Finally answering this after work;
17. Talk about someone you want to be friends with
I mean... theres a few people I’d like to be closer friends with, and maybe one or two people I want to be friends with, but idk.
24. Talk about something someone told you that meant a lot.
Ohh now I can take this two ways so I’ll talk about both ways I think about this statement.
One thing that someone told me that meant a lot was a very very personal secret that a friend shared with me, that they have never told ANYONE else about, and I felt overjoyed about it because they trusted me that much, and honestly I kind of love them for it because they are one of my longest standing friends at about.... 8 years? Like... It feels so good to be trusted with something like that.
On the flip side, I think I’ve been told that I’m like the second coming of Jesus Christ once by the same friend because of being kind, and that was probably the highest praise I’ve ever received.
I can’t really think of anything else at the moment. I’ve been given a lot of compliments but a lot of them boil down to the same thing and its rare that they stand out. They all mean a lot since pretty much all of them are very genuine, but anything where someone trusts me or validates what I’m feeling always means a lot.
37. Talk about someone you thought you were in love with.
Ooooooohhh now this is a tricky subject. Not because I don’t know a person, but because one person comes to mind IMMEDIATELY, and honestly, figuring out how I actually felt about that person changed my view on relationships and love a lot.
Strap in kiddies, this is a long story.
Like... it was about 5-6ish years ago. I was in high school and got a crush on a girl (lets call her ‘M’) who seemed really cool, and was one of the first girls I saw who had an interest in stuff I was interested in. We talked for a while and my friend said that he was gonna go on a date with one of her friends and we tried to plan a double date. M’s friend canceled so it was just me and ‘M’. When the time came for the now single date, I tried to confirm that it was a date, and she wanted to only be friends. I was really devastated because this felt like the first time I was guaranteed to go out with someone (still hadn’t had my first date yet, and I very rarely asked people out. I maybe asked out one or two people before then).
Time passes, summer break comes and goes, and I get over it. New school year starts, and we’re in the same class again. first I don’t think anything of it and just try to stay friends; talk a bit and stuff. I start trying to talk to another girl (lets call her ‘K’) and spend about 2-3 months just talking to her to get to know her and stuff. K was in two classes of mine and I thought that by really trying to talk to a girl more, that maybe I’d be given a chance. Eventually I ask her out, and she says she’d rather be friends. I feel like shit again for a few days, or a week and I get over it. M starts to talk to me more. M and I see eachother in school quite a bit and when I see her she likes to steal my hat or mess around with me and stuff like that, so I think that she might have changed her mind about me. We even plan a cosplay with the Heavy and the Medic for TF2 for a convention the next year and I’m super excited because its like a couple cosplay almost. Near the end of the semester I find out I’m going to move and I tell her and she seems really sad and wants me to visit and stuff. ( I think during this time I MAY have asked her out again or I said that I really really liked her; something like that, It might have been vague).
After I move, I stay in contact with her and fall even more in love with her because to me it feels like we have “so much in common”. She’s the first person, or at least first girl, I ever talked to who really was interested in me talking and in stuff similar to me. We only talked like once a week or once every two weeks, and the love bug had bitten me hard, I thought she was my soulmate; that combined with my anxiety about relationships basically made it torturous to talk to her or not talk to her because I was always afraid to ask questions to see what she meant or to be direct with my questions. I was always afraid that she would suddenly change her mind and like someone else. I was addicted to her because when I talked to her I felt like I was being cared for, and when i wasn’t talking to her or she didn’t respond, I felt like the world was ending.
Fast forward to the end of the year, after I moved away that summer; It’s 2012 and I’m a scared kid and I realize that I want to say something to M before the world ends; turns out, I want to call her on the phone and tell her I love her. She says she has a boyfriend or something like that and I’m devestated, BUT a few days later, they break up and she says she wants to go on a date with me. I am ecstatic. A month later, I visit where I used to live and we go on a first date and see ‘The Hobbit’. It was awkward and had sweaty hands and she arrived a little late which scared me a lot. No kiss at the end like my parents and society said was normal so I was scared about that but didnt worry too much. Another month later, just after valentines day, I visit her again. We go on a ‘date’ at the mall and talk a lot, hold hands occasionally. I give her a really really dorky card and I have an anxiety attack at the end of the date because I didn’t kiss her again. Also, she breaks up with me afterwards through text. I ask her if its possible to have a relationship again and she says maybe. (que the start of my year of hell). My anxiety attack It’s so bad that I actually go into hysterics and mania for a bit on the drive home; only time I’ve experienced it and it is NOT fun. My anxiety is so bad from it that I actually talk to the school therapist and they reccomend me to an actual therapist because its clear that anxiety and depression is ruining me.
My anxiety forced me to always obsess over previous events and how I could do something better or how a person saying a few small things like pet names can mean that they love me.
Now, for about 3-4 months, I go through therapy and most of it is about M and how I feel about her. She still talks to me regularly and even calls me old pet names sometimes. She is my only source of happiness and I feel that even though she doesn’t respond often and she has lukewarm responses to be opening up about my anxiety, that maybe we’ll end up together. I obsess over every single word she says and every single thing she does because I feel that there is hidden meaning and that maybe she really does care and like me. We cosplay together, and she’s no longer the Heavy, so it’s not a couple cosplay anymore. I still feel like I’m in love with her, and I still think I have a chance. If anything, spending so much time near her and having her be super nice and caring towards me during the entire event makes me feel so much better. Something still feels off though. I spend the next 3/4ths of a year talking to her on a regular basis, and I want her to love me so bad and I think that she does but I’m too scared to ask. I’m just waiting until she says something again. I keep texting her because I need to, I need to feel that tender love and care, even if its just someone being really friendly and using pet names and stuff. Without it, I felt like nothing and because of how she texted erratically at weird times, I always was afraid that I had said something wrong.
It’s hard to convey because my mind was so warped then, but thats what almost two years of having your brain on anxiety and loving someone with not entirely reciprocated feelings does. Around March 2014, I feel so bad about me texting her and her not responding at times that I actually have a brief flash of suicidal thoughts that scare the ever loving shit out of me. I go to the schools therapist and get sent home early. I go to my actual therapist sometime later and can’t describe why I want to continue this so much, I just HAVE to. a few sessions later, I’m trying to describe that I don’t want it anymore, I want her to love me and I want to hang on to this relationship because I have to but I can’t. And my therapist asks me if I really want to talk to her anymore and I say I don’t. Because its too painful, it’s not going anywhere, and I just feel as scared and alone as ever, and I’m tired of waiting for the relief that never comes. I say i just don’t want to be in pain anymore. I don’t want to rely on her so much. I don’t want to have this mentality that media gives us about love where you find someone you love and never let go even if they don’t love you back. And it clicks in my head. I can just. Let. Go.
I stop talking to her like i usually do with people I ask out and get rejected from. My quality of life instantly improves. My medications start working on my anxiety and depression. I’m more focused in school. I feel like I can breathe. All my anxious thoughts leave me. I realize that a relationship is not your willingness to give your life and happiness for someone else. You’re not finding your ‘other half’. You are whole on your own, and a good relationship is your willingness to build something better between yourself and someone else because you are more happy than you would be otherwise;but they are not you’re only source of happiness. On your own, each of you are still complete by yourselves.
I can barely remember what it was like during that time of my life other than I was in IMMENSE pain. I honestly have yet to feel that much emotional pain again, except for one moment; but even that didn’t last as long as my ‘’relationship’ with M did. I’ve walled off most of what I felt then and most of what I remember then is just vague memories with an inkling of feeling attached to them.
I never want to be in a relationship where I am that dependent on another person ever again. I no longer believe soulmates exist, because there are so many people you can connect with that it's a logical fallacy.
I haven’t felt like I’ve truly fallen in love with someone in a long, long time. Close. Very close, and maybe it’s happened once or twice since then, I’m not entirely sure. I’m a lot more careful now though, because i don’t want to repeat my mistakes. Especially this one.