I met Alex at work in July. He made me hate him the first time I met him, but he went out of his way to correct his mistake. We start talking more and more each day. One morning, he asks me out. (A few months later he tells me he did it because the idea terrified him. I admired that.)
This moment was especially cute because he left for the day and came back not a few minutes later to ask me just how we were going to make plans if he didn’t have my number. I laughed and we began talking outside of work. For our first date, Alex picks me up playing a song* he knew I liked. We got lost in conversation which led him to getting lost three separate times while driving, turning a familiar 10 minute drive into a 35 minute one. Our conversation was fueled with excitement. We talked for hours. We click and it’s electric.
The next date was my favorite. We get to know each other more over the next month. Around the end of August he decides we should be official. Enlightened by his therapist and never having experienced anything healthy before (his words), he hadn’t known how to identify love without obsession until now. He didn’t think the two could coexist: liking someone and not constantly thinking and worrying about that someone. I didn’t quite understand this but I admired the personal growth. I thought we could help each other grow. And just like that, the summer ends and we’re both starting our senior year of college together.
*I am thinking it’s a sign
That the freckles in our eyes
Are mirror images
And when we kiss they’re perfectly aligned
And I have to speculate
That God Himself did make
Us into corresponding shapes
Like puzzle pieces from the clay
“Such Great Heights” by The Postal Service
Take the rose-colored glasses off. See the flags for what they were: red flags. Oddly enough, all Alex talked about on the first date was his ex. And then he wondered for the first two months of our relationship why I suggested he wasn’t over her. He thought my claims were crazy and irrational — coming out of nowhere from a skeptical, distrusting girlfriend. Still, it was the first time I had seen you outside of work. Maybe we were just breaking the ice.
That’s why I never thought it was a date, just two people from work hanging out. But nothing matched our second date, although I held onto hope for the rest of our relationship that something else would. But, things began to unravel and very shortly, they turned weird. Alex told me he was a “private person” and withdrew more than I’d have thought. He became incredibly inconsistent and ambiguous about everything, meanwhile “playing it cool” was really fucking with my anxiety. He never gave me any answers or certainty but I forced myself to remain patient. I’ve been told I give up on relationships easily so this was the time I decided to keep trying. So then we’re off and on all summer.
I told him I was “done doing whatever we’re doing” because I had absolutely no clue what that was. I was wasting my time. Finally, after this confrontation, he told me he just couldn’t see me as a girlfriend. I went out that night to celebrate my new freedom. Alex texted me the entire time and I didn’t really understand why. I told him I was on a date which was really just a girls’ night. He told me harshly that it was too soon for me to go on a date. I felt guilty and apologized for lying the next day, but he never took back the things he called me or how he treated me leading up to this moment. I pushed things to the side over and over again. On again, off again, and so the cycle continued until the middle of August.
He told me he had never met someone like me and wanted to see where things go but then the next day, he would either disappear and/or end things. He flaked on our plans and I realized I was already too attached because of how much it had affected me. I try to really end things this time (my second attempt). I cut things off to save myself from further hurt. I take a road trip to a beach down south by myself, fueled by mania and a burning desire to be alone. To do things on my own because I had let a person drag me, along with my mood, down so much. I felt ashamed for letting someone have so much control over me. So, naturally, I needed to counteract that with the opposite kind of extreme. (Just drive somewhere you’ve never been to before that’s far away and stay for as long as you feel like it.)
But, Alex didn’t leave me alone. He texted me the entire time I was at the beach and then when I came back. For some reason, we try things one more time. We always gravitated towards each other, and in that moment you think it’s because the stars are aligning and you’ve finally found a good thing, but you realize now that that good thing was absolute poison. Somehow, after my trip, we make up, stabilize, and I find myself in a better place with Alex. He sets the terms of when we’re exclusive and then when we’re official. I go with the flow. I look to him for direction, wide-eyed like a child, because I trust him.
