So, I'm really starting to get concerned over my obsession with the girl, now a woman, who got away. No matter how hard I try, I just can't let it go. Every time I think I've finally beaten it back and locked it up in the dark recesses of my mind, it breaks free and becomes an even more central part of my thoughts.
The obsession hit, and hit hard, the day I learned that she had once had an interest in me. Not the day that she asked me to the prom, because I was too absorbed in my own negative self-image to believe that the request was anything more than a joke, or at best some sort of pity date. Instead, it began the day my ex-girlfriend and I went out to visit her at Wells College. While I don't remember how exactly the topic came up, or which of the two of them brought it to my attention, somehow the conversation became about high school relationships and how BOTH of them were interested in me back then. I do remember my reaction though. . . I buried myself under a beanbag chair in an attempt to just laugh it off.
While I think I was able to play it off as just my quirky sense of humor, I was really trying to hide my true reaction to the revelation. I was angry at myself. Angry I had hurt the girl I later came to see as a true friend. Angry that I had let the "bubble" I lived my entire childhood and adolescence in hide the fact that despite my lack of self-esteem, there were at least two girls who actually wanted to explore the possibilities of being more than just acquaintences (I never truly viewed anybody as a friend; my self loathing was so complete I couldn't believe that anybody who spent time with me was doing anything more than simply tolerating me). Angry that I had missed my chance.
While certainly nothing was set in stone at that time, the fact was, I was dating my ex, and she was dating her then-boyfriend, and I certainly didn't have the self confidence to break off my relationship and try to get my friend to break up with her boyfriend just so the two of us could give a relationship the old college try. And so I laid there, underneath the beanbag chair, while my best friend and my girlfriend had a good laugh at my expense (though I never let on that I genuinely WAS hurt by the revelation). And hey, I deserved that and much more, I broke her heart, and I can't even begin to imagine how much it hurt for an ugly, fat nerd with zero friends to turn down an offer to go to the prom with you in front of Mr. Pysnik's first-period Intro to Research class.
I've often wished there was a cosmic rewind button I could press to go back and undo my mistake. For a long time, though, I was able to get over it by reminding myself that my ex is the only reason I ever met my wife, so if I hadn't turned down that prom invitation, hadn't subsequently ended up dating my ex, I would have never met, dated, and married my wife. But now that I'm here, questioning that very relationship, that very marriage, I no longer find any solace in that line of reasoning. In fact, the only way I've found to accept what happened these days is to convince myself that she is happily married to a great guy, and I should find happiness in her happiness.
Sometimes that works. But other times, I wonder if she really is happy with him. She spends months and months on end waiting for him to come back from deployment with the navy. She always seems to be worried about how the two of them are going to mesh back together after so much time apart. I really have no idea if he's a great guy, other than taking her word for it and assuming that he must be to get her to marry him. And for fuck's sake, while I certainly want only happiness for my best friend, why should I have to find my happiness in hers, instead of being happy because I'M happy?
But why do I want to be with her so much? I've admitted to myself many times that the odds that we'd actually be able to stand the test of time are slim, and in general friendships-turned-romantic relationships can't ever go back to being friendships, at least not the kind of close friendship that we currently share. You just don't talk about glass dildos and sex swings with the girl you used to sleep with (or play with glass dildos and sex swings with). You sure as hell don't talk to them about your relationship problems. And yet, knowing that a romantic relationship with her would more likely than not ruin the only friendship I've ever had survive the test of time, I still wish I could take that slim chance with her.
So is it that I've truly fallen in unrequited love with the girl I wouldn't even take to the prom ten years ago? Or is my little head just trying to ignore what my big head is trying to tell me, that I'm just lusting after double-forbidden fruit, and have been since that heart-ripping day at Wells? Logically, I can't deny that its probably just lust, but at the same time, I do genuinely love her too, if only as a friend, and can't help but thinking that if it were just lust, I would have found a way to let it go by now, instead of letting false emotions fester inside me, emotions I've nearly let come out on numerous occasions, knowing full well the consequences they would bring to bear.
Mind you, I don't think I'm as good at hiding those feelings as I let myself believe. Just last night I was talking with her on Facebook, and my longing feelings were welling up. We were discussing that day at Wells College (hence this topic), and I admitted to her for the first time that I only hid under that beanbag chair to hide my emotions. Well, I think that while I was trying to make it sound like those were just ten year old emotions, she knew that I was also still feeling this way, and was quick to point out that at that point "that ship had sailed" and that "I was now married to my wife". Maybe she didn't actually mean anything by it, but I somehow doubt that. I think she was trying to protect our friendship by essentially saying "down boy, bad dog, put that away!"
So, the moral of this story? I'm just a dog who could have had his day, but stayed home and sulked instead, and is now just a miserable son of a bitch about what might have been, but NEVER will be. I don't need a wife who will fuck me, I'm just so good at fucking myself over. And over.
