First off, don't feel offended by that thread title. I know most of you people believe in love, and there was a time when I felt the same way. But that's long gone, and all that's left is the following story. A monumental fail, something I can hardly describe, and that's not due to my native lack of the English language. All I'd like to do is share my experience and maybe help some of you to avoid similar situations. This is going to be a long read, so don't complain, you have been warned.
In case the thread title sounds familiar, then you've probably seen "Old School", a brilliant flick for people of my age. I've learned a lot about women in roughly 30 years on this planet, but in the end it can all be reduced to this simple, yet deep and thoughtful quote: "Love Is A Mother****er". I don't feel good writing this. Actually, as you can probably tell from the way I write, I'm in a more depressing phase of my life right now.
You know, back in the days, when making out with a random girl would make you feel good for weeks, I wouldn't have this kind of problem. I wouldn't ask myself these kind of "what is it all good for?" and "that's supposed to be it?" type of questions. I may sound pathetic right now, yeah, I'm aware of that. But that's the way I feel. It's real bitter irony that, finally, after a lot of unsatisfactory relationships in the past, I've come to the conclusion that the greater you love someone and the more sacrifices you make over time, the more you'll get kicked in the balls by that exact somebody. And, this tops it off just phantastically, this somebody doesn't even do it on purpose. It's a systematic failure. This whole construct of love means nothing. It's a word. Just a word. Nothing more, nothing less. And when you think you feel it, all you do is slowly think youself into something that, albeit non-existing, will easily make you suffer for the better parts of your life.
Guys, if you're idealists, stop reading. Go out, enjoy your life, and hope for the best. But reading on will probably destroy or at least tarnish some of your high hopes and dreams.
Now, for you to understand where I'm coming from exactly, you need some more background information. I'll fill you in as quick as possible, but like I said, this is going to be a long read.
So there was this one particular woman when I was about 18 years old or so. I met her at a party, and we clicked right away, you know, the whole nine yards. I was instantly fascinated by her, and it seemed (note: it SEEMED) to be mutual. Unfortunately, I had a girlfriend by that time, and since I'm not a cheat, I didn't push as hard as I could have. Anyway, I lost touch with that girl because I didn't ask for her number. Most notably because my girlfriend at that time was a huge control freak, so keeping in touch with attractive women was totally out of the question by that time. But a couple of months later, after I had split up with my girlfriend, I tried to give it a shot. After some detours to acquire her phone number, we started to meet up.
We had a few dates here and there, and you could literally sense there's something about to happen, but it never did. In retrospect I have to admit I was a total wuss at that time. I mean, come on, I was around 20 years old and I had sex with two women. So I'm not going to sugar-coat it, it got ugly. She was giving me obvious signs of interest, and I was dealing with it like a ****ing girl. I tell you, absolutely embarrassing. I think the closest I got to having sex with her was hugging her for a goodbye. With that said, I became her girlfriend. Today I'm seeing this from an ironic point of view: It was really awesome! I couldn't ask for more! I mean, look at it, you get the biggest insight into a girl's head that you can ever get: She tells you what she likes and dislikes, she tells you what's bothering her, and she tells you which type of man she likes (which, of course, doesn't apply to your projection of a man at all). Well, I don't think I need to elaborate on this, you get the point, it was just pathetic. Bottom line: I was her emotional tampon, but I liked it. Because, and that was a big mistake, I thought I'd lose her by not staying compliant to this whole friendship thing.
Disgusting, seriously. Disgusting. But hey, I was young, so stop judging. I learned from it.
So, like probably most men in their early twenties, I tried to have some fun with other girls. I mean: No need to invest that much energy in a woman that's not for real anyway, right? Yeah, well, I had my fair share of women over the next decade. But, like you probably expect, I never forgot this one girl. Let's give her a name already, let's call her Gigi.
I was constantly meeting with Gigi for over ten years. This is interesting: Whenever we were in serious relationships, we lost touch with each other. This happened almost automatically each and every time. Whenever we got back in touch again, we talked about it. Our conclusion was that no partner would ever put up with the way we interact. Like I said, you could literally sense there's something in the air, it was so obvious to both of us it's not even funny, all the more it's plain crazy that we couldn't ever get anything going. Whenever I tried to pull Gigi closer to me, she pushed me away for reasons like "I need some space" which can also be translated to "I don't want more than friendship". These signals led me to believe there's nothing there for me, and that she might be using me as an occasional ego boost, nothing more. Even the dumbest guy would say goodbye then, and that's what I did. Over and over again.
Anyway, this whole on-and-off thing would never stop, and it made me go crazy. I tried to resist her whenever she tried to get in touch with me, but I couldn't. Call it love, because back then that's what I felt. For some reason, Gigi seemed to feel similar. What I'm saying is that I had no real grasp of her motivations, but just like me she was never able to handle this intimacy (although we never had sex) for longer than a couple of months. Eventually, one of us would always leave, don't return emails or calls. This may sound totally silly, but at least for me that was the only option to not go nuts completely. Whenever we split up, I was going into a serious emotional drought, not willing or able to invest any kind of feelings into any woman I met. Sex, hell yeah, no problem, but apart from that? No deeper emotional connections. This is just pitiful, and again, I feel embarrassed by writing this down.
Now, that's some crazy shit, is it not? I guess some women sense these kind of emotions. Take for example one of my ex girlfriends. She never knew a lot about Gigi, but she knew that she was special to me. At some point, don't ask me how the topic came up, she asked me if I'd rather spend the rest of my life with her or with Gigi. The sad thing is (at least for her), I didn't answer that question morally sound. I said "I'm here with you, ain't I?", but what I was really thinking was more along the lines of "yeah, I'd rather date Gigi, but you already know that, otherwise you wouldn't ask that question".
Basically, what I'm saying is, this thing NEVER stopped. Like I said... 12 years and counting...
About 18 months ago I left my last girlfriend. After about a year we finally discovered we're not on the same page: Sex was good, but besides that we didn't have a lot to grow on. She wanted to move in together, she wanted to make plans like kids and stuff, but the thought alone was scaring the crap out of me. So I decided to end it sooner rather than later. Then it took me like six months (I repeat: six months!) to send Gigi an email. I knew exactly what was coming, therefore I was hesitant to get back in touch with her, but something deep inside of me created an urge to forget about my anxieties. Yeah, so I sent this email, and it took us like twenty seconds to forget about the past and just enjoy life together. We met up almost three to four times a week, and I certainly would never do this with a woman I'm not seriously interested in. After a couple of weeks of dancing around each other, we made out for the first time.
Can you even believe that? It took us eleven years, eleven ****ing years! We were both totally blown away. We talked about it, and we both never experienced anything like that. And it's not like we hadn't had experience in that department. For both of us it was like an eruption of a volcano, I'm not a good writer, so I spare you the specifics. Just let me say that it was absolutely awesome. I didn't go for the kill that night, not just out of respect for our friendship, but because I felt that she was so extremely aroused that she didn't know what she was doing (does that even make any sense?). Still, Gigi said she was scared. She said it was about time that we've finally crossed that imaginery line, but she was still scared. Scared of what was about to come. I tried to take away her anxiety, but that didn't help. It never did.
She wouldn't want to meet for a couple of weeks. Random excuses. I knew exactly what was going on. So I gave her space. Not long after that she called me, telling me that she missed me, that she was still scared, not only of getting hurt, but also of unintentionally - but ultimately - pushing me away with her behavior. She carried on, saying that she definitely feels way more for me than she admits, and that she has a hard time verbalizing her feelings, but that there was not a single man in her life that she felt a closer connection to. She said being with me feels right, kissing me feels right, but she just can't overcome her anxieties. I said I'd give her all the time she needs. Yeah, that might have been aother mistake right there. I should have insisted on a decision. Instead, I put up with her "we can meet again and see where this goes, I really miss you" crap. Ironically, we never met again after that conversation. If you haven't figured out by now, yes, she was scared-- again. She ran away: No explanations, no nothing, not picking up my calls. I was devastated.
About a year later, with a couple of more or less meaningless affairs under my belt, I was sitting there, and thinking about Gigi again.
But finally I seemed to be heading into the right direction: My friends told me to let it go already, and usually I can trust what they're saying, so I tried to get out of this emotionally. See, Gigi was texting me, emailing me, trying to call me numerous times over the last couple of months. A couple of years back I would have jumped on these little signs of interest like a starving tiger, but I didn't. For good reasons I was hesitant. It was bothering me big time, yeah, all my close friends could tell without me saying a single word, but I didn't want to go through all this anymore. The rationale was: "I wholeheartedly love that girl, no doubt, but what is this good for if it's never going anywhere? All it's going to cause is agony..."
Unfortunately (I repeat: UNFORTUNATELY), one night I was in a real good mood, and I was waiting for a friend that was a couple of minutes late. I saw the latest missed call by Gigi, and I said to myself: "Hey, why do you want to make her feel as bad as you felt when she never called back? Are you so freaking childish?" - Consequently, I called her. You know, just to check in, just to hear what she has to say. Needless to say, after more than a year it was like we never lost touch. I could tell over the phone line that she was extremely excited, and so was I. It took us three days to arrange a date, and that's where this whole story will come to a cruel but somehow entertaining end.
If you've read that far, then I think you'll be looking for a dramatic end. Well, it's not really dramatic, or maybe it is, I don't know, you be the judge. Either way, you don't mind me throwing in some more random details just to establish some sort of tension, do you? So, here is some more general background information:
You know, regardless of this whole on-and-off stuff, our relationship (or whatever you want to call it) grew stronger as time passed by. She was opening up more and more during each cycle, at least that's what I read between the lines. I never wanted to push her, I tried to be attentive. So, the years went by, and whenever I was in a little depression phase and talking about that whole story to my friends, they were telling me "you're ****ing crazy, she doesn't give a shit about you" and all that. But then I remembered how meeting Gigi was like: Whenever we were together, I sensed this special aura, and she always thought the same way. I don't know, maybe there is this special connection between the two of us, I don't know if anything like this exists. But even if it does, and now listen up, even if it does, that doesn't mean shit! Seriously, you'll see when I'm through with describing our laste date.