And I Know Now, I Know You Were Wrong

I've owed you, my readers, this story for quite a long time.  It's been one I've kept pretty tight lipped about because there are situations and people that are close to me involved, and it's complicated.  As I type these first few sentences I'm still struggling with whether or not to post this on a forum so public as my blog.  But this is my space-a space where I'm supposed to speak my mind; this blog has seen me through so many joys and heartaches that stifling it all away seems unfair to this blog, to those of you who are reading, and to myself.   Censorship is not a thing I do if I can help it-I'm not going to edit myself out of fear. I want to be real here.

Last week I finally accepted that I had been used.  This was a fact those closest to me had been trying to convince me of for a while now.  How is it that your friends always know before you do? Yet, ever the optimistic, I spent a lot of time defending the actions of someone who was supposed to be my friend.  Friend...  That's the word he used after it was all said and done. He had a rough childhood.  He has trouble connecting.  He's just clueless. He doesn't mean to make me feel like this.  I didn't think there was any way he could have malicious intent because he was my friend...  I'm finally going to tell you about Frank.

Frank and I have run in the same circles for a few years.  We weren't friends-not even on Facebook, and to be honest I thought he was kind of annoying the few times I'd interacted with him-but that was usually when we were in a bar and he was pretty drunk.  Then life circumstances changed and I was seeing him more often.  He was friendly and nice, and seemed pretty genuine in his interest of getting to know me better.  I started to develop some sort of feelings for him... Akin to what you might call a crush... But at 27. At the Halloween party last year our friends locked us in my bedroom and forced me to tell him that I liked him.  He was nervous about dating someone in his circle of friends that he had that much interaction with, but I persisted.  I'm kind of a force of nature when I want to be and sometimes I get brave enough to take a risk.

We dated for a month-spending nights but never going further than a kiss. He ended it due to the anxiety that it caused him dating someone he saw so much and who had so many friends and other things in common.  We went back to life as normal, and I worked on getting over it.  It's hard to put something out of your mind when you see someone so often-and when they wont leave you alone.  Can I reiterate the clueless excuse?

And then in April he showed up on my doorstep.  Earlier that night I'd gone to a mutual friend's birthday party and after... Eight shots?  I texted him.  It was dumb, but it was a moment of weakness.  I just wanted to know why he wasn't there.  He showed up just as everyone was leaving-and we managed to exchange a hello and goodbye before heading home to crash.  I was just crawling into bed when he showed up at my doorstep at 2:30 in the morning wanting to talk.  He had some excuse about wanting to talk about another friend of ours, and when it came down to it I asked him Why the hell did you really drive over here at 2:30 in the morning? He wanted to talk to a friend, and I'm his friend. I'm not your friend.  He missed me. Yeah, I'm pretty missable.  He still liked me.  It was like pulling teeth to get that he admitted he liked me, but he wanted to stay the night.  I told him he could sleep on the couch if he wanted.  He opted to go home instead.

But that sparked this whole thing over again and before I knew it we were seeing each other again.  This time with the physical intimacy the time before had lacked.  He spent nearly 48 hours with me over my birthday, and we had a really great time together.  Before long we were hanging out every weekend, sometimes two nights or more a week.  We were having fun, and I being who I am started to have feelings for him despite how utterly and completely strange he was, and some of my friends just not getting it.

Then I did something stupid.  He'd started to ditch me for several weekends in a row or not text me for a few days and I was sick and tired of being in limbo.  I don't do limbo well.  I need to know where I stand with people-I don't understand why we can't all just be honest instead of playing stupid games.  He spent the night and in the morning I asked him what we were doing.  I told him I might be falling for him.  He said he didn't feel the same.  Then what are we doing here?  Are we friends with benefits?  Are we dating?  Because when you date someone you have the intention of it eventually becoming something more.  He looked at me astounded when I asked him that.  He said "Do you mean like marriage and kids?" NO!  I mean love.  He looked at me and said he'd never love me. "Sorry, but you can't control those feelings."  Ouch.  When asked why he spent all these nights with me, his response was "I thought you wanted me to." Thanks for making me sound like a charity case.

So I moved on.  I spent the weekend moping over rejection and I got over it in five days.  I'm pretty sure when you get over someone that fast it's pretty safe to say you probably weren't in love with them.  Which is good.  Saying I was falling may have been hasty and misguided, but at least I was owning what I was feeling at the time.  By Wednesday of the following week he and I were texting as friends again, and I was considering staying in a friends-with-benefits type situation until I realized I just wasn't that into it anymore.  Somehow after laying everything out on the table I decided the attraction was just gone.  We were just friends.

Then he suddenly was in a serious relationship only a few weeks after this.  I was shocked-knowing him I didn't expect that at all.  My friends were livid.  After listening to them rant about him and continuing to defend my "friend" I finally came to the conclusion that they were right.  He had been using me.  

Then I got angry, as you are prone to do when you start coming to the realization that you were so very wrong about everything.  I stayed angry for a few days, and then when I saw him I felt guilty.  Why?  Because he was trying to be so friendly (because he is my "friend" isn't he?) and I was being cold.  Polite, but I didn't want him to talk to me and I was trying to make that very clear with my tone.  He asked about the party-and I didn't have the heart to tell him he wasn't invited.  He can't come.  A good portion of my good friends hate him and it would be trouble.  So I bent the truth-I told him I wasn't sure when it was going to be.  I couldn't bear to hurt his feelings.  He mentioned his birthday party.  I bent the truth again and said I had forgotten all about it.  Then I was so horribly guilty and bothered about trying to not be his friend when he was making an effort to be my friend that I started feeling pretty blue.

When I explained the guilt to Shawn he said "If you need to lie to yourself to make yourself feel better then by all means, but none of us are buying it."  He apologized for being blunt, but he was right.  If he were really my friend he would have stated his intentions clearly when he made his way back into my life.  A move he made knowing exactly how I had felt before.  

If he were really my friend he would have been honest with me instead of boasting about his new girlfriend to MY friends in hopes of the news making it's way back to me.   That was a dick move.

If he was really my friend his only response to a mutual friend talking to him about it would NOT have been "That's why I didn't want to get involved with her. Hurt feelings." What. The. Hell.  He can't at least be the friend he claims to be and feel a little bit sorry for how it was handled?  Asshole.

It's not that he didn't have feelings for me when I thought I had them for him.  I get it-I'm an adult woman who can handle rejection, and who got over that fairly quick. I don't need unrequited love in my life-I moved past that in my early twenties. It's not that he has a new girlfriend-a friend wants their friends to be happy and in healthy relationships.  It's how it was all handled.  A real friend would have had more respect for me than that.

I don't need a friend like that.  I need friends who will be honest with me.  Friends who can have an adult conversation with me even when it's dealing with the hard stuff.  Someone who respects and trusts me enough to bring up things they think are difficult instead of gossiping about it like a 12 year old in hopes that I"ll hear it from someone else.  Someone who can make their intentions clear and talk about their feelings. Someone who doesn't intentionally use me and who can be sorry when the unintentional hurt happens.  I forgive so easily.  I love with everything I have.  I'm a loyal and honest friend.  I don't need anyone who can't handle that.  That realization is what has led me to walk away from the "friendship" in hopes of a better end.  I'm still going to have to see him-unfortunately that's exactly why you don't get involved with someone you see so often, but I don't have to be anything other than courteous and polite.   It's a matter of self care.

I originally started writing this as part of my Musical Mondays post for next week which is why the title is a line from Think of You by MSMR.  The post got too long and had to become it's own thing.  But here's the song with lyrics-it's the song that represents this whole situation for me.  The real video will be up Monday!