He was charming and confident and came to me when I was vulnerable — a little too freshly out of a breakup. He gave me the attention I was craving. The all day flirty texts that sent my heart fluttering like a middle schooler, a feeling I hadn’t even realized I was missing. I thought that maybe it was just because of the wine we had been drinking but from the night he first kissed me, he made my head spin. In so many ways, I couldn’t believe that he was even interested in me and yet from the beginning I could see us together. He checked all of the boxes of what I thought my type should be and I fell too fast into [his] whirlwind. I enjoyed spending time with him and getting to know him on many levels. But even in the beginning, the way I perceived us, was not the true reality. Our perceptions of our relationship or lack thereof, were different and I was taken completely by surprise when he disappeared the first time.
He never made me any promises but I was naive. I had been lost to too many years of serious relationships to understand hookup culture. After weeks of his constant attention and affection, I couldn’t make sense of his sudden lack of interest and disappearance, except that deep down I was feeling rejection. I played back in my mind the last time we were together, our conversations preceding it, my actions, my responses. Just like anyone else who has gone through rejection, I immediately began to think of all the ways it was me, that somehow this abrupt ending to our beginning was my fault. That I had let myself be too available, too vulnerable with my feelings, too much for [him] to handle. Maybe if I had said less, messaged [him] less, was more guarded about how I was feeling, [he] wouldn’t have just disappeared.
Everytime I happened to hear from him over the next year would send my heart fluttering, only this time from anxiety, that ultimately led to me questioning my every move and my every text because I thought that if I could somehow manage to play the game right this time, things would turn out differently. No surprise, he never changed and despite his charming and understanding demeanor in person, he always disappeared, bringing up past feelings of rejection, sending me right back to the beginning of this emotional roller coaster. It’s taken me a long time to realize how much I owe it to myself to let go of these romanticized ideas of him that I had created.
That part is my fault, that I hadn’t let these ideas of him go sooner and to see him as he really was. To realize that the only part of this that actually was my fault, was keeping the door open for him knowing I deserved better for myself. I will never know what it was exactly that broke us apart, but I learned to accept that we were never going to work out in the first place, that it wasn’t in the cards for us, and that none of that was my fault.
Being able to let go of my romanticized ideas of him also helped me to be more careful when it comes to my dating expectations. I know I can’t be the only one who falls for potential. That the moment a guy starts to check off our boxes, we’ve suddenly created a whole story in our heads about how it could turn out. Learning to keep the romanticism at bay and know my self worth, has helped me to become a more confident single, in this all too complicated dating game.
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