Girlfriend's Ghost

[Richard_Cory]

I apologize in advance for the long post; my situation is complex and I want to make sure that I am careful and clear in my presentation.

I find myself in an odd situation. Many years ago, I fell in love for the first time, but the relationship quickly failed. In retrospect, this wasn’t surprising, as both my partner and I were in our late teens and were both emotionally and socially immature. She moved away to school and in short order found a new boyfriend. It was inevitable.

In my youthful naiveté, however, it was for me as if the sun had been blotted from the sky. I took it very badly at first, but eventually I calmed down. The problem was that the brand-new experience of intimacy combined with the rapid failure of that intimacy completely up-ended my worldview. Here, for the first time in my life, was someone interested in me apparently without either personal agenda (associating with me for social or material gain, for instance) or expectation of social duty (like that assumed of a family member). Supposedly, she liked me for my own sake.

When she broke up with me, she gave at least three separate reasons for doing so. First, she said it wasn’t my fault. Then, she said it was my fault. Finally, she seemed to refer to me as some sort of inanimate natural resource attached to a certain geographical location, rather than as a person at all. (It was like picking a camping spot. “How about here?” “This spot over here is better; it has easier access to water.” In this metaphor, I am the poorer campsite, the one that was ultimately rejected and abandoned. Of course, the difference is that a campsite isn’t a thinking, feeling being with whom you have consciously forged a relationship. A campsite can’t be hurt.) In retrospect, the third reason probably had the most truth in it.

At the time, I didn’t know how to react. Should I cuss her out and call her a bitch? Wouldn’t that be self-serving, considering how I just ate up whatever she had to say when she was doting on me? My folks had taught me that one falls in love and marries, just that simply. When the future I envisioned didn’t come to pass, I started, with horror, to suspect everything that my parents had taught me about love and life in general. I got panicked and immediately went searching desperately for love, trying to find something with which to stuff the gap. Needless to say, my unsettled mental state and underdeveloped social skills ensured I experienced nothing but further failure, in the grand tragicomical style of teenage love affairs.

As I said, this sort of behavior was probably not unusual for someone of my age. It's what teens do; they’re typically a little crazy, and we all go through that sort of thing, I suppose. Although I finally grew up, the anguish, embarrassment, and confusion of the whole episode stuck with me under the surface.

Here’s the kicker. A number of years after we had broken contact, I sent her a short formal letter asking her for clarification. It was only about eight sentences long and perfectly respectful and neutral in tone, containing no innuendo or insinuation. Basically, it ran: “First you said x, then you said y, which seem to be contradictory statements. Could you render me a short, matter-of-fact explanation regarding how these factors relate to one another within the context of the breakup?” I never received the reply I requested.

It was the ultimate insult, the ultimate gesture of disrespect. What sort of intimacy could we have possibly shared if she wasn’t willing to spend one hour of the rest of her life clearing up a matter she really should have made explicit at the time? Was my entire experience nothing more than an emotional acid dream, leaving me hung-over and strung-out for years when the fantasy high faded? That's exactly what it was: a mad grasping at happy delusions and foolish choices. About a year after I sent the initial letter, a sent her a final note in which I offered her a blanket apology for any injuries my actions caused her and wished her peace. It was the only way I could decisively and respectfully close the entire matter.

Any closure attained, however, was solely interpersonal in nature. I am still deeply troubled by the experience, although I realize it is strictly my own personal problem now. Part of growing up is realizing that, unfortunately, it is indeed a wicked world in which we live, and the disappointments of love are often the wickedest component of that world, as opening one’s self to the possibility of intimacy necessarily involves such a depth of surrender, vulnerability, and uncertainty. There is no true intimacy without true vulnerability, and therefore true risk. One must be very careful in what venues one exposes oneself for exactly these reasons. Live and learn, right?

But what implications does this experience have for my life? Frankly, I don’t know what to conclude in the final accounting. Some aspects of the situation have become clear to me: the effect youth and inexperience had on the situation, and the probable practical dynamics that influenced my girlfriend’s decision. Nonetheless, I must confess that I am deeply hurt by the general reaction of those surrounding us (“Forget about it, kid.”), as well as my girlfriend’s eventual decision to ignore my request. (I would feel compelled to explain myself to a former beau in a similar situation; it's simply the right thing to do.) A sort of supreme psychological horror has attached itself to the whole issue as far as I am concerned, in which I see my reactions and feelings and the questions with which I have been left casually dismissed even by close friends and family. At the very best, this process leaves me out of step with the rest of the world, and therefore isolated and alone; at the worst, it seems to indicate that there is something wrong with me and my own perceptions.

[Gribble]

You're creepy.

Leave your ex alone. Don't send her any more letters. Don't call her. Don't ever approach her in person. I hope she's got a big brother and a father with a sizable gun collection.

[Richard_Cory]

You're creepy.

Leave your ex alone. Don't send her any more letters. Don't call her. Don't ever approach her in person. I hope she's got a big brother and a father with a sizable gun collection.

I debated with myself concerning the wisdom of commenting further, but your comment struck a little too close to home. You see, my girlfriend's mother, a long-time junkie, shot her father and her half-brother (fourteen years her senior) to death before turning the gun on herself in a double murder/suicide when my girlfriend was five. My girlfriend suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for most of her life. Sometimes irony is its own horror, yes?