I met a very sweet Midwestern man when I was 18 (he was 23) 9 years ago. I was very young & naive and till maturing & finding myself as a person. We went on two dates after we met each other and then he moved to work in NY. We kept in touch pretty regularly by phone and text messages and all of our exchanges were positive & happy and we tried to visit each other but things always got in the way (he was in a car accident, I got chicken pox, broke my phone, etc) or he was super busy w/wrk traveling 3 wks out of every month.I thought the absolute world of him, but was very skeptical of how genuine his intentions & emotions were bc I had very low self-esteem & could not understand why he wanted me or liked me. He thought the world of me and encouraged me to be a strong & smart woman he knew me to be. He never dated anyone seriously after we met or during the 4 years we had an undefined long distance “relationship”, but did see a few women causally while we were not speaking (we would butt heads on occasion about my employment or silly things & not speak for weeks or months).
One day during an afternoon chat, 4 years & some mths into our relationship, he told me that it was time, that he wanted me to move & live with him, he wanted to take care of me & I could pursue whatever made me happy, and that he wanted to make love to me (we never had sex or anything beyond kissing) and although hesitant (bc I was afraid of being so intimate & having someone so genuinely good), I agreed.
A few weeks followed & my ex best friend hacked my social media account with a vengeance (we had a fight over her anger issues & mistreatment of me-verbal abuse & yelling that went south- so I moved out) and started posting all these public obsessive things about him & friending all his friends so they’d see all these statues (she had been privy to many of the intimate details about our relationship & my hopes/feelings) and he was very upset about his/our privacy being violated & all these very personal things being made known before he/he & I were ready or before we’d even talked/thought about them. …After clearing up that fiasco with reporting my account & regaining control, he very kindly told me that he had to let me go. I was very sad at the time, accepted it even though it was not my doing, and said I’d wait if he ever came back. I assumed he was mortified & scared by what he saw and/or communicated back to him by his friends as they were pretty crazy & serious and thought once things settled & he’d had time to think, he’d come back to me like he always had.
…My phone was silent for months & we didn’t talk for another almost 5 years. During that time, I had a serious relationship with another man my age & we had two young children, but ended our relationship, bc he was/is a very unhealthy person.
Well, 3 months ago, I decided I would once & for all reach out to the midwestern man in an attempt to have a friendship, bc he was/is my mentor & still very special to me. I sent a casual text to his phone number I still knew by heart knowing this may not turn out positive or he may not respond. Well, 20 mins after it sent, my phone went off & my heart went jumping with it; I read his txt (in his voice as I remembered it) saying absolutely to being friends & starting anew. We spend the remaining of that day sending each other texts back and forth chatting, joking, explaining, flirting, and asking questions…
He told me he was very glad I reached out to him, bc I was always a very special girl to him and immediately asked me if I was married or dating anyone and when I replied no, he asked if I’d like to spend time with him and suggested we go to South Beach and have a weekend together that he’d pick up the tab for (which didn’t happen bc my son’s birthday wknd was the only option I couldn’t miss that and Mr. Midwest only had that available). Also, he let slip that he knew things about me he could not have, like having two kids, two boys in fact since we haven’t talked long before I was pregnant with my first child and we have no friends in common for that type of info to pass in social circles. While I did not ask or confront him about it, I’m almost certain that he’s been Facebook stalking me since I noticed he unblocked me a few weeks before I first contacted him and that would be the only way he could know about my children or could have assumed I was married…
We talk about every other week during these last couple of months (he’s still very much busy with work) and he’s making a trip to see me in my city during September for a weekend and is considering investing of his own accord in a company I want to start once I submit him a business plan & it looks good…
I’m elated, but I’m not really sure what to expect. A huge part of me wants to believe he’s coming back for me & we’ll make up for all that lost time between us since we’ve resumed where we left off in a sense and we are much older & more mature to make this time successful. However, the rational part of me knows it’s been 9 years since we’ve physically have seen each other and 5 years since we parted ways and I’m sure we’ve each changed. Regardless, I still feel very connected to him & I do have very intense feelings for him, that mimic or could be love despite all these years gone by.
Is there any advice you might have for me or any opinions on how to proceed forward or insights?
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Reconnected with an old love interest and would like advice, opinions, thoughts
Friday, October 26, 2012
Why would she contact me again... What does she want?
I saw this girl in the summer. We are both in our mid 20's. We were never really officially together, and the whole thing only lasted about a month and a half. We were extremely emotionally and physically intimate with one another. I started getting real feelings for this girl, but it was only after she told me she had feelings for me. Then.. out of the blue in early August she broke things off via text message.. I was very hurt by this, and contacted her asking what happened. She was extremely vague at answering me. I gave it a month, gave her a goodwill message asking her how she was... she never responded. I gave it another month.. early September I sent her another goodwill message... she didn't respond. So I've just learned how to move on. I still thought about her from time to time, but the pain eventually eased. I felt no closure, very blind sided... and worse I missed her quite a bit. I've had flings before, but this one in my eyes was really different. I really felt something for her.Well... 2 days ago she emails me telling me she is now ready to be friends and apologized it took her so long to reply to me. I responded to her email yesterday. I divided the email into 3 paragraphs... one of them told her how I was.. the next one (and most important one) I told her how she hurt me, exactly how I felt, and I didn't understand what she was doing. The third paragraph I asked how she was. I figure.. why not bring it all out in the open right? The worst thing that can happen is she ignores me or doesn't speak to me, which I've learned to live with.
She emails me back telling me she's a bad communicator and that she didn't have an explanation at all other than "it just didn't feel right". She apologized for hurting me, said she was truly sorry. She did not, however, answer my question "Why now? What drove you to contact me now?" I responded to her second message reiterating that question.
What do you think she wants? I don't understand how she can ignore me for almost 3 months and talk to me out of the blue like that... then tell me she doesn't have any explanations other than "it didn't feel right".... even though that statement in itself is so contradictory to what she told me and felt no longer than a couple days before she broke things off. I'm scared of 2 things here.... 1) I'll get feelings for her again, and 2) She will get feelings for me. This girl really hurt me... but honestly it felt really good to hear from her. So.. what does she want? What should I do?
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Saturday, July 9, 2011
What Would <i>You</i> Do in This Situation?
I arrived at the just-opened tiki bar in Jenna’s neighborhood before she did, and looked around. Plastic palm trees, a couple hundred leis hanging on hooks behind the bar, and a massive topless mermaid wrapped up in a net hanging from the ceiling. This might be the cheesiest place I’ve ever walked into, I thought.
“Wanna get leid?” the bartender asked, looking bored and slightly embarrassed, holding a neon green lei out to me.
“No thanks,” I said. “It’s a little early in the evening for that.”
“They make us say that,” she said with a grimace. “What can I get you?”
I perused the drink specials, and settled on a Mai Tai, which arrived in a coconut. I grabbed a booth in the back and waited for Jenna.
“This place is hilariously awful,” she said when she arrived. I agreed. She ordered a blue Hawaiian and sat across from me.
“So Candy told me about Debbie,” she began. “Apparently they were best friends in college, and best drug buddies.”
“Oh my god. Drug buddies?”
“As in, total junkies. And strippers. Candy didn’t come out and say it, but she implied that they did a lot more than strip to support their dug habits.”
“Yikes. What kind of drugs?”
“Anything they could get their hands on, really, though Debbie was partial to coke. Candy was more into heroin.”
“Whoa.”
“I know. It’s a lot. Anyway, Candy overdosed her junior year, went to rehab, and cut off all contact with Debbie. She described the friendship as ‘toxic.’ And she’s been a wreck ever since Marni and Luke’s party. Debbie sent her an email and a friend request, which Candy ignored. She said she’s worried she’s going to relapse, and I don’t know how to deal with any of it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, not really knowing what to say or how to process all of that info.
“Thanks. I feel like a total ass for saying this, but I don’t know if I want to get into a serious relationship with a drug addict.”
“Recovered drug addict, right?” I asked.
Jenna shrugged. “She’s had more relapses over the years than I’m comfortable with. I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. Let’s talk about something else. Tell me about the bridal shower.”
I gave her the overview, and she decided that Lori would henceforth be referred to as, “The Fun Snuffer.”
“She’s a superhero, and her power is the ability to extinguish happiness with negativity-infused water that shoots out of her eyes when she glares. Her emblem is a smile with a fist hitting it.”
“You have to stop,” I said, laughing. “Because I feel guilty laughing. That’s my boyfriend’s sister.”
“Your boyfriend’s sister The Fun Snuffer. I’m going to make some Photoshop art and email it to you. It will be awesome.”
Jenna’s ability to make jokes when she’s dealing with serious issues is one of the many reasons why she’s one of my best friends. I wish I had some really funny heroin jokes to make her laugh, although I’m pretty sure there aren’t any really funny heroin jokes. I wonder what she’s going to do.
Posted at 9:02 PM