The end of things

Dear F,

Right now, I want you to be in as much pain as I'm in. I want you to hurt and to see you hurting. That's why I'm writing this, because I want to try and be a better person and maybe allow us the chance to be friends in the future. It's impossible for me to maintain anger, but I also want closure and not to be in a place where I keep falling for you. I never want to feel this way again.

My mum advised that I write down my feelings and reflect on them in a couple of days, and see what I still want to say, and this was incredibly solid advice. I also figured that it might be good to document how I feel at this point in my life, just so I can look back on it.

I've never really felt this way before. This is my first official breakup, just like this was my first official relationship, and both leave me feeling kind of cheated and incomplete. There have definitely been ups and downs (mostly downs), and I feel empty thinking about my life without plans with you in it. My summer seems blank and incomplete, and it gives me pain to think of anything I had planned to do with you. This is harder because I had made such plans (especially for the summer), it sounds terrible and lame now but I had a Google Doc of cool date ideas.

One of my friends suggested that what I miss is more the fact or idea of being in a relationship. Upon reflecting on this, this has been the idea which helped me most. I miss having someone special to talk to and tell my random stories to, I miss holding hands and cuddling, I miss having someone I could make plans with to go places and know I would have fun - the thought of knowing that someone would always be there. And I thought of you as this person because I liked you and loved you as a friend also, and you seemed to reciprocate. Which is why I loved doing these things with you. But if I think carefully about it, none of these things are exclusive to you. Maybe when I find someone I like again (eventually), it might even be better to do these things with them.

(Maybe the above paragraph won't be something I actually send in the interest of not being hurtful).

You did make me discover how magical it could be to be in a relationship - to walk around holding hands, to just spend time with someone and be near them and have it be all you need, to talk to someone who really understands you - in a way different from being with even your closest friends. And I'd never realized how amazing that could be. So that's a big part of what I miss.

But of course I miss you too. I love you as a friend and it feels so weird to think about a life in which you might not be there and where I don't tell you my random thoughts and send you links I think you might find interesting and watch movies with you. Because I don't know if I can even have that any more. The reason I have been able to be friends with sort-of exes in the past is because I at least have changed so much that I can look at them and remember our friendship without developing the same feelings that I've had in the past.

In my mind, nothing has changed. I still feel the same way about you and care deeply about you, and want to spend time with you and place you at a priority and to be in a relationship. And I know that might not make sense, but even when these feelings fade over time, I can't imagine myself hanging out with you and growing close to you and somehow not feeling this way. Because I haven't changed and even though you hurt me deeply, your core personality hasn't changed.

And I don't want this to happen again. I don't want to be hanging around you hoping for something more or that you will change your mind, I genuinely want to move on and be able to be in a place where I'm not comparing every new person I meet to you. I do want to hang out with you and see you, but I'm not sure if that's because I still like you and want to be around you, or because I just genuinely believe that's possible as friends.

So maybe I just need more time to figure that out. And to let my feelings fade. The thing is, though, this is just so painful during this point. I haven't really ever felt this way before, perhaps because this is my first official breakup.

What hurts the most is that I feel like there's a lot you could have done to avoid things getting to this point or having me feel this way. Obviously I'm not trying to solely blame you for my feelings, but there's definitely a couple of things I'm angry about. This will probably pass, since I've never been able to hold a grudge (maybe not to my own benefit). But apart from the feelings developing again, I don't know if I can continue to be friends with someone who seemed to show such disregard for my feelings and caused me to feel this way.

Before I begin, I want to clarify that I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here (hard as that may be) and assuming that you didn't intentionally mean to hurt me and that you care about me as a friend at least. So I'm trying really hard not to be accusatory or blame you for everything or try to hurt you (because weirdly enough I still care a ton about you and the thought of hurting you hurts me). I'm sorry if that slips through anyway.

I guess what I'd want you to do is to genuinely think about it and see if any of this makes sense to you, especially since it's coming from someone who cares/ cared a lot about you. I don't expect you to absorb all of this and immediately start acting on it, but I think it's worthwhile for you to know how you made me feel - intentionally or not.

In the last week or so, most of your actions have made me feel that I'm unimportant or insignificant to you, and that my feelings don't matter. As I already mentioned, you never made an effort to do things that were important to me or make time for me, and often left me hanging in terms of texts and waiting on you to make plans. I felt like a desperate idiot who was being disrespected as a person, who still kept chasing after someone's feelings without realizing that they were sending a clear message. And I kept trying, because I was hoping that it was about your week and your legitimate commitments (which I was willing to understand) or about communication or about something else, because when I was with you I loved it so much and I couldn't imagine that you had changed your mind.

It's fair that you mentioned you maybe just genuinely don't feel that way about me (or that's how I interpreted it). I know that making time for each other despite other obligations and figuring up communication builds up during a relationship, but the basis for that is genuinely having a desire to see each other and spend time with each other (no matter what you're doing). And if you don't feel that way, it's not worthwhile for me or you to pretend that's the case. I don't ever want you to think about doing this as an obligation, instead of something that you want to do because you care about the other person. So that hurts, but I'm not blaming you for that and it's better we knew now.

What hurt me most in terms of the way things happened on that Monday was that you didn't seem to want to say anything about wanting to break up (if that's what you did), and I had to ask if that was the case when obviously that was what I didn't want at all. It hurt that you didn't seem to want to try and fix things, instead just choosing to do what I saw as running away and making me feel like you hadn't ever cared about me or my feelings. You ended things before they even started, without seeing what it might be like to try and figure things out or to give it a little more time. I would have wanted to figure out communicating better and managing expectations and just figuring out how to make time for each other, which aren't the hardest things to fix.

If you ever liked me as more than a friend, it seems to me like that would have been natural to try for, so that might be why I ended up feeling really rejected and confused. Again, I'm not blaming you for not feeling that way, if it stemmed from just not having feelings other than that of a friend about me. So if you didn't feel about me as more than a friend, then it makes sense that you wouldn't want to try (and it would be right).

I hope you find someone that makes you want to try, because I don't think these are healthy patterns to be setting. Sorry if this sounds patronizing, it comes from a place of caring about you. Maybe I'm just a very different type of person, but if you care about someone enough, you place them at a priority and work towards fixing your problems with them instead of running away and deciding you 'don't want to be in a relationship'. I think you've taught me that a relationship can also be an amazing thing, and I don't think you should be so afraid of it and think it's such a big deal, just because I'm not sure that will go well for you in the future. And I will work on dealing with the fact that this person for you wasn't me, but I really genuinely hope that next time you think about trying to make it work with someone that you care about instead of believing it's all about you not being ready for a relationship.

Confusion also stemmed from the fact that you later told me that you didn't have any interest in being in a relationship (which I interpreted as not having any interest in being in a relationship with me, because it's hard to assume this isn't about me). So my conclusion was either that you realized you didn't like me or that you realized a relationship was a little more than just being friends and hanging out and maybe got freaked out by that. If the latter, I find that less respectable and respectful of my feelings.

I remember discussing this with you as a friend, and you mentioning that relationships could be hard and required a lot of effort and you wanted to be really careful and not enter relationships where you didn't feel like you could make something of it since you didn't want to hurt people. You knew that we were really good friends and that I really liked you as more, and when I came to you in March asking if you wanted to be more, I assumed that you would be thinking genuinely about how you felt about me before you made the decision because you knew what the implications would be.

I didn't want to feel like I'd "convinced" you or forced you into something you didn't want, so I remember questioning you then and asking if you were sure. And you said you were, and I guess it was natural for me to assume at that point that you felt about me as more than a friend. So I guess what I don't really understand is when/ where your mind and feelings changed, and what caused you to change them? Why would they change so quickly and was it just being busy?

In a way, you made me see what it would be like to be dating (however briefly), which was different from seeing each other occasionally and hooking up - and it was amazing and it made me really happy. And, like I mentioned, I didn't feel any of those insecurities about whether you cared or how you expressed your emotions or shared with me (when I saw you in person), so I'd rather maybe not have seen what it could be like and then had that taken away from me.

If you're afraid of hurting me by being honest, please don't be. I can take hearing that you don't feel about me as more than a friend, and if I did something wrong I'd rather know. You've already hurt me, and what would hurt me more is feeling like this breakup wasn't something you'd thought carefully about either or that you don't have any clear reasons for it because then I would feel this way for no good reason. It would hurt me more if I felt you didn't respect my wishes enough to be honest with me. In my mind, 'not wanting to be in a relationship' is not a good enough reason, because a relationship is a great thing and makes you happy and I guess I'd want to know why you wouldn't want that.

Particularly after our breakup, my feelings of being unimportant to you and like I didn't matter increased in intensity. I feel like it's really easy for you to move on and pretend like I never existed (as you never told your friends/ family about me, further making me feel unimportant and unequal), whereas I'm kind of stuck here struggling to move on. It'll happen, but it's not easy. What hurts is that you could have made it easier.

And your timing was really awful. Right before my last week of classes, when I really needed to focus and enjoy the moment, I found myself finding it incredibly hard to. When thinking about graduation and senior week and summer, I found myself unexcited and thinking about it as empty without the prospect of spending time with you. Maybe it's not the most rational way for me to feel, but I'm just trying to be honest about how I did and do feel.

Incidentally, my friends have been amazing and reminded me how lucky I am. They've been constantly checking in on me, coming by to spend time or distract me or patiently listen to me tearfully talk about my feelings yet another time, and just to say the right things and remind me that there are people that care and think I'm important. So I just thought I'd acknowledge that somewhere.

I'm kind of proud of the way I've acted. Obviously I made my fair share of mistakes and freaked out about things sometimes or expected too much from you (such as expecting you to be someone you're not in terms of expressing your feelings or whatever), so I'm not perfect in any way. But I'm proud of the way I showed you that I cared, or put myself out there even when it was hard, and was always honest with you about how I felt (even if it seemed irrational), and wasn't afraid to change my opinion or revise my expectations. I think I've learned a lot of things, and I'll probably soon be able to remember the good memories without them being painful, and hopefully apply the things I've learned to making my future relationships better.

So I guess what I want to say in conclusion is that I'm not really sure how I feel about you or if I can be friends with you. I still really care about you, but you can understand that I might need to put my interests first at this point. What would help with giving me closure would be understanding your feelings and actions and motivations. Maybe I'll never feel like they were legitimate or worth breaking up over, but I might be able to feel a little more that you at least cared about me (as a friend or whatever) and tried your best not to hurt me.

The religion issue (that we weren't of the same faith) is something that I would want to discuss in person. It hurt that you never took the time to try and talk about it and understand what I believed or how I felt about it, instead just assuming I felt differently and didn't want to talk about it. It feels narrow-minded to me and like you're saying that I'm not good enough or 'relationship material' or worthwhile as a person (in terms of being introduced to your friends or family), but I don't want to seem like I'm not respecting your faith. Maybe this is something I'll never be fully able to understand, because in my mind religion is less about rules and more about a way of life and being a good and caring person, and not saying that your way is better than any other way of doing things. But I'd like to try to, and I think it might be more productive to talk about in person.

It felt a little bit like you were using that as an excuse to not try and fix other things, and just felt like one of those things that you want to run away from instead of talk about and try to work out. And I believe enough in you to know that you wouldn't use something as important to you as an excuse, but I'm still a little confused about that whole thing.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to establish a system of giving myself points for positive actions and not to deduct points for continuing to feel bad or slight setbacks or wanting to see you. Hopefully soon enough I won't care about these points any more.

Love,
Me

P.S. I do feel weird calling this a 'breakup', especially since I'm not even sure at what point it was an actual relationship. And what I feel cheated about is the chance to get to know each other better in person and to figure that out.
P.S.2. I've had a rough week too, and you haven't been there for me as a friend for that. I had food poisoning and felt awful after, angst about college ending and fears about that, and a friend undergoing a pretty serious surgery. Even as a friend that would be what I would expect.