OK, so maybe this won't encapsulate everything in the title, or at least the full potential therein, but it'll touch on each. I guess I just need some time to rant and write out my feelings so that I can just see them, and maybe grasp at what my thought processes over the past few days actually are. It's hard to keep track of everything when you keep it all in your head.
Anyway, as people will slowly start to find out, I went ahead and broke up with the boy last night. And as they will also discover, I made the world's relationship faux pas - I called, and didn't do it face-to-face. A billion things factored into this, including not wanting it to happen in the middle of the work day, not wanting it to occur during a school day, not having time in the evening, and not wanting to postpone it any longer. Dating someone who works at the theatre, who is around all day, and is friends with your friends? Probably not the best choice. Thanks Ms.Angie for trying to warn me about that - we make our own mistakes in life. Regardless, I think that (even though right now I wish I'd never had anything to do with a relationship) it was a good experience, and taught me more about myself - even if that means that there are more/different questions that I need to answer about what I want in life now.
My primary regret coming from all of this is that I failed at this relationship - I was the one who lost the affection - who asked for a break - who detached and in so doing, by not addressing the problems immediately, made it certain that I wanted to leave. I don't know why this is or why I just lost my affection for him, but I did. I can hear the excuses ringing through my head of 'stress' and 'too busy' and 'life transitions' and so on, but none of those should really be an excuse. They happen at any time, and if I can't make a casual relationship last through those, then how the hell will I ever be able to approach anything like marriage?
Cue personal insecurities.
This is as close as I've come to having a functional, real, 'grown up' relationship EVER, and failure came galloping in again. Upon setting out on this journey and getting to know him, I swear he was just MADE for me - we were well matched in almost every respect. And it still didn't work.
Let's just pile on a few more of those insecurities, shall we?
I refuse to say what so many people have said post-relationship - that I want to give up on them. I sort of *do* want to become a hermit and never speak to boys again, but I know that I won't and shouldn't. But I appreciate why my friends say it, when they hit these situations.
I failed him as a girlfriend, but more importantly, just as a friend. He wanted to work for this, he really asked me to, but I didn't have the umf to do it - for weeks I stepped back to work on me to see if that would sort out the problems I was having with detachment, and it didn't. So I ended it. If I have no more, or less, desire to be around him than other people, I don't think that's a good sign. I tried and tried to reconcile myself to that and to alter those thoughts, but it never happened.
When we were first discussing this a week ago, I told him I hadn't really spent any time thinking about the relationship - not accurate. I spent a great deal of time thinking about how much I wasn't in it. I spent a LOT of time wondering why I wasn't wanting to be emotionally engaged in it, and even more time figuring out how to explain that to him. And no matter how long I spent on it, I acted like a coward in the end. I called and didn't take time to go see him. Now, as a disclaimer, I don't think that me being face-to-face would have done anything except make me put it off longer, but he wishes that I had. And I feel like a coward for not having done so.
Coming at this from a different direction, when discussing the whole 'breaking up' thing, he kept reminding me and himself that he doesn't hate me for it. It may be him just convincing himself, or just letting me know, but it has a very odd effect on me. I *want* him to be mad at me - I wish he would hate me for this. Because the less he hates me, the more I hate myself about this. I guess it's the whole yin-and-yang of the relationship - the way I picture it, there is a given amount of displeasure/anger that will be present in a breakup. If one party doesn't engage, it all flows into the other person - in this case, all of the anger and blame goes towards me, even if it's me aiming it. I hate that I failed at this, I hate that I wasn't strong enough for this, I hate that I failed him. And I blame myself and am having incredibly complex and annoying self-loathing episodes the past few days. It's a situation where I can see why I'm feeling the way I am, but I can't prevent the feelings that are destructive to my own psyche. In the fullest sarcasm, what fun.
The next installment: Self-Worth.
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