A boy and girl; a girl with a broken heart

"So I think we have a lot in common". The boy tells the girl.

"We both like to go from one topic to another, we both have fun together. We have great sex - I think I gave you lots of pleasure. And we both don't like to talk about football." Boy concludes while wrapped his legs around the girl.

"We both don't do emotions." The girl adds and giggles.

"What are we going to do?" The boy asks the girl as the time is running out.

"Get a cheap hotel?" He is contemplating options.

"I don't know. Do we have to?" Girl says. "We can always use your place. When is your wife gone?"

"She needs to take a vacation. She needs to be gone. So we can have a threesome. A proper threesome." Boy says.

"Then get on with it." Girls edges on. Girl has a tattoo just above her shoulder, off center. It's a scorpion. It's fresh and it's lively. Girl was born a Scorpio. Boy traces his hand over the new tat.

"I like this scorpion.  It's stylized. It's different. It's strong and mysterious."

"Design came from a Dutch artist." Girl says.

"I recall you never wanted a tattoo." Boy asks.

"I never did. I also never thought I'd date you. I never did coke. I never did a threesome with a girl. and I never dated younger men. You are ten years younger than me." Girl says.

"But we have fun together. Don't you think? You are not dramatic, you are easy going.  You are smart. You are pretty. And we get along. No drama." Boy counts the qualities of the girl. Boy grows a beard to make him look older.

Girls turns her back at the boy as his long arm continues to wrap around her body. He's tall, Swedish, and like her old Swedish lover, cares about her in an emotionally removed way. He never fails to see her. Always apologizes if plan has to change and then makes alternate plan AND stick to it. Boy goes to Burning Man every year with his cousins and wife. Boy's father is a professor at a renowned university in the south bay. Boy has blond hair and blue eyes. Just the girl's type.

"I think I like you." Girl says that.

Girl uses words carefully. Never the word of love, miss you, or hon or baby. Just name. Just simple straight forward words that can not be misunderstood. 

Girl does not like to mislead.

This is what it looks like. It's just sex.

But lately girl finds boy seems to want more.  It was supposed to be every other week, but now every week, even if they are not having sex, boy wants to see her.

"We need to set up an account on ashleymadison. To find ourselves a girl." Boy suggests.

"I need you to fuck me in the ass." Girl replies.

"I'd love to." Boy is getting excited again. They have two hour sessions. She calls sex session sexssion cardio.

"Suppose you find this girl, what do we do?" Girl asks the question.

"I know that you want to lick her pussy." Boy says. He seems to be excited even more.

"Yes, and I want you to fuck her while I lick her. And she must have a full bosom. voluptuous body, and she must be into a girl as well." Girl lists criteria for the boy.

"I'll create an account." Boy says.

It's late. They had dinner before fucking. They like to fuck in the rain. When the rain drops and hits the lemon tree in the backyard, when the rain drops and hits the ground.  They fuck passionately.

Boy likes to plant things, cook food and create beautiful instruments to take to Burning Man. Boy has been there 9 times and has many adventures to tell. Girl will not go. Girl likes three showers a day and does not want to run into anyone who may be her professional connection there.

"Make me a meal." Girl kisses boy's neck and lazily spread her legs on the bed.

Boy says. "Yes I'd like that."

Girl likes to be in charge. To tell a boy what to do.

"Does it hurt?" Boy asks the girl.

"What?" Girl responds.

"Your new tat. The scorpion." Girl's long reddish hair spread all over the bed. Soft, long and fragile like her face. Soft and smooth, not anywhere near her real age.

"It did hurt. And it stopped." Girl says.

"Like when my boyfriend hurt me, broke my heart, and treated me like a whore, a call girl, and threw me aside when he was done with me." Girl thought to herself but did not say anything.

"I like this new you." Boy was admiring the tat and her back. She arched forward, and her butt sticking out.

"Do you want to get fucked again?" Boy asks.

"Yes please." Girl agrees that it was time to exercise again. 

Sex has been more than fantastic. Boy aims to please girl and goes down on her, bites her toes and sucks on her nipples. Boy puts lube on and fucks her in the ass. She likes that now. Exboyfriend wanted to do that to her, she refused. But then exboyfriend stopped seeing her. He said that he wanted to see her badly but never made a plan. Exboyfriend seemed bipolar. One moment hot and one moment cold. Enough so that any other woman would have been sent to a crazy state - stalking him, calling him non stop, crying and showing up at his place. But she does not do such things. She knows when to cut her losses. She knows that when she has been repeatedly tormented and mistreated, it's no longer exboyfriend's fault, it's her own. So she stopped expecting and stopped everything, cold turkey. 

Boy's long torso wraps the girl's body like a Danish wool blanket.

The rain started to come down hard. Hitting the windowsill. It reminds of boy Stockholm in August. It rained all the time whenever he was there. But the sun never sets. Boy lived in Stockholm and Oslo. Girl likes Stockholm more. Girl's ex boyfriend lived in a Scandinavian country too, and anything to do with anything about the ex should be exterminated.

"I liked to fuck in the rain. The world seemed to have nothing left but us. I can't believe how many times this has been the case. We've been lucky." Boy tells the girl. Boy always made time for the girl. Boy works long hours, stressful work, and boy made time for the girl. Exboyfriend tells the girl that he is not stressed with work, and work is manageable. But whenever he can't see her, exboyfriend used work as an excuse, "Client issues, must cancel. Work issues, can we postpone?" At some point, conflicting messages only meant one thing. Excuses. Lame excuses to mask lies.

"Like Seattle." Boy adds.

Boy has grown up in Seattle and Stockholm and Olso. Boy likes Sweden, but Boy also likes Norway. Girl does not ask anything about Norway. Exboyfriend lived there. it's not a place that girl is interested in learning. Boy has moved to the bay area some fifteen years ago.

Girl thinks everything happens for a reason. The first man in the recent year she has managed to connect with had traveled down from Seattle to see her. The sex was alright but the man demanded emotional connection which the girl could not offer. When that affair ended, the girl met a friend from a long time ago. She told him why that relationship did not work out. Why she only wanted to be sexually involved with someone. That man listened. And took her in. They had a lengthy relationship, until he demanded her to be "completely his", and that he wanted her emotionally committed to her, he called her my girlfriend and he treated her like a piece of used rag. Except by then the unintended consequence had occurred. The girl actually did form an emotional bond and she fell in love. She began to expect that she'd hear from him more often than once very few weeks. She expected that he'd realize his promise to her, and not cancel all the time on their dates. She wished that she had listened to her head and removed herself from it, but she fell in love. And love was when your brain stops functioning.

So when he fails again and again to realize his promises, he gives up all together and starts to treat her like some sort of transaction. One minute he says he can't wait to see her and the other minute a last minute cancellation, "Can we reschedule to next week?" As if she's his dentist, an appointment that needs to be rescheduled, not his lover, not the girl he just declared how much he missed her and needed her. When he cancelled, it was just like an appointment. A rescheduling of his root canal. She was his aching tooth that need to be extracted. And Sunday apparently was not a good day, thus rescheduling was needed.

Two months have passed since they saw each other last. No one is THAT busy. Girl realized her boyfriend must have found someone else. She is no longer a priority, she is no longer someone he gives a damn about, no matter what he says on paper. So she stops trying. At some point, the last straw is drawn and she has the shortest straw. She lost her game, her heart, her mind and her desire to go on.

It was then, a tremendous turn of events that she should find herself in, she is still in the boy's life, in an expanded role, because boy adores her and cares about her, not in so much words but in actions. Boy is confident, tall, young and extremely smart. Boy knows when he finds his match he won't let her go.

But she does not love the boy. She never did. She couldn't even if she tried. The heart is a fragile thing. It seals off, and takes 15 years to crack open. And when the flood gate opens it opens, but then it shuts down. Like the lock system in Yvonne River in the Burgundy region of France. When the water is flooded out, it's gone, drained and depleted.

She worries if the boy will love her. She can't do love. She has learned from her master. The mass manipulator. The person who has taught her how to seduce. How to win someone's heart and then trample on it. She will not trample or hurt anyone's heart. She's a decent woman. But love is a kiss of death.

She will never utter the world love again. Not in this life time. Not in a romantic way anyway.

Boy is inside of her again. Boy asks, "What type of woman you like?" Girl answers, "A big boobed woman with curves. Prefer she speaks French."

Boy is going to set up a profile. Find a girl, to play with his girl.

Girl starts to cry. Boy stops. "Is everything OK?" Boy asks gently.

"It's the rain, my dear." She says. "The rain makes me cry. I like raining nights."

Girl is crying for the lost of her true love. The man who broke her heart and disappeared into thin air. The man who said that he loved her but when she started to break down and cry and asked for him to say something, he gave her the silence treatment. Girl is crying for her lost innocence, violated trust, and above it all, faith, faith in him, in them, an illusion that he actually cared about her.

But girl does not do emotions in ordinary circumstance. Girl picks up the pieces and move on.

"Say, I met three guys. One Norwegian. One New Yorker and one Southerner. They want to hang out sometime. Banker, lawyer and tax accountant." Girls says to the boy.

"You always meet people. You meet people everywhere." Boy likes that about the girl. She's confident, secure, warm hearted, uninhibited and interesting. They are weird in the same ways. They have always been in sync, since the very first day they met.

"But I only fuck you now." Girl says. It's the truth. It started when boyfriend abandoned her, like her father abandoned her.

Boy kisses the girl, his face is smeared with glitter. Girl is getting dressed.

"We must go. We have to go home." Girl agrees.

"Next Tuesday then." Girl offers some options.

Boy likes to listen and agrees but boy also enjoys to offer opinions.

"I wonder what you will be like when you are 47."  Boy has 17 years to go before 47.

Girl's ex boyfriend is 47. Girl still thinks about him. Girl does not know how to move on without grieving and extrapolate information out of her brain and burn them into ashes, figuratively speaking of course. 

"Going to a party tomorrow. You coming?" Boy asks the girl.

Boy is never worried about showing her off to his friends and colleagues.

"Aren't you worried?" Girl asks.

"Just don't act romantic around me, when we are with my colleagues." Boy adds.

"Do I ever do that?" Girl questions.

"No, you never do. You are in my industry, we are all good."

"Just text me." Girl was being noncommittal.

Girl wants to go out and meet other men. Backup plans and men who would make her feel desirable again. Heartache is the worst kind. It eats you alive. It reminds you how insecure you are. Because you were abandoned. No one wanted you. Not even the one who told you that he loved you wanted you back.

Rebound is exactly what it sounds, it helps you to feel that you are wanted again, not some used baby bath water, poured out on the street. like she's some used car, used goods, and meant absolutely nothing to the man who allegedly loved her back.

The next day will come. Girl will be pursued by other strangers. Girl will be presented different business cards. Each one handing her one. The last one will say, "May I also offer my business card?" Cute boys who work in the city and single. Girl knows how to talk. She has been told she was the renaissance woman. Seduction is at the core of her being. But she never wanted to seduce. She just wanted her man back.

Boy will call her and say "Where are you?" Girl will answer, all sweet. "Oh you can't come to the bar? That's too bad.  Enjoy your party. See you this week. Don't forget to set up the profile." Girl gives orders.

Boy listens and laughs. Boy also needs to buy some nautical rope and tie the girl up and spank her until she is screaming for pain. Girl does not know how to have normal sex. Only the man she was with understood her. But perhaps boy is trainable. Girl is not confident. But girl has to try. Her exboyfriend has abandoned her like she feared. Never ever gave a shit about her. Compartmentalized her, and when she wanted her own rights back, he left her, and went on with 99% of his life as if nothing ever existed between them. 

 That's what happens when your heart is broken. You attempt to create a past that resembles your life before any of this has happened. You try to move on. You try to feel that you are desirable and people will make time for you and care about you. You try to be in control. But you still can't figure out why he left you. He left you crying, helpless, sad, and begging for his return. And he just laughed, or perhaps he just had not thought about you at all. You never existed. You were just a free call girl at his service, his doormat. Until he was tired of you.

Perhaps that's really why. Because you are no longer his object of affection. You no longer mattered to him. You never did matter. And that is the end. 

And with that, you know it's time to move on. It's never easy, but tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow boy will be there, to tell her how much she is wanted and how lucky he is to have found her.

Tomorrow. There is always a tomorrow.

  

On being an idiot, and the procss of moving on

Went out with a girlfriend. Ate, smoked and cried.

I was so in love but I was in love with a guy who used me and did not give a shit about me. I defriended him on FB. I should have done that a long time ago. It was a difficult decision because he was a friend before we were lovers.The FB friend occured years before. But when a love had gone wrong, when someone mistreated you so badly and did not even have the common courtesy to offer a reasonable explanation, and just left and pretended I did not exist, that's what I call it a classic moment of betrayal and dismissal.

He hurt me so much by treating me like shit but gave me those sweet lines as if it meant anything.

I shall never see his face on Facebook. I shall never hear from him. I shall never understand why he dragged this long and never let me go. I shall never understand why he could treat me like this and why a year and some months later he made me feel this way. I shall never understand why he could pretend that he loved me too and told me all those things as if he meant it. I shall never understand why he took advantage of me like this and never gave a shit about me but pretended that he did.

I shall never forgive myself for falling for such a guy.

I could never forgive myself for having trusted him, loved him, and made myself vulnerable.

I could never forgive myself for never voiced my opinion, told him that I loved him enough for me to start a life with him, and asked him what he wanted out of this thing.

This thing he jokingly called as "relationship", told me that he loved me, and pretended that he cared about me, made me feel that I meant something in his life, and this thing that broke my heart called love, all happened before I knew it. I was strong enough to feel vulnerable around him. I was strong enough to take everything that I could take and put up with his bullshit his lies his lack of response his refusal to talk to me on the phone his absolute absence. I was strong enough to open up to him, perhaps because he did not give a crap about me.

I suppose It was wrong to place my trust on a person whom I should never trust to begin with, and it was wrong to love someone who did not give a shit, who only cared about himself and never worried about how much he hurt me until I couldn't take it anymore. I suppose I thought if we started as friends, we'd at least be adults about it and have a conversation about it, not for him to just leave, disappear into thin air.

That's what made me realize how stupid, how terribly ignorant I was about this whole thing. I bought his bullshit, I read his email and thought that when he said that he missed me and wanted to be with me, I believed it. But instead, when he was near me, he never made himself available, he disappeared as soon as he came home. All the empty promises, all the notion of how much he wanted to see me, as soon as he was home, it stopped. He dragged me through high and low as if he was bipolar, one moment he wanted me and can't wait to see me, one moment he was no where to be found. Never answered my calls. Never returned emails.

I would have been completely fine if he never called this a relationship, or told me that he loved me. I had been in relationships for a long time without this level of fake commitment. I would have been completely fine if he did not tell me all those lies, because I liked sex. Our sex was great. But the type  of lies the types of betrayal, the up and downs, that got to me.

I would have been fine. But he got to me. he got to me where no one else could. I had become vulnerable. And then he got bored, but not bored enough to let me go. Just bored enough to make me feel unwanted and disposable. Why would he have to have this twisted need to hurt the woman who probably him?

My offering was the following: Be sexually available, be adventurous, OK if he was in other relationship, as long as he still wanted me, I was always generous, I had the money, the resources to afford anything and everything, I didn't have jet money but if I stopped working tomorrow, I'd be fine. I'd be fine because I have been good at saving and I had invested wisely. I was interested in many things and activities. I could be outdoor running or biking or scuba diving or golfing. I could be indoor listening to a lecture, watch a play, attend a symphony. I traveled around the world. I am successful in my career. And I was submissive to his news.

My asking was so simple: Once in a great while, say once every few weeks to call me or return my call. Return my texts as opposed to never return my texts.  See me every two weeks. Or ever months. or every six weeks. That's it. And not cancel on me last minute all the time. Be responsive, not go on hiding for two weeks and never return an email from me. And lie, lie through his teeth. Every single part of him was a lie. It had never occurred to me that he never gave a shit about me. Even when he told me that he loved me, and that we were in a relationship, and he adored me, he lied. Everything, everything was a lie.

There were many signs. A birthday card given to me declaring his love for me. Gone. The moment he was done with me, the card went with him. He didn't want any evidence of fake love declaration. Photos and videos he took of me, gone, I never got a chance to have it. Never once promised anything and made it happen. Just lies. Lies to make me feel good at the moment but afterwards like shit.

I am supposed to learn something from this.  I guess what I learned was that I should never lose myself, even when sex was great. I should never let man to take advantage of me. I should have trusted my instinct, I should have never trusted him. And I should have left a long time ago.

On a plane from Hong Kong to B.C., I had met this man who thought that I was attractive. He told me about his relationship and I told him about mine. He was puzzled as I was pained. "A girl like you should not be pained." He said. I was a mess then. I am a mess now, but there is no reason to be this way. I have people who genuinely love me.  I have this world who see me as someone else. An inspiration, a model to look up to, and a person who has everything going for her. That's really the core of my being I think. 

One day, one day I will be OK. I know that. I will be OK because I will move on and I will never see or hear from him again. I shall never know why he intentionally hurt me and pretended that he loved me. I shall never know why he said all those wonderful things to me to lure me in and kept me there. I shall never know why he pretended that he cared about me. I do know that I had finally seen his true color. I do know that I had enough and I cannot take his lies any more.I am sad and angry, a man who supposed to be a friend before all of this happened, took the opportunity to gain my trust and then destroyed everything I thought was valuable in a unconventional relationship. The most important part being trust.  When the trust is broken, it does not go back to normal. There isn't anything left but to move on. That's the finality of it all.

That's my lesson to be learned. But hey, even the smartest person in the world can and will fuck up. It just so happens.. this is my turn.

Now I shall cry and grieve, go for a long run, continue to surround myself with men and women who love and adore me, despite of all my flaws, men who always loved me, women who always loved me, but knew what this relationship meant for me, and not be dismissive about it.

One guy friend said, "Cry, let it all out. It'll be good for you. And never ever contact him, and if he contact you, don't read his email, don't answer his call. Don't. Just don't."

So I cry. My eyes are puffy.

I cry because I lost faith in what I thought was love. I lost faith because I trusted a man whom I thought I could trust. I lost faith in me, in the good of me. I thought if I was decent, loving, caring and giving, he would at least respect me and have the decency to tell me that he was sorry. But no, there was never any kindness in his end. He had decided that I was no longer a challenge, and he abused the friendship that was meant to last, a fifteen year long friendship, just so that he could gain control in some twisted game.

My friends tell me to move on, and this time, I shall listen.

Later at night

Texted my friends. Men and Women. Should I?

Every response came within 5 minutes. "Yes. you must."

So I did.

Went through the emails. Deleted them all.

Went through messenger. There were notes from 2008 onwards. Deleted them all.

Removed him from friend's list. He had long blocked my access to FB. He had no desire for me to be seeing his business. Now I have defriended him. Not for him but for me to move on. 

As I'm doing this, I realized that that's exactly what my friend N was telling me. You must expunge. Rid of everything every line of communication. photos. messages, notes and gifts.

Throw out my beautiful necklaces. A brand new purse. No reminders of him should be in the house.

Deleted photos of us. Erased them all from backup drive. We never were together. He never existed.

It must be final.

Any reminder of him would result me wanting to get in touch with him.

He who did not have the courtesy to give me the opportunity to talk one last time. He who is willing to throw fifteen years of history away. Because he did not give a shit about me. That's the irony of it all. We were friends. Friends of fifteen years. Friends who always stayed in touch, somewhat. Friends who were suppose to be friends. Who shared quite a lot in common. Not even one word. Just like that. Who does that? Who does that by throwing years of friendship away? Who would do something like that to a woman who he allegedly loved and cared about?

Late at night as I deleted everything I cry. I cry because I feel like a total idiot. An idiot who actually believed him. Who cared enough about him to make excuses about all of his lies and inconsistencies.

There was never even an ounce of truth to it. That I could forgive. But I coudn't forgive a man who could not and would not have the common decency to return my call, my email, despite a year and some months of relationship. Women who he did not see that often got more closure than me. Women who he claimed to be difficult to deal with got more out of this. Not me. He simply disappeared. I did not exist. I am invisible. I never meant a thing. My friendship, meant nothing. Not a thing. Our sexual adventure, not a thing. And that's when I got angry. I'm upset because he's did not give a shit about me, yet he told me that he cared about me. He acted as he cared. But in the end, he couldn't even have the common decency to have a dialogue with me.

My emotions are very raw and my sadness was real.

I shall never understand what happened. I shall never understand why I meant so little that he didn't even want to given me the closure.

I am, however, in need of moving on. Desperate need. I need to cry. I need to feel that I can't breathe. I need to feel that I can be desirable again. I need to feel that I mattered, maybe never to him, but to others. Then I need to be with someone else. A new guy who would adore and love me and treat me with respect.

I need to know that there will be a hopeful future, where his absence may be hurtful now, one day, one day I will be whole again.

In that regard, I truly hope that I never hear from him again. It'll just prove my theory. My theory was that I meant absolutely nothing to him. Everything was just a show. And he had never loved me, or even desired me. Everything was just a lie. He only wanted to have sex with me as a variety test. He had others in his life, I was his after thought when he was my main thought.

And perhaps that's the easiest way for anyone to move on. To know that you never had love to begin with. To know that he never give a shit about you. To know you meant so little to him, that your hurt, your pain had never registered in his mind. You were nobody to begin with. You thought that he was there, but when they are deleted, it was never there, never there. He never existed. You never got hurt.

He never existed. It was just a nightmare. It was just in your head. And now you are awake. The world has been waiting for you and you will be alright after all.

A cautionary Tale on Love

A sad woman who had always thought that by being submissive, generous, giving, forgiving, and loving, the person she thought she loved, would love her back.

That's a story that would result a sad ending.

It was a formula that never could have worked.

A sad woman who was otherwise successful, happy, funny, and had done so much for herself despite her difficult circumstance, and who was loved by many, and cared by many, and had been lost forever in her own sorrows, and had been vulnerable because she had finally let herself be that person, got hurt, by someone who really did not give a damn about her, or cared about her or felt any needs to comfort her.

Did she deserve to be treated by someone who was so heartless and used her and lied to her constantly?

I think the answer is simple. She let herself fall into the trap. She lacks certain self awareness. The person deceived her. Never cared about her. Said things to make her to go back to him after months of absence all the time. Cancelled on her, never talked to her on the phone, never cared about her, just wanted her to have sex with him, but also wanted her to have emotional connection with him. That's twisted, sick and hurtful.

Now what did she learn?

I don't think she had learned anything right now. But she should learn the following:

Don't fall in love with a mass manipulator whose only purpose in life is to serve his own needs at the expense of hurting the one person who loves him unconditionally. Who derives pleasure in hurting a woman who should never let her into his life.  And if a man tells her that he loved her but then disappeared the moment he said that, know that he lied and she should leave immediately. Don't make excuse for his mistreatment of her. Don't talk herself into believing anything he says. Don't become sexually dependent on someone who's pure purpose was to hurt and deceive her. Don't expect that by being a good, decent, loving, caring person, this person would respect her and like her more. This person will only take advantage of her, and pretend he cared about her until he was bored.

Friends say - "Congratulations. Now cry. So proud of you." Every single one of them who knows about this relationship say the exact same thing. Men, and women. No one disliked him because this woman is married and is carrying on an affair. Friends say - "As long as you are happy." As long as he treats you well.

Friends got upset by watching this woman deduced into a sad sack of mess. Someone who was in denial of her own happiness. Her devastation will end. Her heart will heal. It's one thing to heal from a love interrupted by circumstance. It's another to heal from loving someone who never gave a shit about her and lied and fucked with her head for whatever twisted reason he had in his head. Someone who never loved her but claimed that he did. Deception was perhaps the best thing that happened to this relationship. A man who never loved her but pretended that he did to get his rocks off. A man who never even had the decency to have an adult conversation after knowing the girl he supposed to "love" was devastated. A man cowardly disappeared when things were not going well.

That's how you move on I suppose. You move on by knowing that your love was never returned. You move on by knowing you had fallen for an indecent man who used and played you. You move on by knowing the man never loved you and never will.

Unfulfilled promises and misplaced trust. A beautiful dream gone. But the woman's heart is still there, beating, hopeful, and perhaps in the end she will find love, and be loved by a man who loves her back.

So there, a new beginning. A new hopeful beginning.

A beginning that does not involve this man, who was really just in the business of luring weak, vulnerable women into his world and then watch them crumble by hurting them in whichever way he could.

She's been kind, loving, giving, vulnerable, caring and generous. She's been open minded and hopeful. She has been the way she ought to be if she's in love. In the end, she loved him unconditionally. 

And there is no lesson to be learned from that. Perhaps the best thing that came out of this is to know that nothing he said or she felt had any reality to it. It was just a show. And now the show has ended. Curtain is closed. And fellows, we must exit the theatre, stage left, and if you don't like the ending, go ahead and cry on your own.

This is a real story that does not contain a Hollywood ending.  This is about a vulnerable woman who believed that love would conquer it all, but instead, her lover's entire purpose was to hurt her, lie to her and in the end, watch her crumble, cry and pretend a year plus long relationship never existed, and a fifteen year long friendship meant nothing. he had disappeared. Not a word. Not one single word. Not even to have the common courtesy to say goodbye like two adults. He had moved on. And she never mattered. That, my dear reader, is a cautionary tale on love. 

Bar night

Went to a bar. Need to feel revalidated. It was easy. Of course it was easy. Men. Women. Attractive women. Successful attractive women. Renaissance successful attractive women. Women who have many interests who can talk about the latest technology, the political environment in the middle east or Africa, the latest restaurants, Dead Metaphor at A.C.T., Sleep No More NYC in Chelsea, porn shoots at the Armory, and the skillfulness of self portrait of your naked body with your iPhone. Not to mention, RN74 carried a lot of expensive French reds, and the pending farm house acquisition of mine in France. A woman who just returned from a nudist colony, who was just in remote parts of the world, who could talk about diving or golfing or D.J. at Vessel, and what do you think about the new pope Frances being a jesuit?

I'm a woman with many interest. I like talking about everything except - the love business. I don't like to talk about dating. Dating sucks. I would like to fuck. That's it. Just fucking. I don't know why it is so hard to fuck. To find someone you want to fuck with.

I have plenty of men who would want to fuck me but I have zero interest. I liked their stories though, to hear how they want to score.

At the core, I'm a nice caring gentle loving person who is fortunately loved by many. I am a compassionate person who required little attention. I have a big heart and I want to give. When I love someone I loved with passion and I gave them the space they needed. I was giving in the bedroom and I was perfectly content being on my own for a long period of time. I don't understand, which is why I still cry, a man whom I loved would treat me so horribly so dismissively and so heartless and so careless. I don't understand because he toyed with my emotions and my heart, and I gave very little reason for him to do that. I was self contained and I was so ready to be with him or for me to leave him but to not have any sort of communication? That's coward. And I've been friends with him for 15 years. And this is not the kind of way I want to end things. This should not be the way to end things. I can't begin to imagine how this happened. I thought we'd have a good conversation and be civil about it. I gave no reason to my boyfriend, ex anyway to feel insecure or anything. I simply loved him with all my heart and would be willing to give up anything for him.

Therein lies the problem. I have lost control and I am no longer the person I just described. I lost myself and therefore all my self-respect and self-control.

Never a good place to be. To lose yourself. Lose your voice, and your heart.

Heart is broken. Heart is in millions of pieces. And all I needed, was not amend the heart, but someone who cared about me enough that he'd pick up the phone and call me or ask to meet up with me. Not like one line of email, and a year of half of relationship. Gone, wiped out, as if it never existed.

There would always be others but no one is you

There would always be others but no one is you.

One day, you used to write, "One day I would be alright."

One day came and went. You were still flawed. Like the evil queen, you'd look at the mirror, and say, "Mirror Mirror, who's the fairest of them all?" You were insecure, emotionally distant, and consequently needed to be told that you were desired and loved and you did everything you could to please those who said those flattering words. You needed approval, from men, from women, from anyone you felt attracted to. You couldn't stand being left in the dark, in the cold, and you were constantly seeking those moments of high, the high was never really there, there was a gaping hole in your life that you never got a chance to fulfill. You never could figure out how. You were damaged and wired differently. You never felt secure wherever you were.

You were never good at being at the same place with the same person. That was your fundamental flaw. Everyone saw what they needed to see and everyone gave you what they thought you wanted to see or hear. You had names for them. Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, D, E, etc. That was you pattern. Then you had offsetters. Offsetters were those who served as balance to a Plan. Like a contingency planning. You were comfortable when you had each Plan lined up and each person fit into a mode. It was a music chair, when one person dropped off you nominated a new person. You created a persona for each person and you hid behind those persona, somewhere along the line you blurred games with reality, somewhere along the line a player was played. That was how the game was played. There were winners and losers. You had to stay one step of your opponent, but sometimes you lost.

You promoted them when one dropped off. Then you started your contingency planning again. When you drop someone, the offsetter must be dropped off too. You could only have both at the same time, you could not have one exist without the other.

You did not like to lose. The only time you felt some real emotions was when you let your guard down and listened to your heart, heart did not do rational things. Heart tended to wander. Heart constructed an alternate reality, where you could finally be free of your facade, your insecurities and your troubles. Heart fell in love and you got scared.

The night before you knew it would happen you cried. For the first time in a long time you saw that twelve year old girl. She barely had anything to hope for but the return of her father. Having been physically abused since she was little by her father, then narrowly escaped a rape from her mother's friend at eight, and finally suffered continuous molestation by a stranger on a crowded bus for a year when she was ten, she still had one thing to hope for, the love from her father who was also, largely absent from her life, because he traveled for work and had affairs with women who were not her mother.  Then her dad left, this time for good, or it seemed, with another woman, who was not her mother. She suffered a heart break, a literal heart condition that sent her to a military hospital. No nurses, few sightings of doctors, bunch of young soldiers who just fought and killed others in a boarder dispute war, those were her only friends. They were eighteen and she was twelve. Abandoned in the hospital, she developed feelings for one of the soldiers who liked her. By the time when she was fourteen and entered into an elite summer camp, her mother entrusted her to the camp counselor who declared he loved her, she was fourteen and he was thirty. Those were not something a little girl should go through. Heart never got put back right. She knew that but she knew there was never going to be an opportunity to fall. So she marched forward, in a foreign country where things could have gone wrong and had gone terribly wrong, she survived, there was never going to be a chance she wouldn't take. She was a survivor who did not have time to feel pity for herself.

And that's how heart got broken you see. Nothing would be the same again. Nothing, not at all.  And this was the end. No closure afforded nor needed.

Just another change of season. Just another love story gone wrong.  Just another ending. Not the one you were looking for, but an ending nontheless.

Dinner

So I went to have dinner with a friend. He said to me that I should expunge the past. He also said, "This restaurant has significance" I asked why so he told me that he took a girl to this restaurant and he thought he loved her. Things did not work out of course.

Great, how was that piece of information relevant to my situation?

How was I suppose to expunge? He explained to me to delete every single communique and remove all photos from the past. Delete emails phone numbers photos as if the past did not exist.

There were wandering dogs at night. Powell street was full of dogs. Maybe they belonged to the homeless guys. I remembered that fateful morning, when we fed the dogs and one puppy got run over and it was cut into half. That day my girlfriend yelled at me for being such a push over and not doing something she thinks I should do a long time again. I took it because she was having a rough day, her adopted puppy died. Then this happened, girlfriend said that she meant to say sorry because she was in a bad mood and she took it out on me, my situation. I wanted to cry then but I didn't. She had a rough day and I'm having a rough week you see. I was telling my friend this and I could feel my tears coming down, I was doing so good up till then.

Friend gave me a hug. How did he see it was dark but I'm thankful. Said that he sent a picture to a friend of his who thought that I was his girlfriend. Come again? His girlfriend? Weird! I was no one's girlfriend but I offered to pretend to be his if he needed to make a lady friend of his jealous. I was good at pretending, pretending I could but it's real stuff that scared me. Until this happened.

"One day," he said, "one day you will come to this restaurant and you'll going to think whatever you went through was for nothing." Give yourself a week, he said. I asked, "what about 7 months?" That's what I heard, mandatory 7 months. He laughed. I was usually a very strong independent go getter but in this particular situation he said "why are you such a push over?" I looked at him puzzled as I didn't have an answer."I'm not." I defended myself. "That's why I like you you are a very strong smart independent interesting opinionated person." I love those adjectives. I had never been a push over person until this happened. I never had a voice in this situation. I was lost and drowning in my sorrow for months, even a year.

When I sat down at the restaurant, where he was already sitting down, he got up, and greeted me like a gentleman, and then he said "I liked your hair it's red it's awesome and the gray suit looks great on you. You look beautiful." All I said was "I hated the hair they did it while I fell asleep and my suit makes me look boring." "Why can't you just say 'thank you'?" He said. "OK, thank you." So that was how the evening got started. Unless you counted the text message that started with me saying "Am lost" and he responded "Figure it out you are smart use your smart phone."

I texted him on the way back to thank  him for not taking advantage of me. For being there for me and treating me with respect and letting me to be vulnerable, and graceful. He listened all the way. Not even one word about his life. I supposed that's what a real friend was. Someone who let you cry and made you laugh and told you like the way it was. I didn't need to know when I'd see him gain, it's just a text away. It was really that simple. It went both ways. Why was it always so much work with the other person? Why couldn't I just ask and why couldn't he respect me and respond?

Why was never the question to ask. It was when. When was always the question. When I should end this so I could be me again. When the lies would stop and when he would spare me the pain and stop playing with my heart. The heart was such a fragile thing. If you entrusted it with the wrong person you could come off like an idiot. I was the village idiot. The question was never why, why was irrelevant. 

I knew why.  I just didn't want to see why. The only time he was warm was when he was away and when we couldn't be together. When he was near me, he disappeared. I was a left over thought, and I hated myself for it. It would be all fine if he never said that he loved me and told me that he missed me. It would have been just a fun lighthearted thing which I was no stranger to. But he fucked with my head, and then with my heart. Therefore I became the laughing stalk. Me? Me. ME!

Maybe I was going to be alright one day. Maybe I just needed to be told that I was good just the way I was. No need to change. No need to expect the impossible.

Expunge. "What about my physical belongings? Physical belongings that were no longer in my possession but belong to me? Can you retrieve them?" Friend made a fist and pretended to pound into something. But laughed. "No, you can afford new ones." He said.

There was always an opportunity for something new, I suppose. Until then, I knew I could run to my friend and give it a good cry. But that would ruin my gray suit, and my red hair, in which, apparently, I looked beautiful. His words, not mine.