To be or not to be...

"It scares me, the way I really don’t think about you anymore.  While just a couple months ago you were all I thought about, things have completely changed.  This bothers me.  I’ve found that with my standards, when I realize I have feelings for someone, it takes me forever to get over her.  What’s become different with you?  Is it because of the immature way we ended things?  Have I just been really busy with other issues on my mind?  Am I growing up and learning that people are meant to come in and out of our lives?  Were you (according to my extremely intelligent friend, Brian, and his dilemma) just another napkin from the stack?  It may have taken me a while to realize it, but I really don’t think you were; and so I really don’t want to forget you like this.  As crazy as this sounds, I want to miss you.  I know I should be doing exactly what I’m doing: moving on and letting go.  But the fact that it’s happening so naturally and so quickly worries me.  It actually pains me to write this, just because I know that this has run its course.  But for some reason, I really do want to write this… I just don’t want to think of you like all the other girls; you weren’t like them.  So as much as I know I shouldn’t do this, here are the ‘so many things that were left unsaid’.  Here is everything I should have told you, but just didn’t have the balls to say…

When we first started talking, I had no idea what kind of effect you would have on me.  You were just that girl from oh, so long ago.  So we started off casually, not talking about much at all.  I thought it’d be fun to poke at you a little bit and be a little cocky.  It was all just joking around with a girl who had a silly thing for me at the beginning of high school.  Things changed the first time we saw each other over our computer screens.  There was some kind of connection.  There was an unexplainable spark, a certain giddiness around you that I hadn’t felt for anyone in a long time.  But I was unsure.  Who were you?  How could this be happening with someone I’ve pretty much just met?  Why did I want to talk to you again, and again?  It's strange how you can miss someone you've just met.  We talked more, and the questions and uncertainties only grew.

I asked you out to see if any of them could be answered.  We had a great time; I still can’t explain it, but it was amazing to see you again, even if none of the questions were even remotely answered.  But the truth is… you gave me this look.  It started in my car as I was driving you back, and it preceded every cute little wave you had for me in our chats afterwards.  You had this certain gaze, a twinkle in your eye that said to me, ‘let’s hang out more’, ‘let’s get to know each other’, ‘let’s take a chance at this’.  Your look said to me… ‘let’s be together’.  This absolutely terrified me.  It terrified me, not because it was unexpected, and not because it made me uncomfortable.  In fact, it scared me because it was so comfortable.  Your look and what it meant to me was everything I wanted.  Suddenly, you…were everything I never knew I always wanted...  This terrified me, and so my uncertainties expanded again.  Bigger questions were added.  How could I be feeling this way for someone so quickly, with my standards being what they are?  How do I really know that I want this?  What do I do now?  I realize now that I had no idea how to handle us after that.  

You see, I used to be the nicest, sweetest guy any girl could ever ask for.  That translated to neediness and clinginess, so I had my heart ripped from my chest and shoved down my throat.  Afterwards, I swore to myself that I’d never feel like that again.  I told myself that no girl is worth opening up to like that.  So without even knowing it, in my cloud of doubt that I had about you, I pushed you away.  If you didn’t notice, any time we’d begin to talk about anything deep in our lives, I made a joke to neutralize it and bring it back to casual conversation.  I became unappreciative of you, waiting for you to contact me and ending conversations early.  I didn’t want to do it; I always wanted to talk to you for so much longer.  But I was just afraid of opening up and seeming in any way desperate.  I became a jerk, making fun of everything from your new car, to finishing your ten-page paper, to seeing your picture as an ad in the paper, all because I wanted to make it a point that I’m some cool guy with a life that didn’t need you.

I felt tensions rise during finals week.  I could be totally wrong about this and you were just busy studying, but I felt like things were different.  In my mind, I knew my comment about your ad was too much.  Looking back at it, I think around here might’ve been the time you had begun to think how worthless I was to talk to.  But at this point, I was realizing how worth it you really were.  I realized how much I had taken you for granted.  I found myself missing you, and missing hearing from you.  So after finals, I called you.  I told myself I was finally going to quit the crap.  I was going to show you who I really was and let you know how I really felt.  I had planned to ask you to go to an art show with me that weekend, but I was so nervous to ask you so I just kept talking.  This was a huge deal for me.  I had been on first dates before… never a second.  When you unexpectedly hung up on me, I had no idea how to react.  Suddenly, all the doubts that I had just thrown out the window had come back, and the only way I thought I wouldn’t come off as needy was if I was a jerk right back.  So I did what I did, and I knew immediately after that I shouldn’t have done it.  However, I decided it was best to let things simmer down.  I didn’t want to—I wanted to talk to you more, see if you were feeling anything similar…but I ultimately decided that it would be too needy for me to try and talk to you like that.  So I let you go, not knowing how much you’d consume my thoughts, and not knowing that I wouldn’t hear from you unless I started the conversation. 

Everything seemed to culminate on Christmas day.  The reds just weren’t as red, the greens not as green.  When you know true happiness, contentment is just not enough.  I couldn’t take this pushing away business anymore; it was stupid, and going against everything I wanted to do.  So I decided that I’d drop all the doubts again.  This time, this was it.  I was scared shitless—it’s the hardest thing to put yourself out there for another person like that, but it’s especially difficult for me…  So I said what I said.  I wanted to be at that game.  But I wanted to be there with you…  It was definitely a condensed version of what I was truly feeling, and yeah, it might’ve been a little ambiguous… But I got nothing from you.  To this day I still don’t understand why you didn’t just reply to that text.  It was so uncharacteristic of you not to react.  I had no idea what to think.  I left it all at that, waiting for something, anything to let me know that you even received what I had said.  You literally drove me crazy.  My thoughts ran rampant with the possibilities of why you hadn’t said anything.  I stared at my phone, with your name at the top of my contacts, just waiting.  I kept myself so busy, yet you were always on my mind.  I kept falling in and out of thought processes; from, ‘Fine, I don’t need to hear from you anyways’, to ‘Why aren’t I hearing from you?’  I’d later learn that during that whole time, you were actually waiting for me to call you.  I knew I owed you more than a text, and trust me, I would’ve at least called right away…if I had just gotten any kind indication of how you were feeling, too…

Driven to the point of clinical insanity, I finally called weeks later…  But I could hear it in your voice… it was too late.  As happy as I was to get closure for why we hadn’t been talking, when all that cleared I realized how badly this had turned out.  Now, I was too late.  Trying anything to win you back would fail.  I still tried… something inside of me just told me that you were a girl that was actually worth opening up to like that…but in the back of my mind, I knew this was over.  I smile now, at the thought of how ready and willing I was to commit to you.  I had so many plans.  I wanted to take you to so many places; I wanted to introduce you to so many people.  I wanted to show you the world in a way I hadn’t shown anyone ever before.  Eh, it’s ok.  Watevs.

What I’ve presented you with are the facts, the way I saw them.  I know that these facts don’t matter.  What matters are the feelings you have towards those facts, and right now, I don’t know what to think.  How could something that didn't really have a beginning have such a definite ending? I wish we could have just talked it all out.  I realized something as I was writing this: a part of me really does miss you, and I miss our happy moments so much.  But the other part of me that says this is over completely outweighs those thoughts.  I wish we could just start over.  Given another opportunity, I’d be so much better.  But I don’t believe in second chances.  It seems like in my life, with everything I’ve ever truly wanted I've needed a second chance, and I’ve never gotten one...  But the one thing I wish more than anything that I hadn’t done, was disappointing you the way that I did.  The kinda guy you thought you knew and the guy I truly am are completely different.  If it’s any form of retribution for you, you did drive me completely crazy over break; and now, I can torture my mind with the thought of you reading this and not saying anything to me... All I need is a second chance... Ahh, what an interesting chapter in my life; this one entitled, ‘The Girl That Got Away…Twice’...  Now I just wish the story hadn’t been so short."

Wow, that was a great read.  I, myself have never experienced anything like that ever before in my life.  I have a strange feeling you already know what I'm about to say about all this, but it's important for me to write anyway.  It seems like what you guys had here was a classic case of a lack of communication.  It's strange these days.  There are dozens of ways to communicate, yet the things we truly mean to say are never said.  It also seems that you guys were looking for something more mature, ahead of all the high school bullshit, but neither of you were mature enough to handle each other in your lives.  The moral of the story is, don't have high standards, because by the time you realize you've found someone you really like, it may be too late.  And trying to get her back will just leave you flat on your face.  Unfortunately, there's no way in hell I'd change my standards.  Call me a hypocrite.  The more expensive napkin that you've always wanted is always worth every penny, even if you're in debt.  So now it's a question of how you're going to learn and grow from this.  I feel like I can understand everything you're thinking.  Everyone seems to be telling you to just move on that when it actually begins to happen, you can't help but look back and see what you've lost...