The loser has to fall.......

[Dr.Strangelove]

Hi I'm new here but feel like I need to share my story.

It all started when I was 15 years old and I saw a girl on holiday. But we never actually spoke, don't ask me why, because I don't know. We did the usual staring from a distance routine, we were both shy people. Holiday ended and I thought she was destined to be a missed opportunity. Anyway on the Sunday after we got back, still to this day I don't know why this happened. But we both posted on an internet guestbook for a band who played in the nightclub there. Coincidence I suppose, or fate? It was really weird and something I can't explain to this day.

So we'd began to talk to each other for a few weeks after the holiday and we both soon realised that we liked each other. I plucked up the courage to ask her out and we'd start visiting one another. I knew distance would be a problem but it was something we were both willing to work around as we lived about an hour away. We just fell madly in love with one another, she was my world and I was hers. There wasn't a minute of each day when we weren't thinking of being together. Weeks turned into months, months turned into years. I used to spend every weekend with her. Travel up on the Thursday night and go home Sunday. During the summer I just went to live with her for about two months.

We were each others first everything and I honestly thought that we would be spending the rest of our lives together. We went on holidays, days out together we were always planning something together despite the distance. I can honestly say that I never so much as looked at another woman, or thought about my life without her at any point. We were always writing letters (remember them?) and poems. In a disappointingly now material world we'd always give each other something we created ourselves and something personal as a present or a surprise. I didn't think it was possible to feel this way about another human being.

As a person I think you are either good at life, or you are not. I am definitely not. But I pretty much turned down better jobs, doing things with my friends who I lost contact with which I never got back. Because I couldn't bare the thought of losing her. She didn't ask me to sacrifice anything but I did. As I got into my late teens I didn't quite feel right in myself, but didn't do anything about it (it would later be diagnosed as bipolar disorder) I could handle it, well I thought I could and I told her that I wasn't feeling right, one minute you think you can achieve anything, the next you feel like you don't even want to step out the door. But she just thought, like I did that it was just me being me. You're just so up and down and your mind races at 100 miles an hour. I couldn't even sleep because my mind was just racing 24/7.

But I never pushed her and always respected her. We even carved our names into a tree, oh the silly things you do when you are young, even if it is the biggest cliché out there. She told me many times that I was like no other she had met before.

As time went on the relationship got more serious but so did my problems. So things took a turn for the worse. Everything seemed like a huge uphill struggle, like everything was against me. Why does the girl I love live so far away, why this and why that? I knew that until I sorted myself then I could never make her happy the way she deserved, so I asked for some time to sort myself out. But basically I didn't word it like that and effectively broke off with her. It caused so much hurt for both of us.........

After about 4 months it was her birthday so I sent her an email saying happy birthday etc. She was over the moon to hear from me again. I didn't expect we'd get back together. Because in her reply to my email she said she found someone else. I was heartbroken to say the least but respected her wishes. So we decided to stay friends instead. She soon realised that she'd made a mistake, or we both had, so she broke it off with the other bloke and we decided we'd meet up again. After a short while it just hit me like a tonne of bricks that I couldn't provide for her and give her the stable life that she deserved. I told her I would rather be unhappy for the rest of my days as long as I knew she was happy somewhere, even if that was with someone else. I think secretly maybe she realised that I could never give her a normal life. So after a lot of tears, and pain, contact ended.

Then about a year later I find out that she went back to the original bloke she met while I was out of the picture for four months. I don't believe they have or will ever have half the connection we did. She was definitely my soul mate and I was hers. There was a list as long as your arm on the things she didn't like about him, this is what she told me when we were "friends" so she had no reason to lie. Maybe she just settled for him in the end? I never originally saw him, but he looks a lot like me to say the least....

I accept that I have made my bed, so I must sleep in it. But the whole experience has left me feeling dead inside, my heart has been shattered into a thousand pieces and it's no ones fault other than my own. If I could give one bit of advice now to anyone in life it's to follow your heart and not your head. I don't think I will ever love anyone as much as I loved her and she will always hold a special place in my heart for the times we spent together. I expect I am now to her "the one that got away" I assume she still thinks about me, but I can't contact her anymore and cause any more upset or sadness in her life. I don't know why but I looked her up on facebook, and I saw a recent picture of her. I thought she looks well, it stirred up a lot of emotions as you would expect, lump in the back of the throat stuff. So I look down to see what's hanging around her neck and it's the white gold heart necklace I bought her for our first Christmas together. But there she is standing next to another man with a smile on her face.

Life can be bitter sweet at times. I guess all I can do is wait and see where this road will lead me next. But I will always love her, and by wearing the necklace I hope it's a sign that she knows this too. I feel incomplete and that the other part of me is missing, I'm not sure if I will ever feel complete again. I don't dwell on the past and I'm probably a little bit too sentimental at times. But it's taught me to follow my heart from now on, and be a little bit more selfish instead of putting other people first.

But tell me does he kiss
Like I used to kiss you?
Does it feel the same
When he calls your name?
Somewhere deep inside
You must know I miss you
But what can I say?
Rules must be obeyed

So yes. The winner takes it all and the loser has to fall.

[Valixy]

This kind of passionate relationships that start when people are 15 and last throughout all their adolescence sound so extraordinary but I am not sure that such a serious profound relationship is the best thing that could happen to someone so young, so fragile, who is still growing up and struggling to become a real person and who is still so dependant on his/her parents and will be for another few good years. The distance was definitely a problem for you two as you say and the young age inevitably complicated things too in my opinion.

Loving another human being is extraordinary but life is so much more that that and I think that sometimes we have to lose our dear one in order to rediscover life from a wider and deeper perspective. It might seem impossible to you right now but you will feel happy again and you will love again and all that from a more complete and authentic perspective of a grown up person.