romantically vulnerable

I’m left feel­ing very vul­ner­a­ble and won­der­ing if I can be tru­ly attract­ed to some­one for who they are, instead of the idea of a rela­tion­ship and the asso­ci­at­ed com­fort of famil­iar­i­ty and phys­i­cal con­nec­tion. I miss affec­tion­ate text mes­sage con­ver­sa­tions, spon­ta­neous plans to cud­dle, and hav­ing some­one to spoil, but I need more time to sort out my feel­ings, and to get over the last one.

This is the exact rea­son I had to take a break from her. I haven’t had any con­tact in a while, and even though I sel­dom think of her these days, I’d be lying if I said I’ve for­got­ten com­plete­ly.

There are morn­ings I wake up with the mem­o­ry of her next to me in bed, pass­ing hours with only del­i­cate grazes between us. It’s as if my sub­con­scious is still lin­ger­ing on what we had, even though my con­scious has giv­en up on what could have been. Wanting to live my life with her became such a habit that I still catch myself wish­ing she could be there to share in my con­tent­ment when I’m sit­ting out­side with the breeze against my skin on sun­ny Spring days.

She nev­er under­stood why such a break would take so long1, or why I could­n’t give her a sol­id time-frame, but now I know it was the right deci­sion. Even though the pain and jeal­ousy have left me, I have to let go of the good mem­o­ries just as much.

Not that I can’t be in a rela­tion­ship with some­one right now. Rather, I should­n’t, cause it’d be unfair to the oth­er per­son; I still catch myself mak­ing com­par­isons to her, believ­ing that no one will be as dynam­ic, inspir­ing, or good for me. Or wish­ing I could some­how relive those mem­o­ries through some­one else, even though I know that new, won­der­ful, unique expe­ri­ences are cre­at­ed with every rela­tion­ship and every part­ner.

I know where I need to be before I’m ready to be with some­one again. I’ve been com­plete­ly tak­en with peo­ple in the past, and even­tu­al­ly I tru­ly get over them. It may take years, but one day I wake up and the mem­o­ries don’t affect me any­more, though they remain as beau­ti­ful as they are impor­tant.

  1. And this break was with the expec­ta­tion that we’d even­tu­al­ly be in con­tact again, which would assured­ly take even longer! []

9 comments

  1. Wow. That first para­graph hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m going through some­thing very sim­i­lar right now. Right on time, Jeff.

    • If only it were easy to tell the truth…I think a lot of heartache would be pre­vent­ed.

  2. I know where you’re com­ing from but I don’t under­stand it. But I do see many guys who think and feel the same way. It’s not exact­ly healthy to just want to be in a rela­tion­ship for the sake of being in one, it means you’re still not secure and hap­py with who you are.

    You’ll find your way, I’m sure of it. Find what makes YOU hap­py. It should­n’t need to involve some­one else. We all feel hap­py when there is some­one spe­cial there, but you want someONE spe­cial, not just any­one.

    • I’ve been try­ing to live for myself late­ly, or as you put it, doing what makes me hap­py. I guess I’m still try­ing to sep­a­rate what I want and what I need to involve with some­one else, because I did­n’t make that dis­tinc­tion before. It’s def­i­nite­ly made me a hap­pi­er per­son.

  3. I too have found myself in the same posi­tion in life.…wanting to be with some­one just for the sake of being able to say yes, I do have some­one in my life. But those are the rela­tion­ships that end quick­ly for me. I have caught myself try­ing to find rea­sons to end it and most of the time its over sil­ly lit­tle annoy­ing habits that I myself prob­a­bly have exhib­it­ed. I know that I am not hap­py with where my life is at this point and I’ve final­ly real­ized that I can’t be hap­py with some­one until I am hap­py with myself. It sucks to be alone but at the same time its a relief to not have to wor­ry about try­ing to please some­one else while deal­ing with it. I might get there one day.…..

    • While those rela­tion­ships don’t last for you, they don’t even begin for me…I’d rather not go through all the com­pli­ca­tion and poten­tial pain.

  4. Hey man I’m still try­ing to make that dis­tinc­tion too
    I think its the weath­er and sea­son that brings about all these types of thoughts, feel­ings, yearn­ing.. at least on my end

    I’m pret­ty sure i’ve thought about ‘A’ every sin­gle day since weve split up.. and only since this spring/summer weath­er has kicked in, do I find my thoughts about her sway­ing back to the ‘miss­ing her in that sor­ta-way’ way… Also she’s been haunt­ing my dreams the past two weeks…pretty damn annoy­ing..
    And I think what­ev­er lov­ing feel­ings I felt towards ‘A’, is only a frac­tion of what you felt towards ‘her’.… so I can only imag­ine what youre feel­ing right now

    Since our split up I’ve been on a few ‘dates’ and met three very dif­fer­ent peo­ple… and so far I’ve com­pared every sin­gle one to ‘A’… and the com­par­isons hap­pen in real time (while on the date). Occasionally I will pick up qual­i­ties in the per­son that I like and did­nt see in ‘A’… but hon­est­ly, my mind tends to focus most­ly on the qual­i­ties that this new per­son does­n’t have that ‘A’ was full of…

    I’m too self­ish, too much of a lon­er and a bach­e­lor, and enjoy my own com­pa­ny too much to have these stress­ful feel­ings..

    Fuck!! Somebody just chop my penis off

    Sick of this!!!

    • The weath­er does have a lot to do with it for me too because things real­ly start­ed to devel­op over a sum­mer.

      My feel­ings have evened out late­ly, I think because I felt so intense for so long that I burned out. That’s why I let myself feel all emo­tions instead of hid­ing them; it’s more painful in the short run, but bet­ter in the long run. You’re prob­a­bly just deal­ing with things at a more grad­ual pace, which is prob­a­bly anoth­er rea­son why those thoughts come back to you every now and then. Hell, I still go through those phas­es every now and then, and I don’t think they’ll com­plete­ly stop for a while. After all, I’m still writ­ing about her.

  5. hi i read what you said and think you are still real­ly sad hurt some­how by your last reala­tion­ship. I must say that even when you enter into your next rela­tion­ship every­one com­pares cer­tain things their pre­vi­ous part­ner did, and it will trig­ger thoughts but you will replace them with new ones with a new girl­friend. have fun take care but most of all stop dwelling on what was or could have been and think pos­i­tive :))

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