The thrill is gone
The thrill is gone away
The thrill is gone baby
The thrill is gone away
You know you done me wrong baby
And you’ll be sor­ry some­day

—BB King, The Thrill Is Gone

Our rela­tion­ship was a night­mare of ups and downs.

You had the amaz­ing abil­i­ty to make me feel good about myself, by say­ing the right thing with intel­li­gence and elo­quence.

Yet every time I felt like I was mak­ing progress, progress that took tremen­dous effort and ener­gy, progress for you, you would put me down. Every time I took a leap of faith and put myself out there, you would hurt me. It was­n’t even a case of bru­tal, tact­less hon­esty; you would insult my pride for no rea­son.

I think it betrayed a sub­con­scious inse­cu­ri­ty. Something you would do to make your­self feel bet­ter. Like your con­stant need to prove that you’re busy and mov­ing on. It’s as if your life is emp­ty, void, and you’re des­per­ate to fill it with some­thing.

I had to end things when you went too far.

There were no regrets, because I did my absolute best to make things work. Even though I suf­fered, I ignored the pain, and tried work­ing through it. I only gave up when you proved too stub­born to change or under­stand.

The rela­tion­ship was­n’t a total loss. It was an inter­est­ing intro­duc­tion to the sub­cul­ture. It was pas­sion­ate­ly sex­u­al. It also made me more con­fi­dent, although I real­ize now that it was­n’t because of you. You bare­ly gave me any trust, and every step for­ward I made, you pulled me back two. It was me who fought through all the inse­cu­ri­ties and rose to the occa­sion.

When you came back in January, with­out a word of apol­o­gy or men­tion of the wrong you did, I had no inter­est in con­tin­u­ing the rela­tion­ship. After that, I thought of you when­ev­er I heard the song Buried Myself Alive by The Used.

Unfortunately, it was at an unsta­ble time in my life, so I asked you to back off and wait. Your idea of back­ing off and wait­ing is leav­ing me creepy com­ments and dat­ing to fill the time. I just can’t under­stand how you keep mak­ing these mis­takes. It’s almost like you pur­pose­ly sab­o­tage your­self.

I don’t want to be involved in the dra­ma any­more. Nothing is ever sim­ple with you. Even though you say you’ve changed, it’s not worth the risk to me. You had your chance, and it was a damn good one.

You’ve wronged me too many times. The last time you left my house, not know­ing when or if you’d come back, I felt noth­ing.

I knew then that the thrill was gone.

A few oth­er things:

• On the phone, your voice could be so cute that it would make me weak and for­get every­thing you did.
• Out of all my girl­friends, you were phys­i­cal­ly the least attrac­tive, yet you were the most con­ceit­ed about your looks.
• It was very much appre­ci­at­ed when you brought me flow­ers at work, and the times you’ve dropped off food and oth­er good­ies at my door. No one else has done this for me.
• The way you would remem­ber events was often com­plete­ly wrong. It would­n’t be so bad if you weren’t com­plete­ly con­vinced that your inter­pre­ta­tion was cor­rect. It made things rather scary, like dat­ing a schiz­o­phrenic. You could total­ly fab­ri­cate how things went, the way you want­ed to remem­ber them. The root of an argu­ment would turn into my fault, instead of yours.
• You were a knock­out in bed.

The Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend series

1. Introduction
2. Ashley
3. Michele
4. Christie
5. Jackie
6. Louise
7. Bronwen