Gimme a Break

This is how it goes:

First: You believe what he says. You believe because you are human and what else could you do? When you asked, “You’re looking for something real, right?” and he said, “Yes, yeah. And this feels right,” you believed that, too.

Second: When he invites you into his world, shares his friends, his home, his brand new puppy, his hobbies—all in a whirlwind tour of welcome—you let yourself feel accepted, embraced. You feel honored, even. Glad.

Third: When you invite him into your world, a gaggle of friends up at your mountain home for a grill out and meet up, you believe he meant it when he said, “It’s all so fantastic. What a great group of people.”

Fourth: When you don’t talk on the phone for three weeks, except once to say hey, whoa, what happened? And you don’t see each other for three weeks, that’s when it occurs to you all over again how elegantly miserable dating his. How burdensome, how stabbing, how treacherous, how all over again confounding. That’s when you are reminded that it makes you nutty not knowing when you’ll see someone again. It confuses your heart when he says how good it all feels, but doesn’t call or says, “Yeah, gosh. I forgot how much time relationships take.”

Fifth: You start to doubt yourself. Are you too needy? Do you constantly misjudge? You want to end it if it’s going to be like this, but there is still that floss of hope and besides, how can you end a two-month long relationship when you can’t even get together on the phone, let alone in person?

Sixth: You try not to doubt yourself too much. You think, no, this was his poor judgment. How he dove right in, said all the right things. How you dove right back. You think that walking away is one thing, but walking away with out a phone call is even worse. And you think that no one should do that to you, ever.

Seventh: You’re still waiting for the phone to ring and you curse yourself for this.