First off, I will admit this is kind of an intense overshare to just dump onto Tumblr, but I’m a millennial with a lot of emotions and this is what we do. In order to protect a semblance of anonymity, I have changed names and kept locations vague. But I am pouring this all into a Google Doc because I have still been processing how in less than a year a person went from a mild acquaintance to one of the most important people in my life and then it only took another year for him to become somebody that I used to know. They say hindsight is 20/20, but it still feels like I can see the traffic light but the blurred sunbursts of colored lights obscure the path ahead of me necessitating another lens to see things clearly.
So as the dulcet tones of Julie Andrews remind me: the beginning is a very good place to start. Being social has not been my strong suit. From about 2nd grade to my early 20s I straight-up didn’t have friends. On multiple occasions I was told I was “too much” and between repeated rejection from friendships, a cross-country move, and 4 middle schools later I understood that there were people that would allow me to sit at their table for lunch but did not want to engage with me socially once the final bell rang. No sleepovers, no birthday parties, no “let’s go to the movies and then get Taco Bell.” Likewise, if making friends was this unattainable– dating or flirting with guys in my teen years was completely off the table. But I had given myself the hope that I just needed to move back to California and go to college, where I’d find my sitcom-like circle of friends and the perfect guy and be happy.
College at first gave me hope but it was very clear, very soon, that I was the seventh wheel in the group. I had social engagements that I went to now but I was only included as the roommate of the effervescent Vocal Performance major that could flirt with the best of ‘em. Fortunately, my roommate's shitty boyfriend went to church with Daphne, who ran in different social circles but also liked talking about pop culture and wasn’t put off by the intensity of receiving a Powerpoint of TV recommendations. We stayed “periodically texting each other” friends even as I left the university I was attending. Being away from family and in an environment where my worst impulses were fully unregulated, and my deep loneliness had not been solved by leaving my small town prompted my mental health to spiral downward. So my parents had me transfer to a college on the East Coast to live with my sister as a hail mary attempt getting me to fit the plan every boomer parent sets out for their daughter: focus on your grades, go to college, meet someone to marry, get a good job, get a house, etc. It was at this new college that I entered a deep depression that was truly the darkest time of my life. It became clear that higher education was not for me, and I moved back to California to live with my parents and work full-time.
The only thing keeping me from my darkest thoughts and helping me hold on during this period was finding my people in online fandom communities. Finding other women out there who thought about fictional characters as often and as in-depth as me was a lifeline. I found people just as moved by the power of stories and a good romance. We were of varying ages and lived in various time zones, but we were kindred spirits. People who didn’t just tolerate me talking about Felicity Smoak or Elizabeth Swann for hours on end, but found enjoyment from it. People who didn’t think I was “too intense” for saying that our friendship meant so much to me a few weeks into knowing each other. It was in this safe space, that I brought Daphne,my one sorta-kinda friend from college, into fandom and bonded to where she is now one of my very best friends. To this day, I have women that I meant through tumblr or Twitter that are my lifeline that make all the out-of-pocket nonsense that fandom brings worth it.
Now I have friends for the first time since I was ten. Awesome! Shouldn't I be dating though too? I should’ve had a kiss that was not a part of a high school play with a closted gay kid by now, right? And even that kiss I had to be the initiator. That’s what women in their early 20s do. Get on those apps, go on dates, have some epic first love or a string of comically regrettable boyfriends to laugh about when you are older. I guess. So I hop onto OkCupid and play the swiping game during my breaks at my mall retail job, and find a guy that is Christian, into movies, and cute enough. We message for about a week and he says we should go on a date: a movie and dinner. I’m about to get my “has gone on an actual date and isn’t a prudish spinster” badge! I drive an hour to a strip mall by where he lives and we see The Big Short and eat overpriced burgers at a nearby gastropub. It’s all going perfect. He walks me to my car after dinner and when I think he’s going in for a hug he kisses me. My cheeks are inflamed with an immediate blush. He’s going in for a second kiss, but I have no idea what to do so I hug him and give a cute little wave as I flee into my car to drive to Daphne’s apartment to freak out over the whole thing over a cup of Coldstone. This should be magical, right? Why does the feeling of his lips on mine feel about the same as the high school theater kiss? I wrote it off in my head that I wasn’t expecting the kiss and that’s why it had no spark. Fast forward to the end of the second date, watching Creed and dinner at PF Chang’s, that I realized while this guy was nice enough I wasn’t actually interested in him. I was interested in fitting in and not being the weirdo that’s never had a guy kiss them even into my twenties. Neither of those things are reason enough to keep dating a guy that is essentially a prop in my coming-of-age checklist, so I texted him that I didn’t think things were going to work out for a third date. After those two dates, I put dating on the backburner and prioritized other aspects of my life: mental health, repairing family relationships, trying to achieve a semblance of financial independence, etc. Granted there were enough fictional or celebrity crushes over the years that in addition to the purchase of my first vibrator, did confirm that I was indeed attracted to guys; but dating was never a focus.
So in building my career and being closer to family, I move back to Texas in fall of 2017 and start a new job. This is where I meet Jared. To paint a picture,my sports-averse self was attracted to him even when he was discussing football. One of my fandom friends asked if there were cute guys at the new job that caught my fancy, to which I replied “The only dude remotely attractive is my freaking trainer and that’s not an option.” Since I’ve valued building a reputation of professionalism, his role as a trainer and later to a manager precluded any of that initial attraction from growing into anything else (as if I could flirt or be confident to act on it at the time but that’s not the point). I packed those butterflies into a box and shoved that box into the attic– to the point that I’d forget that box existed. There was the time when he was back in my department and noted that he saw my Bumble profile, didn’t swipe right because he didn’t want to cross those lines, but commented that I have a nice profile. His respectfulness and professionalism mixed with a bit of a compliment made me remember that box of butterflies in the attic, and then promptly shoved it back in the rafters. Reign it in, girl.
Fast forward a few years and he’s back in the department I work in again as an interim while they look for a new person to fill the manager role. I’m in the interview process to potentially get that role, which means I can relax a little in my current position and not be laser-focused on making sales every second I’m at work and actually talk to people. It’s at this time that one of my coworkers gives me the 411 on Jared. You know those coworkers who have the magical ability to get everyone they talk to to divulge their entire life story? This was her. So it’s at this time that I learn that he’s a lot closer to my age than I thought he was, that he also had family in church leadership like me, we both like nerdy pop culture shit, and that he’s tired of “dating around” and “wants to find a wife”. Keep in mind that the company where I work is kinda weird in how they sorta encourage people to date, married couples to both work there, etc. With all this in mind, I decided to take my mind off of the job interview I did for the manager role by chatting with Jared. As we both look out the window I comment on the sunset, and he responds with an anecdote of how during the last time he worked in this department he’d take a picture of the sunset every evening and send it to his girlfriend at the time “This sunset is almost as beautiful as you.” Externally, I tease him about how corny but smooth that line is. Inside, I’m melting. It’s such a sweet little romantic gesture that I have never gotten to experience, I’ve just read it in fanfic. I excuse myself to go cry in the bathroom as the realization of just how much I’d love to experience something like that, and potentially experience that with Jared. And thus the rafters give way, the box falls down from the attic and breaks open to release those 4 year old butterflies.
So I got the manager job the next day, and have about 2 weeks before I start my new role giving me very little to do at work except chat with Jared on the days we are scheduled together. He gives me his phone number in case I need his help as I adjust to the new role. After a few strictly work related texts, an actual friendship begins to form as text conversations stray to movie trailer reactions and other light but fun topics. He finds reasons to pop by my department’s office to say hi even though we work nowhere near each other. It is in one of those chats that we talk and I see that his smile doesn’t reach his eyes, his normal charismatic and jovial demeanor is dimmed in a way that only someone also good at veiling sadness with a happy face can tell. The middle of shift is not the time or place to call him out on it, but that evening I texted Jared to check in and let him know I am here for him for more than reacting to the latest episode of Moon Knight. He opens up to me about things he’s been struggling with and we proceed to have a text conversation for the next four and a half hours– topics ranging from mental health struggles and past traumas to the “three fictional characters to describe me” meme and comedians we enjoyed.It was definitely a turning point, where I truly felt we were getting to know each other and really connect. The fact that my deepest friendships were made in text conversations or DMs on Twitter made it easy for me to open up and be my most authentic self. And as these Sunday night text conversations continued, I knew that my crush was moving beyond infatuation.
At the end of that summer, I went on vacation: a day at Disneyland and then a girls’ trip in Lake Tahoe with some of my closest friends made through the Olicity fandom. I was in my favorite place in the entire world, and I still couldn’t stop thinking of him. In the hundreds of times I've been to Disneyland I’ve looked at the couples holding hands, wearing coordinating outfits, or kissing during World of Color and wistfully thought “One day.” And now as I walked through the Happiest Place on Earth, I couldn’t help but think of what it would be like to share it with Jared. I wasn’t able to help myself from texting throughout the day sharing pics of Avengers Campus and Galaxy’s Edge. At the end of the day, I saw a Chewbacca pen in one of the shops on Main Street USA and just had to buy it for him. I gave a teaser text with the gift and he freaked out a little that I’d get him something because apparently he’s extraordinarily bad at receiving gifts which I just found even more endearing. Once in Tahoe, I had the opportunity to catch my ladies up with the whole situation. They totally shipped us and encouraged me to be bold and make a move– sometimes guys are dumb and you have to say you like them with a neon sign. I thought my particular brand of nerd flirting was not that subtle. I mean in the “three fictional characters to describe me” meme discussion I told him he was a mixture of Nick Miller, Han Solo, and Andrew Garfield Spider-Man, but I trusted my friends that were either married or had a serious boyfriend since this all was still very much uncharted waters for me. So while I knew I needed to be bold I wanted to invite him to a group setting where we could spend more time together outside of work before going on an outright date. When I got back from the girls’ trip, I invited him to my family’s Labor Day barbecue where he would basically meet my whole family and some of my sister’s friends from church to keep the whole thing still fairly lowkey. He was super stoked at the invite, since living hours away from family is rough on big holidays. He was a perfect gentleman and offered to pick me up to drive to my parents’ house together and offered to bring a bottle of wine to be a good guest. I informed neither me or my family drink (this will come up later) but that his presence was a gift unto itself. Before we walked into my parents’ house, I gave him the Chewbacca pen I got for him at Disneyland. His delighted laughter made my impulse buy totally worth it.
It was an amazing day. Good food, lots of laughter, and he fit in with my family so well. I had even warned my crazy aunt that I was bringing a guy that I was just friends with and to please be chill in hopes things could one day be more. Even she was on her best behavior, which made my mom joke if I could bring him every major holiday. It went literally perfectly. When it was time for him to go I had him drive me back to my apartment, even though as soon as he left I got in my car to go back to my parent’s house to gush about him with my mom and sister. Everyone loved him. He even texted a nice thank you for inviting him and that my family was so welcoming and he had a great time. I made the (only kind of a) joke with him about me separating my work and personal personas by being Maddison at work and Maddie with those who know and care about me, and that I enjoyed getting to be Maddie with him for a full day. To which he replied, he can see the difference and he really liked getting to know Maddie (with a blushing emoji at the end). At that point, I was far past a crush and this was becoming real feelings.
The following week, I was scrolling through Instagram and I got an ad for a string quartet concert playing movie scores from SciFi and Fantasy films being played in a candlelit venue. This was it. I literally couldn’t imagine a better first date for us. I talked about it with my friend in LA and she mentioned that these events sell out quickly so I should go ahead and get the tickets since they were relatively inexpensive. So with tickets already bought and after drafting the invite text and focus grouping it with like 8 different women to make sure I had the right levels of flirty but casual, I sent him an invite to the concert. He had the valid excuse of family being in town but in a second text asked if there were other dates. So hope was not lost yet at this point. I texted him the other dates but left the ball in his court. No word on the concert, but then he came over to my apartment to binge watch Andor. I ordered his favorite red velvet cake on DoorDash and as coached by my married friends I made the effort to gradually sit close together on the couch as each episode moved along. I distinctly remember being so frustrated that I couldn’t skip over the feelings confession part so we could just fast forward to cuddling on the couch watching this show because it just felt so right. Another night he texts me out of the blue that he’s taking stock of what’s good in his life and getting to know me and become friends with me is one of the best parts of his year. The happy tears come and it takes everything in me to not gush about how important he is to me and how much I care about him. We’re getting closer to the breaking point of my chill.
Shortly thereafter, our workplace is throwing this big annual party. My social battery was running low, so I left pretty early but as is our Sunday night tradition at this point I still text Jared before going to bed. He says the party was fun until it wasn't. His heart took a beating, but he’ll survive… he always does. I had never heard him sound this defeated and hurt before. My emotions are bubbling to the surface, but I have the good sense to text Daphne since she’s on the west coast time zone to figure out how to respond. I send her a truly embarrassing voice note of me sobbing and talking about how I hurt when he hurts and want to tell him how much I care about him and how he deserves so much better than people who would treat him poorly. And before I could truly embarrass myself and text all of this to him, Daphne tells me “Bitch, it’s 1am. Go to bed.” In the sanity of the morning, I can send a much more reserved “I’m so sorry. Sending hugs.” text instead of a geyser of emotion at, in hindsight, the worst timing possible. Things fall back into their rhythm, until one day I am in my car on my lunch break with my music library on shuffle and “Wrapped in Red” by Kelly Clarkson comes on. It’s October so arguably too soon for Christmas music, but I let it play because 1) that song is a bop and 2) the lyrics really start hitting.
This Christmas, I’m gonna risk it all
This Christmas, I’m not afraid to fall
So I’m at your door with nothing more
Than words I’ve never said
It’s at this point that I realize I am well past the point where I need to tell Jared how I feel so we both know where we stand. It’s no longer healthy for me to keep harboring these feelings to myself, and the next time there’s an emotional conversation I won’t have the restraint to keep it to myself. However, I don’t want to have this conversation at work and this is too big to have over text message even though that’d be infinitely easier. So conveniently another Marvel movie is coming out in theaters the following week. I ask him to the movie with a hint of flirtation but with platonic plausible deniability. He says yes. I get a little bolder and ask him to dinner beforehand, which he agrees and offers to pick me up from my apartment. Another good sign. One week, dozens of text conversations with friends talking through all the possibilities, and a hundred anxiety spirals later, and Monday night comes around. My outfit was meticulously planned– casual and in character with what I wear normally but the turtleneck has a cleavage cutout to bring a tasteful amount of “va va voom” . We keep mostly to small talk on the ride to the restaurant, and once we are seated the conversation deepens. I mention my limited dating history and get into topics previously mentioned in this essay. Jared opens up and reveals he was in a relationship that ended a few months ago abruptly with his girlfriend cheating on him with his close friend at the time. My heart sinks. I’m hurt he had to go through that, but I also know the result of the conversation I was planning for the car ride home is not going to have the result I want it to have. Fortunately, Wakanda Forever gave me plenty of excuses to cry in the theater. Regardless, the conversation still needs to be had so I start with confirming that the invite to the concert was me asking him out, and from there it all spills forth. The crush and friendship that developed to infatuation, that developed to real feelings, that I could see us being compatible and really working together, that he had everything I was looking for in a partner with the added bonus of majestic hair and being taller than me. I continued that even though he’s been dealing with a lot, it’s still my choice if I want to be there alongside him to shoulder those burdens. We are now pulled into the parking garage for my apartment. He reiterates that he is still processing all that he’s had to go through this year and that (this is a direct quote still seared into my soul) “if there’s a 5% chance that my baggage and what I’m going through could hurt you, I can’t take that risk.” I am doing all that I can not to burst into tears, and so to lighten the mood I say “Don’t read into the fact I got you a Christmas present, Etsy doesn’t do returns.” Which is a silly way to say I’ve been so head over heels for you I bought your Christmas present in fucking August, but I digress. He opens the car door, gives me a hug, and the thought isn’t lost on me that the first time I touch him is an ending not a beginning. And thus began my first true heartbreak.
Naturally, the following days made things worse somehow. I woke up feeling miserable and aching all over. At first I thought it was just a physical manifestation of my emotional turmoil, and forced myself to get out of bed with a pep talk of “You are a freaking professional and you’re not going to call out of work because a boy made you sad. Take a hot bath and pull yourself together.” Then after I proceeded to projectile vomit in the bathtub, I realized I actually had some kind of flu and did actually need to stay home. So I slept through most of Tuesday but was crying for most of the time I was awake. Of course this meant Wednesday was when I started my period, because adding period symptoms on to all of this is exactly what I need. Thus in a moment where I curled up on the floor, nose bleeding from blowing my nose too much, still crying, headache from all the crying, aches everywhere from the flu and Aunt Flo, and wallowing in self-pity that I got a little messy and made a “fishing for attention” post on my Close Friends instagram story. Just a quick slide with text about how I was sick of being sick and sick of crying all the fucking time. I’m not going to lie, I was (admittedly irrationally) irritated that I was feeling this miserable and he’s just getting to have a Wednesday. Lo and behold, I get a text from Jared: “Saw your IG story. How can I help?” – a level of obliviousness which nearly made me throw my phone across the room. At this point, I knew subtlety was not an option. I acknowledged that I had to stop reading between the lines and that he saw me as just a friend and that broke my heart–something I needed to process and he couldn’t help with.
I want to stress that I did not then nor do I now begrudge him for not returning romantic feelings towards me. He was not obligated to feel the same way. However, the bordering on overshare of feelings that I expressed made things abundantly clear where I stood on things and anything said or done at this point was regarded considering that mutual knowledge.
So here’s where the mixed signals began. He responds that he currently sees me as a friend and also he wasn’t ready for a relationship yet. Would he maybe see me differently when he is ready for a relationship? Who knows, it’s possible. And then some more stuff about how he’s sorry he caused me pain, blah blah blah. But my deluded hopeless romantic self still took the dangled maybe of who knows what will happen in the future and ran with it. “This is us at just six months of friendship, stay friends with him and we can be even closer once he heals from his cheating whore of an ex. Maybe if you get back on the bandwagon and lose weight you’ll look more like the girls he usually dates when he’s ready. This is all just bad timing, but maybe your story together isn’t done yet.” The last sentence was the only part of that spiral that was true. This is just a story that doesn’t have the original happy ending anticipated.
Meanwhile, our work Christmas party comes along and I have him pick me up because I’m a passenger princess who doesn’t like to drive outside of my 10 mile bubble but also to still keep the spark going and see where our friendship is at now. It’s a fun night of games and getting to know some of the other managers. There’s a solid group of friends in a similar age range as me that are actually really fun to hang out with. On the ride home, Jared talks about how it’s fun to see me come out of my shell and some of the others get to see me be “not as innocent as I appear”. He also talks about how the group of managers usually hang out on Sunday nights after work and that he’ll talk to the group to see if they’re cool with me joining the next time they go out. I’m honestly so excited at the prospect of a group of friends, I forget to spiral (at least until much later) about how that means our usual 9pm-1am Sunday night text convos must have been when he was out at a bar with friends and all that that implies.
Christmas comes along and he appreciates the thoughtful present I gave him of a coaster laser engraved with the design of his favorite football stadium and a homemade rice krispie treat. And since I gave him the heads up towards the end of Car Ride of Pain that I was getting him something, he had texted me earlier in December that after the hardest time searching he found the perfect present. On Christmas Eve, he shows up at my department on his day of PTO to give me my present. My coworkers are nosy so I wait until my lunch break to open it, which was smart because I teared up when I opened it. And it’s so thoughtful and sweet that I would’ve LOVED this gift as the first Christmas present from a boyfriend. I still love the gift but I’m also confused. So were my Twitter friends.
After Christmas I started hanging out with the group of managers and they were super chill and really welcoming. Towards the latter part of our first hang out there’s the round table topic of “what celebrity would want to have sex with? Man and woman.” One of the guys was debating between Henry Cavill and Jason Momoa and ended up picking Momoa. I joked “Solid pick. Momoa has more grabbable hair.” Jared and his stupid long hair turns to me and loudly says “Hmmmm. I’m learning some things about you.” I go red and my brain short circuits and I can’t think of a response beyond “Yep.” so that’s how I respond and leave it at that. AND THEN, he brings the topic back up after the “Made it home safe?” text, saying that he’s still thinking about my comment on grabbable hair. I quickly respond “So we’re going there?” trying to clarify what we are doing because this is decidedly not platonic. To which he replies, “I guess we are.” This time I did throw my phone across the room. Luckily, it landed in a to-be-folded pile of laundry. I typed and retyped a reply five times. Once my west coast friends got back to me that my idea to respond with “Everyone likes a hair grab. Why do you think I wear a high ponytail so often?” was too dirty, I decided to leave him “on read” and go to bed.
Meanwhile we still have long text conversations with serious topics like being broke af, and silly things like memes about Formula One racing (which I admittedly did get into to impress him but still legitimately enjoy it and have another friend to talk about it with). But now mixed with weirdly flirty stuff like “With the length of my hair right now, I look like Loki in Thor: Ragnarok when I get out of the shower”. Nerd flirting, but definitely flirting. Especially when I have admitted in a conversation when out with friends that I’ve read Tom Hiddleston/Reader fanfiction.
Then one day, I have a truly shitty and overwhelmingly stressful day at work. My parents were on vacation and my sister was on a work trip, so even after everything he was still next in line for who I wanted to talk to to process this. He talked me through the issue and how to best cope with it and then the conversation strayed. It was the first time since Car Ride of Pain that we actually acknowledged what was discussed. He was curious why I spoke to my feelings then. I discussed the times I wanted to bring it up earlier and he confirmed it was for the best that I did not then (especially the night of the big work party). He gave me advice about flirting on apps like Hinge and Bumble, it was kinda weird but I could use all the advice I could get. And then he offered another piece of “friendly advice”. To paraphrase, he recommended that I reconsider my decision not to drink alcohol and make sure I am doing it for me and not because of my upbringing; because guys on dates will worry that I don’t know how to relax and be loose around them if I do not have at least one drink on a date. He even admitted that he thought about what it would be like to date me but the fact that neither me or my family drinks was a problem because he could not see our lifestyles being compatible. Admittedly, my family does not drink for religious reasons. However, when I was old enough I knew I did not want to drink alcohol because of my poor impulse control regarding food and drink (even if that drink is Diet Dr Pepper). When I got to a restaurant, I don’t have a soda, I have seven. Consequently, I made the decision to not even open the door to drinking alcohol.
However, in a series of decisions I am embarrassed and genuinely not proud of, I took his words to heart and decided to experiment with alcohol. I framed it as wanting to build some confidence before I put myself back out there in the dating world, but really I wanted to show that I was fun and cool, and could live in his world. Had some spiked Simply Lemonade to test the waters which was not great but fine. Daphne recommended a rum and coke as a starter drink but when I tried it at home it was so gross that I had to brush my teeth three times after. And then when my friend group went out to our usual bar on Sunday night, I ordered the fruity drink the 22 year old in the group usually orders and inhaled it in about thirty seconds. So I got another. Trying to see what the buzz was really like, when really the biggest rush was the pleased look on his face when I ordered the second drink. In reality, alcohol just makes me sleepy (and want to cuddle but not exactly the venue for that). There was another work party that was BYOB and I brought some fruity Seagrams and when my boss commented this was the first of the parties that I drank at he joked that our friend group was corrupting me. Nearly a hundred bucks later, and the only thing close to a buzz was wanting to go to bed at 11pm one time, and I calculated that I didn’t actually enjoy alcohol at all. It finally dawned on me just how stupid drinking to impress a guy is, and just how terrible Jared’s advice was. That’s not the kind of advice you want from a potential romantic partner, and even more that’s not the kind of advice a good friend would give. In hindsight, I should’ve seen this straight away as a sign that this is not the kind of person to pursue nor the kind of person I should be friends with.
A while after the drinking debacle, Jared has been radio silent for a long time. When we interact at work on occasion, he’s noticeably distant and acting kind of weird. My instinct was telling me to reach out to him just to check that everything’s ok given his previous mental health struggles and also that he still has me (at this point in time) as a friend. Then he shows up to the Sunday night hangout for the first time in forever. A decent chunk of my friend group is chronically and comically late, so it’s me, Jared, and one of the managers with his girlfriend. Jared had stepped away for a phone call earlier in the evening for a while which was… weird, but I still ignored instincts. Then all of a sudden, I look in Jared’s direction and can’t help but see he has a picture of a girl on his lockscreen that is usually some car-related pic. At this point, I really thought I had fully moved on and was okay with being just friends. Even to the point that I was comfortable being frank with him in talking about the time period where I was halfway in love with him. But seeing the photo of the girl, and the fact that he never even dropped a text to make me aware he was dating somebody, made old wounds fresh again. I waved for the waitress to get my check and then it was a race against the clock to not start sobbing in the middle of this bar in front of my friends who know nothing about my history with Jared at this point. Literally as soon as I get my debit card back and sign the receipt, I walk as fast as I can without running to get out of my car and the tears come the instant I make it through the door. It really is a less than pleasant experience to finally be able to relate to Taylor Swift lyrics but he wasn't mine to lose and I really had been living the past several months for the hope of it all. And now that hope is shattered. He was ready to date again, and once again it was not me that he wanted. My romantic dream had always been that I would find someone that really got to know me, and would then decide that they wanted more of me in their life. Once again that did not happen. I opened myself to him in so many ways: the dark thoughts, the imperfections, my hyperfixations and the weird sense of humor that follows, and it was not a package he was interested in. So I cried and I cried that night and mourned the hope of what could have been because it wasn’t going to happen.
So let's see how being 1000% platonic friends with Jared goes. I’m at over 6,000 words in this saga and it’s 2am so I’m going to be more concise in this part. I get an awesome career opportunity to take more responsibility and have a chance to develop a team and demonstrate my leadership skills to senior management. My family and the majority of my friends were super excited for me. I explain the change to Jared and he goes “Huh. That’s an interesting choice.” And in that moment I couldn’t tell which hurt more: him not thinking that I’m going to be great at this and expressing that he’s excited for me or the fact that apparently I still value his opinion of me so damn much. Then it’s July and I’m making plans to celebrate my 30th birthday. In one of our many long text conversations, I had opened up to him about not have friends growing up and then even when I made friends they were long distance, so I was so excited to not just enjoy the festivities of a milestone birthday but be able to have a birthday with friends present that care about me and are happy to celebrate me. So I send the text to the group chat 3 weeks in advance (enough time to make plans around but not so far ahead people forget) with info for a birthday dinner at a nearby restaurant and then potentially seeing Barbie. I even made sure to schedule it after everyone’s shift would be over to ensure as many people as possible could come. Everyone begins to reply that they are coming, including Jared, and then two days later I get a “sorry I can’t go” text without further explanation. And from that point he basically dropped out of my life.
It was then the realization that I had avoided for a while hit. Some of my friends had said throughout all of this that he was putting me on a shelf but being nice enough about so he could always come back later when he needed the ego boost. I didn’t want to believe it and rationalized that couldn’t be the case because my long distance friends never met him and only knew half of the equation. But I now realize how right they were. Jared was going through a shitty time in his life when he got close to me, and in every conversation I complimented him.This made the pattern for him to talk to me when he was feeling down and my unconditional support and adoration made him feel better, and even after the feelings conversation that occurred in the Car Ride of Pain he could keep this pattern going with the tiniest bit of flirting. Then his life got better from the previous year, he’s no longer experiencing professional burnout and got himself a girlfriend again– making no need to go through the effort of maintaining a friendship with me.
So why write nearly 7000 words about this now? Well, it's definitely been a catharsis to be able to let this all out. But the catharsis was mainly needed, because I have been able to ignore all the hurt from July and the 18 months prior by simply not being around him and now I have a mandatory meeting where I see him once a week and have to act all cheery and professional.
On its own a birthday party does seem like a silly thing to end a friendship over, but it really was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was now clear, especially after writing all of this out, that as much as I had thought about him, paid attention to every detail of every conversation, etc. that he did not hold our conversations and our friendship in a remotely similar level of regard. Plainly, I deserve better from people I consider a friend. But in order to heal from the end of a friendship, I have to acknowledge that this all happened and it was a very important part of my life for some time.
Now that it’s written down, he can be just a story. An anecdote to note the end of my twenties. He can be one of the managers that works on the first floor and is neighbors with my boss and one of my friends. That’s it and that’s okay.
