Before I start, I think it might be useful to warn an readers and viewers that I'm somewhat of a romantic when it comes to women, so this may end up turning into a novel. In fact I know it will. So please, just bare with me if you can. Respond if you'd like, but you don't need to. I'm writing this more to get things off my chest than anything else, but obviously any form of support or advice will be appreciated.
So I met this girl at the beginning of the year senior year of high school in physics class (so fall of 2010). Now before any of you roll your eyes at what looks like a typical lovesick teenage boy childishly doting over some girl, please read on. That's hardly the case.
From the minute I laid eyes on this girl I was instantly intrigued. She's beautiful, but in a really natural feeling way. It's hard to describe, but its just a really... well real kind of beauty. Like not fake at all, she never wheres make-up or anything. She somewhat resembles an elf from lord of the rings (not just me as it turns out, she gets that a lot). The best part was that I sat right next to her! Scooooore. Game time.
As it turned out, she was just as beautiful on the inside as out. I'm no dumby and am actually pretty smart (especially math and physics), but this girl amazed me with her intellect. I'd never seen such a smart girl hiding behind such a pretty face. It was also fairly clear to me that she had some interest in me as well. Only a week into that class we were flirting and competing all over the place. There was this one lab we did where we had to make water clocks, and hers ended up being more accurate than mine. I never heard the end of it, she still teases me about it from time to time.
That's just one small slice of the first couple months of getting to know her as a whole, but I think you get the idea. She instantly made herself a challenge to me, and always was teasing me or competing with me in some fashion. I grew very infatuated with her. Never before had I met a girl who was as witty as myself and actually posed a challenge academically. She's still the only girl I know who can make me go red in the face and yell and her to can it, haha.
Well, homecoming was coming up. And I was working up the courage to ask her, when things changed. I had added her on Facebook, and instantly discovered she was seeing someone. I was shocked, I thought that it was so clear that she was into me. I'm not one who cries over girls, but that night, let me tell you, I balled my eyes out. That night was also when my sleeping problems started, but more on that later.
She was cheerleading for the homecoming game, and actually told me that she wanted me to go see her. I didn't end up doing so, I didn't end up doing so because of the boyfriend thing, but on the next Monday she scolded me playfully for not being there, saying that she looked all through the crowd trying to find me. This lifted my spirits from what I'd learned the week before, and I decided that I would still try with her. Some of my close friends who knew I had a thing for her (well actually, I'm pretty sure most of my physics class could tell we were getting along a little too well) who also knew her boyfriend told me he was a total asshole, and that I shouldn't worry about him and should go for it. So I decided to, I wasn't gonna pass up this angel because of some douche that she was seeing.
So I kept pursuing her. I ended up tricking her into her texting ME (rather than vise versa) with a sly little FB message I sent her regarding calculus. She had been gone the day before, and I always loved to let her know how much better I was than her at math and had offered my number if she needed it for help catching up. The next day I recieved my first text from her, and it escalated from there. Nothing we talked about beyond the first message had anything remotely to do with math.
Fastforward to winter break. It snowed, and I told her that she should come sledding with me and some friends of mine. She told me thanks but that she wasn't going to be doing anything that day. She just wanted to mope - her asshole boyfriend had cheated on her. I was enraged that anyone would do something like that to her and would have hit the little **** in the face had he been in walking distance (nobody in Seattle drives when it snows, everything shuts down haha). But at the same time, I admit with guilt, I was probably inwardly a little excited. I figured this would be my chance to swoop in and save my princess from her evil boyfriend.
I got much closer to her in the ensuing weeks. She felt much more comfortable being open to me after what her boyfriend did and didn't have to feel like she was being emotionally unfaithful. There was a good three week period where I thought I had won her, and was really just waiting for the official break-up to occur. When it didn't come I asked her about it, and she said that he was out of town and she couldn't talk to him about it yet. About a week later I asked again and she told me that he had bawled his eyes out in front of her about it, and that she was going to try to make it work with him. I was heartbroken. This was probably the moment, late December, that my downward spiral began. The next couple days were horrible, and I just couldn't take it anymore. I told her how I felt about her, and suprisingly she didn't see it coming. I thought she totally knew. I had male friends who I had never told about my interest in her come up and give my sly pats on the back, asking me how it was going with the cheerleader lady friend. It seemed everyone but her could tell something was up.
Anyways, back to me telling her about my feelings for her. I told her that the current situation was killing me, and that I couldn't keep going on like that. I told her I needed space, and that's the first and one of two times that I've ever seen her get nasty to me. She still valued her relationship with me and didn't want me to cut it off. That weekend was really really hard for me. I cried all day and never left my room. My parents started getting concerned. It was just bad.
That was the moment that I should have walked away probably. Had I done so, I might be in a lot better place today. But I didn't. I've never been an even remotely religious man, but at the same time I felt that there was something bigger at play here. I felt then, and still do to the same degree, that we're meant for eachother. We just work so fluidly with eachother and so easily create sexual tension, which was only contained by the fact that she refused to give up her douchey boyfriend. That's why I couldn't and still can't let go, if that makes any sense. I feel like she's the one, and if I push her out of my life I'll curse myself and how my life is supposed to play out. Once again, I know this sounds strange, especially coming from a man who has no relationship with any god.
Well, I fixed things with her soonafter and our friendship carried on as before. I kept convincing myself (and still do to a large degree) that she was attracted to me. I couldn't think up a better excuse for all the flirting, competition, and playful teasing that went back and forth between us. I have platonic female friends and I know how they normally interact with males they aren't interested in (myself). But the difference was that now I knew that she was happy with this other guy. And that I wouldn't be the one to hold her close, to smell her hair and tell her how beautiful she is, and to be one to take walks with her on the beach, her small and feminine hand in my much longer and firmer one. And this realization killed me. And still does. It's why I started using drugs and alcohol to give me the happiness that was now absent from my life.
I was never a stoner before this. I was never a party-goer who got smashed every friday having sex with random women who I wouldn't remember in the morning. But that winter I started smoking weed. It gave me an escape and opened my mind to what was happening. Many times when I was high I would just cry. But that was how I let it out, sober I had a hard time not bottling it up. I drank as well, but I smoked much more.
The late winter and spring were hard for me. I'm not gonna go into too much detail, because it would casue this huge post to literally double in length, but I got my hopes up numerous times, only to get them crushed again. One night in particular stands out. I took her to park at night in my car. I thought she knew that it was supposed to be a little more than a friend date. Long story short, she didn't. I relapsed into darkness.
Fastforward to this summer. Our friendship has been pretty constant since school got out. I've been getting closer to her again. I'm also trying to kick the smoking habit, but its hard. There's now an hour that goes by that I don't think of this girl, and whenever I do it usually brings with it an urge to smoke. Despite this, I haven't gotten high in almost a month. Which I'm happy about, but I'm worried it won't last.
What worries me much more is my new drinking habit. For the past couple weeks I've been getting drunk about everyother night. Somedays I'll start as early as noon. If I need to work evening shifts or need to be somewhere sober, it hasn't been a problem to abstain. Yet. I'm a little bit anxious, because I feel like I'm losing my grip on my life. I'm not at the point where I would ever seriously pursue or even consider ending it, but I'm worried that I'm getting there. Alcohol just makes me feel so much happier, but I know its not the answer. I always hate when people ask me whats wrong when I'm hanging out with friends, as when sober I typically look a little sad. With only 2 or 3 drinks I'll be back to how I was before all this crap started, albeit a lot less intelligent.
Last night I went over to her house, and it was pretty hard. She had invited me over for a movie and dinner at an empty house. Yep, you guessed it, I got my hopes up again. I brought some tequila just incase (she doesn't drink or smoke, but I knew that I might need it). And I did. Partway through the movie she mentioned her boyfriend. I, a normally really talkative and energetic guy, grew pretty solemn and quiet. I could tell my change in demeanor was making her a little uncomfortable, so I turned to the alcohol. After 3 shots I felt a lot better, and got a lot more comfortable with her again. I got pretty playful even, I was tickling her to get her to move her feet out of my view in the screen, we wrestled over her phone for a bit, and I started a pillow fight when she started making fun of me for talking fast and slurring my words. All very flirtatious, but I should have known better. When I sobered up and left I felt like total shit. I woke up today feeling like total shit. I feel like I'm never going to get better. And in August she's leaving for college. She'll be all the way across the country, and I'm starting to realize that my time is up. I always figured that someday she would leave her boyfriend for me. That hasn't happened yet, and that realization that it won't before she leaves scares me. Scares me because I don't know how I'll be able to keep going on.
I should probably seek professional help, I know, but I'm too embarrassed to let my parents know what's going on, which I would have to do if I wanted to see someone. So for now I'm just sharing my story, mainly to get it off my chest and maybe let others share some of my pain. Thank you so much for listening, it means the world to me.
