If I’m Being Honest I Just Wanted You To Stay In Love With Me

Our break-up was slow. It was done over several weeks, over the course of more than a month. We kept texting each other every day, still Skyped regularly. You were trying to change my mind whilst I had already started creating online dating profiles.

If we had ended abruptly, in a shouting match full of anger, you would have ended up hating me. If I had been cold enough (or brave enough) I could have just ceased contact with you altogether after speaking those final words. But I knew that if either of those had been our ending, I wouldn’t be able to keep you hanging around for when I needed you.

I knew I would miss you, miss speaking to you, miss how you were there for me. I would miss having somebody who was in love with me.

Only when you could feel the end coming did you tell me you loved me. I knew already, yet I was annoyed that you never said it beforehand. Those words were a drug to me. My ego was well fed after a declaration of love had finally been spoken.

Once we were finished, we did stay in regular contact for a while. You were still there for me like the friend I needed. The only difference was you still loved me and I was ready to move on to somebody else, whilst keeping you hooked just in case.

Yes, I was that selfish.

I knew then (and now) that I was the villain in our relationship. It wasn’t the way to treat you (or anybody) and I’ll never be able to make that up to you.

I’m certain that you realised what I was doing and the feelings that you had for me popped like a balloon. You started to date, though you told me that the way you thought about relationships had changed since you had been with me. I took that as a compliment. Even though I had been dating for a while, I resented the fact that you had found somebody else. I wanted to keep your love for myself, even if we were apart.

Nowadays we chat every now and again. Sometimes you take days, even weeks to reply to me. I take that as a small punishment for what I did to you.

I tell myself that I would like to just be your friend but in all honesty, I can’t tell if that’s because I like you or I want you to like me. Probably the latter.

I imagine that if we were to become friends, and I were to invite you to my wedding some day in the future, you would probably show. I would probably wish for you not to show, because that would mean my wedding was too much for you to watch, even if we are just friends. You said at the end that you thought you would marry me. Would you really come to my future wedding if you had meant that? I’m not sure.

Once you said that you keep up with my writing. I hope you do not read this. Whose to say you still look me up on the internet anymore anyway? You’re probably too busy and I am too absent in your thoughts.

Ironically, even after all this time and how we ended things, I’m sure that I think of you more often than you think of me, and I think that’s okay.