So it took me an incredible amount of time just staring at the blank screen to even put my fingers to the keyboard and begin typing. I don’t know where to begin or end this. I don’t want to not post anything for three months like in 2006 and leave everyone in the dark again.

So here goes…

I met Beverly on July 7th 2007. One week ago Monday was the anniversary of this date. As a good boyfriend I sent her flowers with a very romantic note. I received an email from her later in the day saying she loved the flowers but hadn’t been getting sleep and needed some time alone – and requested that we not see each other until the following weekend.

Now, mind you, I was starting to get a little worried. After all – this was all happening exactly the same as February. I got sick – she came over and was very sweet – and then asked for time alone – after which she decided we were over. A close friend (of mine) convinced me everything was fine and that she just needed some time to herself. I wanted to believe this. After all – just a few months ago after we’d got back together she had assured me that she “wanted this to work” and we had in fact been improving our communication and hadn’t had an “incident” since.

On Friday morning she emailed me saying she’d been thinking a lot and had some things to tell me. We agreed to meet at a park near my condo Saturday morning. When she showed up she seemed in a good mood. She handed me a large box – a rice cooker and said it was a gift for me because I needed a “real” rice cooker (the one I’d been using was the big pot with the on/off switch). At this point I was confused. Maybe this was going to turn out all right. Maybe she’d been thinking and she realized how much I meant to her. Maybe she saw that the only thing holding us back was her fear of commitment.

We went to the park, making small talk on the way. When we got to the park we walked around for a little while making more small talk until finally we sat down on a bench to have the real discussion we’d been avoiding.

She slowly and tearfully explained to me that she doesn’t see where I fit into her life and that we just aren’t right for each other.

I asked her if she loved me. She said she “thought” she did for a while but didn’t tell me at the time. I wonder how things may have been different if she had.

After talking for maybe two hours we left the park. Before we did she gave me a Chinese language picture-learning book and reminded me I should do things for myself, not for other people. This was her way of excusing her guilt for letting me blow $415 on a class I was taking for her (and she had encouraged me to take several times). She said she appreciated the gesture.

Back at my place she was thirsty so I gave her a gatoraide. One of the lime gatoraides that I keep in stock only because it is her favorite flavor. I have a feeling that gesture was lost as well.

I walked her down to her car. We stood in the garage for some time not sure what to say or do (handshake? hug? nothing?). Finally she said “okay, I’m going to go.” She walked to her car, opened the door and looked back at me. She walked back over to me and put her arms around me. She started sobbing and I felt the tears welling up as well. She then said “Even if I never see you again I’ll never forget you.” We embraced for a bit more and then she got in her car and drove away.

Since that moment I’ve felt numb to everything. Occasionally I want to break down in tears, but my inner “man-meter” kicks in and tells me not to. Of course, it would probably do me some good to let out all the emotion I’ve been keeping inside for so long. I got so close to this person, became part of her world (probably more than she did mine) and let her dominate my thoughts for the better part of a year. Now I have to pretend she doesn’t exist. How do I do that? Saturday was the strangest thing. I sat there on the grass talking to this girl that I knew in a few hours I may never see again. How does anyone do that? In that way breakups are very strange. When someone actually dies in real life that you were close to it is perfectly acceptable to be broken up about it and inconsolable for a while. However, when someone you’re romantically involved with vanishes into thin air the prevailing advice is “plenty of fish in the sea, (who cares).” I always thought that was strange, after all, when my grandmother died I knew she wasn’t leaving us because she didn’t like us. Yet when someone you aren’t related to but have deep feelings for tells you they basically want to pretend you’re dead and you should do the same it is supposed to be copacetic.

Perhaps the biggest problem in our relationship is that we both wanted the other person to be someone they aren’t. I think she wanted someone more boisterous and aggressive in public – a comedian type personality. I wanted someone kinder, gentler, more giving than she knew how to be. I made the mistake of assuming that this was something she could change – and perhaps I also made the mistake of assuming that she’d be okay with a certain level of improvement in my social skills – but never being the “life of the party” guy. Whether consciously or not, everything I did around her was deemed “wrong” and needed improvement. When I arranged surprise gifts for her in London the note wasn’t funny enough. When I couldn’t find parking before Wall-E (see the June 28th entry) I wasn’t running to the theater to meet her fast enough. When I couldn’t remember a Chinese word she’d taught me an hour ago I wasn’t using my brain. When we played basketball I wasn’t listening to her advice on how to shoot correctly. I know in her mind she probably thought she was being a good girlfriend and just trying to “improve” upon me – but loving someone is loving who they are now – not who they might be later. I knew this rule when I met her – but I set it aside in my blind fervor to get into another relationship.

I had been single for about a year and a half when I met Beverly. It would be another three months until we agreed to see each other exclusively. We had good times together – some really good times. However, by late December true colors were starting to show. My lack of what Aaron once called “social intelligence” was beginning to seemingly be a burden for her. Perhaps an older me would have said “she is trying to change you – just let it go” but instead I promised I could do better. And in fact I did do better and picked up more social skills, tried things (like karaoke) that I’d previously refused to try. She even got me to go to a rap dancing club a few times (can any of you imagine me in a rap club?). All of this was still just not enough though. Although she didn’t list any of this in our discussion on Saturday – I think these were the specifics behind general statements she made.

By revealing this I’m not trying to lash out at her or anything of the sort. I’m just as much to blame. After all, I stayed in a relationship (and fought to get back into it) with someone who admitted she wasn’t happy with who I was. However, she was pretty and we liked many of the same things. I couldn’t bring myself to end it. I held out this pathetic hope that one day she would think things over and see that my good qualities far outweighed the ones I was lacking. After all -what is more important in the long run, someone who entertains your friends, or someone who entertains you? From the way she explained it – seeing me entertain other people and capture their attention was the only way to capture hers. I wondered if this was normal female preoccupation with attention seeking – or something gone into overdrive because of her British Consulate predisposal to high class events and the chatterers therein.

There was also always the looming threat of China. She still wants desperately to move there – and where would that leave me? Knowing that I was always of secondary importance in this way made me a bit uncomfortable the whole time. I would never want to ask someone to forgo one of their dreams for me – but at the same time I didn’t want to just have to deal with the relationship ending at any moment because she got a call-back from a job application in China. Even when we discussed our trip she told me she was setting up interviews – and she wondered what I’d be doing while she was out at job interviews all day. It was a little odd that this was the concern (my possible temporary boredom) rather than “what will become of us if I stay in China?”

Another reason this is hard to write is that I know she’ll read it. I don’t suppose we’ll see any more comments from Watermelonlashes, but I don’t think it is a stretch to think she’ll be looking in from time to time. I’ve always hated this one-way relationship. Someone vanishes from my life and I never see or hear them again, no idea what has happened to them – yet they know everything about me because I exist in the public sphere thanks to this blog.

My biggest problem when it comes to relationships is accepting the impermanence of them. I grew up in a family that for the most part had no fighting, no divorce, etc. (at least that I was aware of). Thus, when you let someone close to your heart, you could trust that they would stay there. None of my aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. ever decided they didn’t want to speak to me. In fact, one my cousins that didn’t speak much to the rest of the family actually spoke fairly often with me. I lived in the same house my whole life until leaving for college. My parents are still together and still live in that same house. The concept of people coming in and out of your life was not something I was generally exposed to – nor had to deal with until I left home.

Thus the hardest part of this breaking up stuff is accepting the other person is gone. There is a huge part of me that is numb right now just because I’m thinking that she’ll call me up and everything will go back to “normal.” The concept of not seeing her again -at all- hasn’t exactly sunk in yet. Perhaps I’m still chasing this fantasy of what I wanted her and our relationship to be and I’m not ready to give up on it. Only time will do that.

and I’ve got plenty of that now….