This one is going to be a very honest essay that maybe some of you don’t care at all, it’s too personal, but also I think a lot of us can relate to this idea of saying goodby to people who have (had) a intimate place in our hearts, those who were our friends or lovers. At the end of the day, we all know that the closest people in our lives are the ones who have the power over us to do and say all the wrong things to hurt us the right way.
Let’s call the man of the hour T. I recently blocked him from social media and told him I don’t want to talk to him anymore. I told him I’m done with him and that he hurts me every time I speak with him. (thus screenshot)
T was someone I met in 2019, and I think he was my first boyfriend. Till this day, I actually don’t know. Maybe he will get ‘angry’ with me if I say that he was my boyfriend because we never spoke about our relationship status or labels. He might be confused by it, but riddle me this. Do friends greet each other at the station kissing ? Do friends hold hands while walking? Do friends sleep in the same bed while he spoons you? Do friends have sex? (Ok, sex actually maybe.) We did all of this while we were together for 4-5months.
The thing with T was that we were going with the flow. The non-monogamy, casual sex but yet frequent hang outs became something of a routine for us. We both instantly became attracted to one another. He loved eating out and enjoying new foods in Tokyo, (He was a foreigner, only in Japan for a short while) I loved exploring the city by bicycle with him, he liked watching old movies on the projector. We liked to go thrift shopping. We liked the same things. I knew what he liked, and he knew what I liked. We had a very comfortable relationship immediately. I remember why we became monogamous, at least that’s what was said between us. Now knowing all his secrets and behavior, maybe it was all a lie to keep me in his spider web, and he was having sex with other women but regardless, we became a pair, in which that means he wasn’t going to sleep with any other girls. I didn’t ask for this, but he was the one who told me that ‘I’ll just see you from now on’. Now thinking back, if a man says that to me now, I’ll be beyond flattered and I’ll jump right into it. But back then, I kinda had boundaries. I was angry with him about something, and it hurt me so I didn’t invite him back to my house. He notices these emotional changes I had, and he ‘tried’ to get back with me by saying ‘I want to be just with you’. He was very good in controlling my decision making and he knew exactly when and what to say.
T is a magician with women I think. He is very good to trick people into thinking, ‘oh he might be for real this time’. But guess, what, over and over, it’s the same thing being hurt and hurting him as well out of spite. Why do I keep falling for it? Well, I think back when he was still in Japan and he basically lived with me for a while, I was anxiously attached to him and I couldn’t resist him. For the first time, at age 27, I wanted to be selfless and do nice things for another person. I wanted to make T happy, because his happiness reflected my happiness. When I look at photos back then, I was only happy. I never felt depressed or sad. The only sadness was the fact that our time together had a timeline. I was attached to him, very anxiously. It’s cathartic to think back now, because I don’t think I cared for another person once he left in 2020 till this day. I forgotten what that is like for 2 years now. I enjoyed the feeling of cooking something for someone, helping them with stupid paper work or trying to comfort him when he was upset about something. I loved that feeling of not being lonely but being a team.
This is the most difficult thing for me to say, but I don’t think he was ‘the one’. I know how funny this may sounds to some of you but to me, he really was something special and I firmly believed that we might have something that no one will understand. Us against the world type of shit. Of course he’s not the one. I don’t think I was in love with him. I don’t know what that even means yet. I haven’t felt it yet. I know what falling for someone feels like, I fell deeply for him. But because he always told me that forever doesn’t exist, we are not going to be together, I wasn’t able to allow myself to just feel what I felt. I was a bit afraid that my real feelings will be a burden to him. It feels weird to say that I loved him. This was never discussed between us. I didn’t even know if I was in a relationship with the guy, but yet I had this intense attachment towards him, that it’s only him and no one else. With him, I romanticized our relationship in my own head and I created my own version of how this love story will proceed. (Not end, because I didn’t want it to end.)
My experience with T reminded me a lot of the Conversations with friends tv series. There’s a line when the girls are talking about non-monogamy and trying to explain that it’s possible to love multiple people at the same time, a phrase ‘spontaneous consent’ was shouted. Spontaneous consent related a lot with the experience I had with T. As I previously said, we became monogamous after seeing each other for a month or so, but I ended wanting a label who I can rely on as a partner. I told him about this maybe three times while we were together, but he told me over and over, that ‘I’m leaving Megumi. We can’t be together’ I was declined in a way? but I wasn’t hurt because we were together… Now I look back, maybe he was right. Even though I still feel very frustrated by our relationship and how it kind of ended nonchalantly, I was spontaneously agreeing to things like going to Korea for our last trip together or doing stuff together constantly. It was spontaneous and no structure to what we were doing, but it was fun and we enjoyed being with one another while it lasted.
Things fell apart pretty quickly after he left the country. There was our first birthday’s since we met, and I sent him a hand written letter and a food magazine he said he wanted. Then it was my birthday and he sent me a letter, with a beautiful cook book and a magnet of the city he lives in. In the letter it said, ‘Megumi, You are the one, don’t forget’. The love story I created for myself actually became real for once after being apart for 6 months, it was magical and romantic. We spoke almost everyday and texted each other for a couple months but I also found out he was dating someone and they are still together till this day and he told me that he loves her. He found love. When I found this out, I can’t tell you how much I cried. But he kept checking in with me and asking me about my personal life, if I’m dating anyone and again the controlling aspect of him while being with someone but yet wanting to know what I’m doing with other men became very apparent and unfair. I became frustrated over the years and the attachment I had towards him faded away gradually. It not only hurt to like him be to be friends with him hurt, too.
After everything, I had to pull the plug. The constant fighting we were having via text messages were insane. He didn’t understood why I was angry with him. He was the one who insisted on being friends, but if we are friends then I needed him to listen to me and hear me. But he didn’t do any of that. He will just send a ramen photo he had in France and that will be it. I will talk about the struggles I’m having but he won’t respond with the empathy I wanted. I wasn’t seen by him at all. All I asked, after being apart for this last 2years was, I’m fine with being your ‘good friend’ (this is the term he kept using on me), but if that’s going to be our terms, we need to change how we communicate with each other. He apologizes and fails again and again. My happiness was heavily destructed every time I was getting a one sided message from him. I was actually crying everyday about him and wishing for a better friendship, while he is in love with someone else, but once I got confirmation that it was impossible to get what I want from him, I chose my happiness over a guy. I chose myself for the first time. I felt two things, one was immediately regret and the other was freedom. Regret as in, I might have just lost someone who I really liked forever, but freedom as in being freed from the anxiety and sadness I had towards him constantly. And being freed from the despair and unhappiness I created for myself, was far more worth it than the stupid regret that I may have lost someone, who actually possibly never even cared for me that deeply.
It’s a tough life lesson I was going through this past couple of months. In one of the last season episodes of GIRLS, there’s this lovely moment where Adam and Hannah reunites and after everything, they had a beautiful date talking about the future at a diner. Then Hannah suddenly has a moment where she sniffles and we realize as an audience that these two who seemed like were made for each other. Who were literally us against the world type of shit, but it just won’t work after everything. Things has changed too much and too much time has passed and they realize fuck, this isn’t going to work. I felt that scene and I still think about. It’s hard to realize that the person you thought was ‘your person’, won’t work out anymore. I came to terms that we will never have a future together and it won’t work out even as friends, and it crushes me. Is this what the end of a love story is? Is this what closer is ? Is this what heart break feels like? I’ve never been in love I think, but I definitely know what it feels it like to have your heart broken.
🌞Cultural Recommendations of the week (or this past month) 🌞
Reads 🗒
-子供を持たない選択をしたこと。 choosing to be child-free
-The bleak spectacle of the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp trial
Books📕
-The Lonely Stories By Natalie Eve Garatte
Podcasts🎤
-Things Fell apart by Jon Ronson
looking back from the past and our current cultural wars and why we keep fighting ? Such a good series.
-No one is coming to save us By Lemon Media
Childcare in critical condition and explained how in America, moms are really taking a hard hit.
- Stories of our times: Everything Dolly Alderton knows about love.
‘The legacy we leave behind is through personal relationships’
-Broadcast behind the screens Episode 1 Dolly Alderton.
Thank you for reading a personal and very EMOTIONAL one! It was a cathartic moment for me as well. Until next time x Megumi x