The letter I wrote to Mario. I want to send it, but I feel like it’s too harsh.
I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to write this. I wanted to be absolutely sure that I meant everything… or that it all made sense, but I realize now that it really doesn’t make sense.
First of all, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cut you off. But I felt it was the only way to insulate myself from everything I felt towards you and against you. The truth is, I can’t be friends with you and date Terry. He really wants to hurt you…it’s so barbaric.
I had a lot of fun being around you, but the way that it all transpired was just… wrong.
Now for the obvious: I should have broken up with Terry before we did anything. I shouldn’t have gone over to your house when I was feeling vulnerable. But I knew what was going to happen. I just hoped that you would be a good friend and not instigate it.
You told me that we could be more than friends, that when I look back at what we have done, all I can feel was that I had betrayed somebody that I cared a lot about, and you didn’t seem to have much of a problem with that. You went after what you wanted without regard for anyone’s feelings but your own.
Yes, I admit, I’m not a saint, but when someone has a significant other you don’t lure them into your bedroom and start touching them. I don’t find that honorable. I know that we will probably run into one another someday, and to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t know what to say. Of course, if it’s with Terry, you should probably steer clear of him. He can’t own up to his own part in why that happened.
I must admit, for those few days I had such a fantasy. Terry would just sort of fade away and we would ride off into the sunset blasting CSS. But we weren’t pursuing this in the way that you should pursue a relationship… well… one normally does that when they are single. Terry thought that you orchestrated the breakup from that guy you were seeing at the time, and that was one of the things that led to the whole thing…him calling me drunk and repeating that you were single.
I still think that he wanted me to cheat on him. That what we did was the only way he knew how to exist… he only knows how to have people betray him.
I don’t know why, but I always half-seriously considered you “evil.” Well, I guess the characterization was easy because whenever Adrian and I would have a fight he would be off to join you at the club. I just get such a strange vibe from you… it was cute that you were aloof and unable to put down your iPhone, but I guess when it really came down to it I couldn’t trust you.
I mean, if it all had developed over a period of time and we had gotten to know each other (God, when does that ever happen?) instead of what really happened, then we might have had some kind of a shot at it. And if I were to just dump Terry, what would have that said about me?
Truth be told, I’ll always remember that night fondly. The act, in itself, was cute and loving… but that kind of happiness in a moral vacuum came at a price that was too high.
I remember after I told him, I was curled up in a ball on the floor crying, and he told me to get out. I had never felt so wretched and terrible. I remember going upstairs and crying in his bed alone for hours. All I could think of was what I’d done to him. I guess I never understood how much he meant to me.
I just can’t reconcile the happiness I felt with you with what it did to Terry.
As you must know, we are dating again. I don’t quite know why we’re together, I mean I can’t summarize it in 500 words or less, but I don’t feel like him and I are over. I had been jumping from infatuation to infatuation all year and I didn’t want him or you to just be another link in the chain. I was at this point where I was so confused. Getting likes and dislikes of one ex confused with another… I was in a really bad state. And Terry and I had closed off from each other emotionally. And then there was you.
I guess this is in politically correct, but I don’t regret what happened at all. I think you’re an interesting guy with good taste, but the way we went about this was wrong from the beginning.
And so you sort of see why we can’t be friends (if you were to forgive me the massive faux pas of ignoring you for like two months). Terry would have a fit (and rightly so), and I don’t think that I could assure him that something like that wouldn’t happen again. He’s got some serious problems, but don’t we all.
A friend of mine in my geology class told me that she got involved with one of those “my mother never loved me” types and four years later she realized she had nothing. But another friend, who was the one in the relationship with those kind of issues, tells me that it was his boyfriend that helped him through it all.
I don’t know what the future holds, but once this is all over, I’d sure like to tell you about it over a cup of coffee.
Until then, I have to do all of this ignoring stuff. I want to keep talking about what should have happened, but that’s kind of irrelevant. I guess what I’m trying to say is I wanted to be your friend at least, and your boyfriend at most, but I saw some of your true colors, and it scared me.
