empty promises, when will it stop
when we like the wrong people at the right time
Truth be told, I don’t know where to start with the love I have for X. (Please refer to here if you missed it. how could you though, honestly. ) I am in too deep (insert sum41) with my feelings and how I feel about him. Let’s just start with a simple, how I’m feeling now. I’m feeling mixed with sadness, alonement, anger, desperate, nervous that I will be alone for the rest of my life, but also weirdly…feeling relaxed, the kind of relax you feel right after you had a good workout session or you just did the ‘right thing’. (whatever that is for you.) If this was me a couple months ago, I was just left with the feeling of sadness and won’t be able to even have the energy to hang out with my friends. I will say stuff like ‘I’m dying alone' to them and I won’t be having any fun. Because isn’t that what movies tell you? When a boy doesn’t like you back, you sulk in your sadness and tears for days in your bed and stuff your face with some buttery movie theater popcorn? Indeed, I am a cliché mess, but for some reason…I’m not sulking in my sadness. I’m not…crabby all the time? I’m just feeling relaxed and somehow optimistic a bit telling myself, “don’t fret, it will happen differently”.
Why is this, I thought while I’m just doing my daily skin care routine and had a refreshing bath time. I think there are two things that is going with me now that is really aspiring to self. One, I remember this feeling. I have been here before. I’m too self-aware now at age 30. I dated too many men who has done the same thing to me. I know this feeling as if it’s glued to my heart deep down and it just can’t ever get peeled off like one of those shitty price stickers on plastic containers. The second thing is, I just don’t have the emotional labor of playing dumb anymore for men. I’m too educated and self-aware for turning a blind eye from what X is doing to me now.
He doesn’t make me feel like I’m the greatest person in the room. He used to, that’s why it even hurts more to admit he doesn’t anymore.
I must say, to even verbalize this and come to terms with it was brutal and I cried a lot on my own time. I don’t want to admit defeat, I don’t want to admit that he doesn’t like me, I don’t like rejection, not again, not fucking again please. I genuinely don’t believe I’m on a ‘feminist’ thing where I’m like “What the fuck? I deserve more”. My friends tell me that for me countlessly, (Bless them, but I wonder since they tell me so many times now, if they actually still believe in it.) I don’t even think it’s a philosophy of whether I deserve the love or not. It’s just that I’m genuinely tired as a human to be told empty promises each and every time in dating. I’m genuinely defeated and I can’t let myself completely go numb by this, or else, I think I’ll forgot how to be in love with someone again. I think my mind and body will protect myself subconsciously from love and I won’t be able to have love again.
I don’t want to admit to say that I liked the ‘wrong guy’ because I still believe that he will come around again, just like he always has. The thing is, if I admit that, I will loose the guy I really liked and I was wrong in liking him the way I did, that will be my defeat and I will have to feel all alone again. The excitement of the future and what our love story could have been was heightened by both of us. If this really was the wrong guy, this means that it was all a lie again and I need to start over in finding the promising love I always wanted. I thought that was you…? Why do you go on and break it just like I’m a girl you just met a couple of days ago. It just doesn’t seem fair. If love is a game, it really feels like it was my lost.
I am a self diagnosed love addict. What addicts have in common are, they consume one too many drinks, they take one too many drugs and they think they can handle it but they can’t. They think that they are ‘good’ at having fun but it’s the opposite. They are not good at doing so, in fact, they don’t know how to handle it and it becomes a disaster. Love addicts are the same. You think you are ‘good at love’ but in reality is, you’re not. In fact, you are so bad at it that you don’t know where to stop yourself or you don’t know the right amount of it, you crash. You end up loving too much. This, gets us in trouble, gets me in trouble at least. Loving someone too much doesn’t benefit you or the other person. I heard a good analogy of how to love someone in an appropriate way once. Imagine you are holding sand in your hand. If you squeeze the sand too tight in your hand, it all falls out, but if you just hold it ever so lightly and leave it on your palm, it will stay there. Love should work that way as well. Squeeze too much, they will leave, leave enough room and let it stay on your palm, that is the way to love someone comfortably. As much as this makes sense logically, as a romantic, I don’t want logic to be the reason of coming to my senses of I loved him too much, therefore, he is gone. It just seems so…not Carrie Bradshaw of me.
Last year, I started this mantra where I remind myself often when I feel like I’m about to fall in love with someone. Do not fall in the possibility of someone but fall in love with the reality of who they are. I think I have mentioned this in the past here as well, but I often create images in my mind when that person isn’t even that. I start creating a life together. A life where we are living together, getting engaged, getting married and eventually having kids or moving to Italy, you know just normal things. This train of thought, starts instantly and circulates in my mind for a whole month or two, or even years. This, once again, gets me in trouble often.
This year, it has only been 26 days since it has begun but I cried so much because of him, twice. I didn’t cry in front of him, (I’m not that crazy) but I cried at home, once when he didn’t even bother to text me back for the new years, and second, after I went to go see him. He is making me feel like he doesn’t even know me. Why? What has changed. What has changed since November. This is an excerpt from my diary on November 24th, 2022.
he kissed my nose. he kissed my head. I’m touching his hairs, combing his hairs through my finger tips. I’m placing my arms on top of his chest while resting my hands on top of his heart. He grabs my arms and we spoon each other. Knowing we need to wake up and get ready, but still wanting to be in bed packed side by side like those Italian sardines in the tin. I’ve never been touched like that. like he meant it. like he likes me. like he’s caring for my bodyーWe kiss each other each time like it’s a promise kiss. like this is going to soon happen again.
It’s been nearly a month or more since we last been intimate with each other. I’m trying to process what has happened in between. He doesn’t even look at me anymore. He doesn’t even come close to me or sit next to me when I go see him. I don’t feel like he wants me anymore. Last Christmas, I could tell he wanted me. Last new years, I could tell he wanted me. He touched me in front of people and assured himself “oh I thought I lost you, there you are” while putting his palm on my face when people could see us. When all of us cheered to the new years, he clinked his glass with me and said “you and me, next year”. Where has this energy have all gone to? I read yet another brilliant article by Annie Lord on Vogue, and it was about what she learned about love in 2022. In one of them she says this.
The point isn’t that he takes ages to reply – that doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t like you. The point is that his not texting you back makes you feel like he doesn’t like you. That behaviour makes you unhappy, and you shouldn’t be with people who make you unhappy.
The point isn’t that he doesn’t touch or look at me the way he used or he doesn’t act the same way like he used to. The point is that how he makes me feel. In all my sentences above, you can see clearly how I feel. He is making me feel sad. He makes me feel insecure and unhappy. I feel like he doesn’t like me anymore. and voilà… There’s my answer, I guess.
Empty promises. When will it stop. When will we stop saying things, we don’t mean.
Mean what you say, say what you mean. This has also stuck with me for a couple years now. I think the comedian Whitney Commings said this once on her podcast, but I have been involved with men who don’t mean what they say, and they can’t explain what they mean as well. They do it because it’s the easier way. It’s easier to say things that feels nice. It’s manageable if you say things that is music to your ears. Some people are not as equipped in talking about what they really feel. But the thing is, once you start talking about your real feelings, your honestly and the unsalvageable truthー that’s where vulnerability appears. That’s where you realize we all have the same tiny thoughts. We all find everything difficult, and to connect through these feelings, that creates love.
T has once written a letter to me in 2020, saying that “You are the one. Don’t forget”. When I asked what he meant by that on the phone, he didn’t give me an answer. He just said ‘it means what it means’. What does it mean? Am I THE ONE? in a marital way? or am I THE ONE in a friendship way? So much analyzing, with no answers.
I will love again, I know that. But heartache is a funny thing. You think this kind of spark will never ever happen again. You think you’ll die alone. Your mind tricks you into thinking that he was the one, you will never manage to find another guy. The deplorable dating life as a single women now also doesn’t help. All I have is us. This was a line in one of the recent Lena Dunham’s movie’s ‘Catherine called Birdy’. All I had was the possibility of us, and what our love story could have become. It didn’t even started yet, why did it had to end like this, or if it ever ended. On November 24th, I wrote in my diary,
I leaned over him and kissed him. he said, ‘I’m happy’. All I ever wanted was a guy to receive my love and I feel like this was it.
Cultural Recommendations ❄️
*ok, we are doing a quick one since that was a DOOOOSY essay!
Books 📕
ヘブン 川上未映子
This …was a bleak one. I didn’t realize what the book will be about. Bullying, young kids finding the meaning of life, triggering of suicide.. etc it’s very heavy topic but she once again somehow wrote it in a beautiful heartfelt way.
Reads 📚
Eat, Pray, Love-ing My Way Around The World Absolutely Did Not Help Me Get Over My Divorce
Yes, Your Job Is Important. But It’s Not All-Important.
How do you want to be remembered? This was such a good read!!
How Much Netflix Can the World Absorb?
Podcast 🎤
I’ll have what she’s having with Sophie Wyburd and Hannah Crosbie
Ok, Don’t have a lot… but I may have found one that is SO ON BRAND of me and I want to start one exactly like this, but with obviously not exact. This podcast is so inspirational!
We can do hard things. Ep Glennon’s diagnosis & what’s next
Everyone is talking about this episode and it was very worth it. Again, honestly is so brave and I’m so grateful she spoke about this.
It’s not a podcast but… god such a riveting speech about writing to writers and for aspiring writers .
Movies🎥
Catherine called Birdy
I wanted to watch this because of Lena Dunham’s speech, but my god! It’s like funny, hysterical, but so moving and personal. It’s exactly what Lena will write and it was so good. (not to mention, every single actor in it was CHEFS KISS)
Ok! Wow! That was a long one and a very emotional one? I don’t know if writing my excerpt from my diary is a good thing… lol but it’s honesty and I am sticking with honestly with my writing no matter what so that’s what you get! Thank you Thank you Merciiiii for reading all of it. I truly appreciate you all love bunch. xoxo Megumi