Long Story Short ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the end, or something like it The ex-girlfriend and I are no longer on speaking terms. It's the end of an era! I'm still not sure how I feel about it, but it seems like it might be time to just let go, finally. I know, seems like a big "who cares" after all the ranting and raving I did. But to have a five year best-friendship and relationship end on terms that don't allows us to keep in touch, that is definitely a first for me. I thought for sure we would always be in each other's lives in some small way. But we can't seem to agree to the terms of our friendship and one of us is getting their feelings hurt on a regular basis. There's really no need for that. She has been pretty consistently trying to keep in touch and I have been less than cooperative. I know it's not necessarily the right thing to do to her but since we've redefined our relationship I find it hard to care what she views as "right". I have received emails from her and not responded, or I'll respond in a very generic way. To the point where she wrote asking if I was mad at her. I wasn't mad at her but I could see her reasoning for thinking that - for years I've told her most of the details of my life. Until recently, when I just started shutting down. The last several phone conversations we've had have been increasingly painful for me. Not in a "oh god I miss her" way, but in a "what is going on here?" way. I realize that without the facade of a relationship, I don't really feel the need to communicate with her. My dependence on her probably had more to do with our shared history than much of anything else. I don't like her very much, if at all. I honestly don't care what she's up to, and I cringe at the thought of talking about my life with her. I just can't do it. I feel in some way like I've given her enough. Enough time, enough effort, enough tears, enough of me. And so yesterday was her 24th birthday, and I did purchase a card but never mailed it. That left me having no choice but to call her and wish her a happy birthday. Our birthdays are twelve days apart so when we were together, and living together, we would have "birthday month" where May was just one big party from start to finish. Birthday month also coincided with the end of school, moving into our first apartment together, and having a lot of end-of-school houseguests from out of town. How can you beat that? I put off calling her all day yesterday. I didn't want to do it, I didn't have anything to say, and I knew I was only doing it because of how mean it would be if I didn't. I finally called around 9:30, having set up on my deck with a strong cocktail, my phone, and a comfortable chair. Usually she's very difficult to get off the phone with, and I wanted to try to trim the conversation to under a half hour. That didn't end up being a problem because from the minute we started talking the conversation just tanked. She was expressing a definite coldness, answering questions I asked with short, curt statements. She's a chatterbox and usually doesn't hesitate to tell every detail of her day, but with me she just clammed right up. She would have known how obvious it was to me that she was being this way, and I feel like she has come to the decision that she needs to stop allowing herself to be hurt by me. A wise conclusion. I have two choices: I can call her back/email her and address the way the conversation went, pleading with her to open up and be honest with me, promising to be better at keeping in touch in the future. This would be her proof that I still need her in my life in some capacity, and most likely we would have several intense conversations and come to some agreement on what guidelines our friendship should have. My other choice is to let her shut me out. I thought about this last night, not "a lot" as I was planning to write, but enough. My biggest fear for five years has been that our relationship would end on a sour note. We're both pretty strong people and don't hesitate to write people out of our lives when we feel the negative outweighs the positive, when they repeatedly hurt us and we come back for more. We're both strong believers in the "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" philosophy. And so I think since the beginning we've both done everything in our power not to cross the invisible "too much" line. Even in our breakup we were ridiculously polite about the whole thing. So now, feeling like the ball is in my court, I think I'm going to let it drop. It seems like the most comfortable and rational thing I can do for both of us. I am not going to change. At no point am I going to be able to be the friend that she wants me to be. And she will never make me happy the way she once did. We have grown too far apart, and to go on pretending I still want to be good friends with her is unfair to both of us. Without me ever having to say a word, she has figured this out and is understandably closing herself off. I guess that makes me respect her a little bit more. The guilt will take some time to dissipate, and there are going to be plenty of times when I think about her and forget for a minute that I can no longer just pick up the phone and have some time with her. But I think this is the right decision. If it wasn't wouldn't I be hurting a whole lot more? 8:42 a.m. - 2004-05-13 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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