As It Turns Out, I'm a Walking Cliché

I hate that over-quoted bullshit about only accepting the love you think you deserve. I am emotionally intelligent. I’ve got a good head on my shoulders. Most of the time, I think pretty highly of myself. And yet, I have not experienced healthy, reciprocated, romantic love since high school. I will go ahead and call him ‘John Smith’ for the sake of the story. Captain of the hockey team. Symmetrical. Handsome. We were set up by one of his teammates, my sister’s good friend. He was my first boyfriend, first kiss, etc. To my knowledge, the first boy who ever fell in love with me. 

We were really cute. Like, take over the yearbook candids cute. On our one-year anniversary, he made me a card from his mom’s scrapbooking stuff. Calligraphy. Poetry. A declaration of love. He saw us together forever, living in his parents’ house in Brunswick, Maine. Forever. Like, forever forever. 

I freaked the fuck out. My first real relationship. High school. I was only, like, 15 years old at the time. Even if he was my soulmate, surely we weren’t going to stay in MAINE our whole lives?? After reading that card, and then reading it again, out loud to my mother, I curled up in a ball in my bed and cried. Sobbed. Shook. It was the first time I’d have to break someone’s heart.

It took me 3 months to do it. That was unfair. I still feel shame about this timeline. I pretended for 3 months to be in line with his dreams, and I will tell you there’s a reason I’m not in LA to be an actor. Real bad at it. He knew something was up, but I think he was too afraid to mention it. He was holding on to our relationship by its one guilt-ridden string. And I was letting him. 

I started resenting every single thing he did. The dumb car he drove. His dumb hair length. His dumb daily wrist exercises. I was turning into a monster. I finally buckled down and pulled the whole “we need to talk” thing. 1 year and 3 months in. He knew. He was shaking on sight. I word-vomited some form of “I just don’t think this is it.” He cried immediately. Sobbed. Shook. Held onto me in the saddest hug I’d ever experienced. Then he asked me to please think about changing my mind, and that I could take all the time I needed. Within an hour of his exit, both of his best friends had called me begging me to change my mind. That they’d never seen him like this before. The guilt was really something else. The heaviest feeling I’d ever felt. My mom sat on my bed with me playing with my hair, assuring me everything I felt was legitimate and it would all be okay. 

I didn’t even make it 6 hours before calling the whole thing off. Or, back on, I guess. I announced that a mistake had been made, and ‘John’ came back the happiest ever. Made me sick. 

It was only a month before I really, really called it quits. The Second Dumping didn’t go as… well? I’m unsure of the word to use here. ‘John’ was remarkably less understanding this time. And he had every right to be. No tears, just anger. Left without a word. Didn’t speak to me ever again, actually. 

Which brings us back to present day. Since this whole ‘John’ mishap, I’ve been in exactly one reciprocated relationship (and that ended in me figuring out Ol Boy was in an entirely separate relationship with a girl who lived in Ever Unfaithful America’s Armpit, Florida). With all said and done, we can’t really even count it. All in all, my love life has essentially been situationship after situationship. A strict Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. And if I asked (a grand total of two different times), I was told some form of “that’s not what this is.” As in, exclusivity didn’t (and wasn’t ever going to) exist.

I’ve finally gotten to the bottom of it. Turns out, that stupid fucking cliché seems to hold some weight. For over a decade, I have chosen men who I know, deep down, are not eligible to be my boyfriend. Whether emotionally unavailable or emotionally uninterested, each boy I choose to entertain will more than likely not plan on falling in love with me. And although it comes with my own emotional turmoil, at least I know I won’t be breaking any hearts. In my remarkably and selflessly fucked up logic, it is MUCH more bearable to have my heart hanging on by a thread than to be responsible for destroying somebody else’s. 

It took 12 years for me to begin to trust myself again. And I say this still with only medium-level confidence: I’m ready to love and be loved. To be treated well. To dive all the way in.

I guess this makes it your move.