Our Casual Hookup Was Not So Casual For Me (But Now I Know I’m Better Off Without You)

I broke the first rule.

I couldn’t help smiling to myself whenever I was on my way to see you. Everyone on the train must have thought I had lost my mind. But I didn’t care. I couldn’t wait to curl up in your arms and hold my breath, waiting, knowing that you would always make the first move.

The closer I became to you, the sicker I felt. I tormented myself wondering who you were spending those Friday and Saturday nights with that you not once ever asked me to hang out on. Yet, this was a question I never dared to ask. I longed to know if you still had feelings for the previous girl you had once kept me up all night telling me about.

Again, I didn’t dare to ask. Knowing that you never made me any promises that nothing was going to happen between you and any other girls, made me nauseous.

I had been the friend you would turn to when you couldn’t talk to anyone else. I felt important to you. I felt like I had meant something. Maybe I did. And maybe somewhere along the road, you forgot.
Every time I thought I was done torturing myself, you would say something that would pull me back in again. I couldn’t take it anymore until the day I decided to tell everything to a good friend. He said: “Cut him loose. Seriously.”

And I did. You let me go so easily. It was then that I realized I had made the right decision.

Today, I woke up and couldn’t stop smiling.

I no longer care if I bump into you and see you with another girl. In the past, this thought would have made every nerve in my body burn.

I stopped wishing that out of the blue, I will get a sudden text from you, the text every girl with a broken heart dreams to receive from the guy who finally realized it was a mistake to let them go. To be honest, and as hard as it was for me to admit it, I may never receive that message at all. Even if I do, I will not answer it. Someone who takes an eternity to realize that I mean something to them is not the one for me.

Here and then I wonder what new party you were at or which club was giving you the best night of your life. Looking back at how much time I spent being jealous of your life, I realized I had forgotten to live my own.

I know when you find the right girl, you will cherish her. I honestly did try so hard to show you how much you meant to me. The saddest part was, I was willing to give you everything you had always wanted but the thing is, you just didn’t want it from me. You never felt the same back for me, which is okay, but, I had still been a good friend to you. I think you knew I was always willing to be there for you, probably even more than you were willing to be there for me. You brushed me off anyway.

Finally, I realized, the real victim was never me; it was you. You lost something great.

Parting with you made me see how hard I have become … which is even better. Now, whoever is willing to fight for me that much more to win me, is someone I can never doubt the way I did you.

It is okay if you have completely forgotten about me. Maybe one day you will think about me again. Perhaps sometimes you already do. I am reminded of when I was a kid and waiting for my crush from afar to fall in love with me; it is nice to think about, wonder what could have been, but, it will never happen. Because I am not a child anymore, and thinking of you, I will never be able to move on from my childish fantasies.

I don’t want to see you again. Seeing you will be a constant reminder of how ridiculous you made me feel for loving you, when the sight of me never made you feel a thing. You never understood why your blue plaid shirt was always my favorite thing to wear. I never told you this, but it was the shirt you wear wearing, when I first met you.

You won’t get another chance, because I am not a game you can gamble with. Moving on is not the same as forgetting. I can’t forget what you did, when you only decide to remember me, as soon as everyone else forgets about you.

Despite it all, I want you to understand how hurt you made me feel even though you made it clear exactly what we were. I want you to know now, so the next time a girl sees in you what I saw, she does not get her heart broken too.

It is better you know now, instead of 20 years later when you are wiping the tears of your daughter, as she tells you about a boy that did to her, what you did to me.

I wake up every morning with a smile. It’s funny. I smile and laugh more now than I ever did when I was in love with you.