Chapter 2

We ended up going out for three years, but it was never a solid relationship. I never felt comfortable openly hugging her or flirting. And it wasn’t just me being awkward or anything. Any time I hugged her or went to kiss her, she always flinched. The only time she didn’t was when he had sex, which she wanted a lot of, not that I minded at first.

Being with her felt almost like a business relationship or maybe a friends with benefits sort of situation. Most of the time we were together it was me fixing stuff at her house, or paying for whatever she wanted to do/needed. But I did enjoy being friends with her. Being able to talk about my day and things that bothered me. Plus she had a bright little girl that had so much energy for life. I loved spending time with both of them, especially helping her daughter with her homework.

One day out of the blue she stopped texting me. I would text her and if she replied it would be a single word response like “OK,” letting me know something was wrong. When I probed, she sent a single, very long text stating that she didn’t connect to me and we are breaking up, but that she still wanted to be friends.

That was the last time I heard from her. I sent her a reply, saying that if I was being honest I agreed we didn’t really connect to each other, but if she wanted to work on it, maybe go to therapy, I would be open. I told her I would like to stay friends as I value her a great deal. But she didn’t respond. Never responded. Three years and that was the ending I got.

I know I deserved better than that, just like I know I deserve better than her. With the power of hindsight I see she is very selfish and only wanted to discuss things that were about her. Can’t even say how many times I complained about something, where she would cut in with, “You don’t know what problems are, you know what I had to do at work?” Thus making whatever issue I was having seem trivial because someone at her work said something that could be taken as a possible insult.