i meant. After maybe 30 minutes of this I leaned in and gave what might’ve been the shitties kiss ever, where I only really got the corner of her mouth for all of a second. She got up and asked if I wanted to go on a walk and I followed her out.
We sat in the park and she told me she didn’t want a relationship. I didn’t either. I just wanted to be around her. We told eachother what we wanted and she told me she DID have feelings for eachother. We agreed to meet the next day after talking with our respective friends. I didn’t speak to anyone, I just sat on it. I knew what I wanted- to be around her, just to sit at the end of the day and talk to her like we had been. After 18 agonizing hours we spoke again. I told her I just wanted things to go back to how they were. She said we crossed a boundary. She didn’t like the way she was in a relationship. Told me that the summer away from eachother would be good. She said she was going to swallow her feelings because she doesn’t want to be with anyone. I said ok and left. I told her to text me if she ever wanted to talk.
She texts me now but it hurts even more than being with her. It’s quick and it’s dry and there is no substance. Yet she drip feeds me words as if it’ll quench my thirst.I’m talking to the ghost of a woman who doesn’t even want to want me. I can’t even go anywhere. Our lives are too intertwined. Two of her best friends and I are sharing an apartment together so I’m literally stuck seeing her. And I haven’t even let the dream of us being together die yet. I hate that she’s doing this to herself. I hate the avoidant attachment type even more despite the fact that I know I am one. Part of me hates her and part of me loves it. I don’t know how I could be around her like this. I could never tell a new woman “hey this is my friend who I fell in love with and then she cast me off but she still loved me!” And I could never ever even imagine her with a new man. I am hurt and afraid and alone.
I have not been sober in 96hrs and I do not care to be. I am both counting down the days and dreading ever seeing her again. I am haunted by the fact that I let myself love again and this is all there was. I knew she didn’t want a relationship too, I just thought we were the same flavor of broken. I knew we were both avoidant, I knew this would never be normal, I just thought we loved eachother enough to fend it off. I don’t know what I am anymore. I don’t want to.