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[zjeany-blog]

Is it still not over yet?

Geez, I thought I moved on already. I thought I moved on the day I went on the day trip as planned. I thought I moved on when I wrote down the final piece of the memoir. I thought I moved on when I stopped texting weeks ago.

It turns out that you don’t know you are insane when you actually are. You think you are okay, but you are really not. I was still insane weeks ago. I am still not okay now. It’s been more than a month already, but I am still reminded of whatever that is by random things in life every so often. A smiley face with an equal sign. An afterschool program from the east side of the town. A glance at the stars in the sky. I have flashbacks here and there. I am still losing sleep.

Why is it still not over yet!?!? It is overshadowing everything that I like doing.

“He doesn’t like you anymore. Just repeat that to yourself every day and reclaim your sanity. Grief is fine but no need to over-rationalize it,” so advised my best friend.

“I know, I know. But you don’t understand…” Over-rationalization is but a symptom of grief, if only she understands. The truth is that no one will ever understand, and I hope from the bottom of my heart that no one would ever have to understand.

I hope that no one would ever have to understand what it is like to live through hell. It was a period of time when I thought I was doing okay every day only to find out the next day that the previous-day-self was totally insane. I could calmly explain everything that happened, and even joke about it, but an inexplicable pain in the chest and around the neck would come at me late at night. I would convince myself of one set of explanations, but I would also wake up at 3 am, grabbing a pen to crack another layer of the story. Ridiculously enough, I even drew a line graph and a flow chart at one point just to screen through where the problem was. I would not feel tired even if I only slept 3 hours. I would not feel hungry even if I did not eat anything. I would not know what day or what time it was. That went on for about four days and four days have never felt so long. By the fourth day, I began to forget what I wanted to say even if I just had the thought a second ago when I was in conversation. By the seventh day, I would still drift away into thoughts when friends were eating together. “What were you thinking just now,” they asked. “This is what feels like to live through hell,” I said. Because when you decide to open up and be vulnerable with someone, you are also passing on a dagger that points at the softest spot in you. You trust the other party by telling them the truth, so when they stab you exactly where it hurts most, you are essentially emotionally murdered.

Living through hell was no fun, but the thing is, I didn’t feel any resentment. Instead, I chose to understand. I tried to stand in his shoe and walk his mind. If he was the person that he said he was, that was why he did what he did. When I finally (kinda) understood, I was able to forgive. Forgive the person, not the behavior. It was healing to forgive, but now that I think about it, this is the part where I thought I regained my sanity, but I was still insane. I could have a thousand reasons to hate someone who led me on and ditched me last minute (and who said there was still residual feeling but went back on the market the day after, what a jerk, huh), but I didn’t. Some called it empathy, and it is a strength, though I learned it the hard way.

However strong I could be, my heart was still shattered, not broken, but shattered into pieces. Even if it was glued back together with the love and support from friends and family, the cracks between the pieces were still hurting. The cracks hurt every time I saw a sign that brought back a piece of memory. Every piece of the heart is still filled with memories. Memories that I didn’t want to let go of yet.

I have been following the advice of my best friend. I have been brainwashing myself that he doesn’t like me anymore, or he might not even like me to begin with. For sure, this rationalizing helped me come to terms with the most common explanation. The grieving rationalization helped me stand up again. Yet, it hardly helped with consoling the heart. Now that the rational brain was satisfied with the cold answer, the emotions started to flow out. Grief turned into sorrow.

Maybe it was this advice of rationalization that made it hard. If I keep telling myself that, I am also forced to believe that what I have remembered to be good was false. Even worse, I am facing the danger of falling into the old trap that people never like me back. It also discounted the other person’s struggles that I tried to empathize with, so I resist accepting the theory. But if I were to believe that my memories were still real, I am afraid that I’m too naïve and stupid to empathize. As I swing between the reasons, the sorrow also flows in and out as waves. It still bothers me that don’t know the actual reason.

But I gotta move on now. Does it really matter what the actual reason is? I mean, he doesn’t even know, how would I know? Well, if that’s the case, why not choose to believe in something that makes me feel the best? On that thought, I returned to the more empathetic version of the story. I even had chatGPT to write a poem out of it.

Me: Write a love poem from the perspective of an avoidant-attached person.

chatGPT: 

My heart is yours, yet I remain apart, 

A prisoner of fear that holds me in its grip. 

I long to hold you close, to share your heart, 

But every time I try, my mind takes a dip.

Into a world where I am not enough, 

Where love is painful and only leads to pain, 

Where the thought of losing you is too rough, 

And the idea of closeness makes me feel insane.

But still, I yearn for you with all my might, 

To be near you, to bask in your warm glow, 

To share my life and make everything right, 

But my fear holds on, and I cannot let go.

So I hide and keep my distance, it’s true, 

But know that my love for you will always endure.

————————-

There it is. Maybe another month from now this will still look ridiculous. But at least at this moment, my heart is finally at peace again.

[zjeany-blog]

The Almost Committed Relationship (one possible alternative perspective)

(Assuming this guy is a genuinely nice but very confused person and everything he said had been true)

The Consciousness 

I’m going to break up with her. Yes, I have made the decision. This is the right decision.

Yes, this is probably a horrible thing to bring up to someone before a New Year’s Eve date. Yes, I might have asked her for the date three weeks in advance. But I could not drag this out any longer. Unfortunately, there are no better alternatives. It is for the best.

Yes, I might have also said at one point that we would get each other a gift. I wanted to do the couple-y thing with her, I said. Yes, I would if I had the mental energy to do so. But I don’t. I just got back from the trip with my family and friends. I am so exhausted, in every way.

I dread the conversation. Oh, it is going to be hard. But this is the only right thing to do, so I will have to do it.

I don’t know how and why it turns out this way. I didn’t want this to end, either. I tried so hard and I felt dragged away. But there is always a voice in the back of my mind saying, “This is not going to work. We are not good for each other.” At first, it was just a one-off thought, and I was able to suppress it, because I do like her a lot, and this is the most secure I’ve ever felt in a relationship. I’m willing to work on it. But during the trip with my family and my friends, when I had more alone time, the thought just got more frequent, and I just don’t see the thought going away.

Well, let me pack up her stuff for her. The purple blanket. The blueish-whiteish towel. The kitty slippers. Everything she said she liked, and I got for her. Her coffee. Her tank top and shorts. Why am I tearing up? Why am I planning to give it all to her in person? I might still care about her feelings. Right, let me also reply to her messages as usual. She did say she felt a little sad when I didn’t talk to her much during my trip. I am a nice person, and this is the right thing to do.

The subconsciousness 

Oh yeah, the trip, my family. They probably won’t approve of her. Her career plan in education is never going to cut it. It is cool to work in an education organization. I mean, I’ve always enjoyed teaching and kind of have the plan to be a teacher after retiring from the private industry. The way I compromise is to volunteer at afterschool programs and be a big brother. Yeah, compromises. My parents always wanted me to do heavier science majors, and even now my dad kept telling me to switch to a higher-paying job. I would be decent at it, but I just don’t feel strongly about it. My dad rarely approves of me anyway. My mom just listens to my dad. I know that my parents care about me, but they don’t care about what I really like doing. We are just never emotionally close. It is what it is. Yeah, so, it is cool that she’s passionate about education equality. I do, too. But this is just not gonna work. Now that my family sees her Bluetooth connected to my car. They might ask. I don’t bother to explain.

It would be nice if I could have someone to finally accept what I really like, though. It feels secure and supported. I don’t like to be pushed to do things that I don’t like to do, like how my ex-es do not respect my personal space and look down upon me for things I don’t know how to do, although I am willing to do acts of service to show care for the most part, until I feel like my efforts are not appreciated. She doesn’t do any of the problematic behaviors. I do like this about her a lot.

After talking to her for a few weeks, I did not bother to talk to anyone else. I was super happy to have met her. At one point, I started to check my phone to see if she replied to my messages. I wanted to see her photos at work. I asked if we were not seeing anyone else and confirmed it was exclusive. She seemed very excited about it. We started to plan future dates. That was when the voice started to pop up, that this might not work out. I was not sure if I could commit to things that far out in the future. I mean, I’ve not known her for that long, either. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but I also didn’t want to lose her at the moment.

She was a little confused about the difference between exclusivity and a committed relationship. I was not sure, either, but she seemed to be looking forward to it already. I looked it up on the internet about why girls wanted commitment when guys didn’t. Don’t really trust what’s on the internet but maybe just this once. Some said that it was because guys just want the benefit of the relationship but don’t want to offer emotional support. But this did not feel like my case. Maybe I just needed more time. I needed to work on it. I thought I would be ready in a month or so. I would be introducing her as my girlfriend if she came to my next friend group hangout soon.

But I just didn’t feel about her. Or did I?

Well now that I think about it, she’s not that perfect. She said she did song covers but she didn’t sing that well. Her freshman-15 has never gone away. She looked different when she had her makeup off. Her texts are kind of annoying. I’d rather have fun with my friends. Oh yeah, I didn’t have fun with her that much. She probably wouldn’t approve of my friends. Some of the things she said were just dumb. She is not capable of taking care of me. I can probably do better. Oh, that’s a dangerous thought. I should not think like that, but I can’t help. No, we are not good for each other.

The aftermath 

The time had come. I came to her door and dropped everything I bought for her. She saw that I was not okay. I told her something was wrong. I told her my decision. I knew it was a blindsided thing to hear before a New Year’s Eve date. I said I was sorry a thousand times.

At first, she was quite calm as if she had expected this to happen. Then she broke down and said it was unfair for her to just accept it. But the problem was not fixable. I don’t know why. I hugged her and comforted her. I thought she received it pretty well. Telling her tonight would be better because she might have more time to find someone else to go on with the original plan.

She asked me what she should think of this relationship. “It felt…like an almost committed relationship?” I said.

I felt sad and it was painful to break up, but I had to do it. I thanked her for the good memories and left.

The first two days felt like a relief. I finally don’t have to answer her messages. I do still feel lonely without someone bothering me, though. Never mind, there are plenty of girls much better on the app. Let me just start over again.

[zjeany-blog]

The Almost Committed Relationship

It’s a magical feeling, to be shaken and waken up from an illusionary dream, to have the sense of self shattered into pieces, and to be glued back together bit by bit, by families and friends, one by one. And to grow up overnight.

Especially when you are left with a bewildering puzzle with conflicting premises and no answers, at a time right before a premeditated date to celebrate the new year. Premeditated, as in, perhaps you should’ve known that you’d leave alone.

But when you work your way through your emotions and rationality, fluctuate between stability and insanity, burst into chuckles and tears, and finally, come to terms with the aggregation of all possible explanations, you are just in awe of the multidimensional complexity of reality, of how two sides of one coin can be true at the same time.

“I do like you a lot, I really do…and we match up so well on paper. There’s everything that I’ve been looking for…and I really want this to work. But I just kept having this voice in the back of my mind, that this is not gonna work, and we are not good for each other. I tried so hard. I was able to suppress it, one-off, at first, and I was willing to make it work, but during the trip, when I had more alone time, the voice just got stronger and more frequent. And I just…can’t ignore it anymore…I don’t want this to end…but I just felt dragged away…I don’t know why…I’m sorry that it turned out like this. I’m really sorry.” He told you to be exclusive, he asked to spend the new year three weeks in advance, and he turned away the day before, with tears in his eyes.

This makes absolutely no sense. Where does this voice come from? There’s gotta be a reason. But don’t ask why. He doesn’t know either. He just knows the voice. He just knows.

“He’s just not that into you, or something happened during the trip, that’s all,” says friend after friend. But, he did make me feel so strongly cared for though, with wanting to see me, with waiting for me to reply, with taking me to a well-planned birthday, with remembering what I like, with taking pictures of me as if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, with getting me things at his place, with cooking his specialty dish for me, and with planning things with me way in advance. Is any of this unreal? Why would anyone do that if they don’t actually like you?

Thank god you like solving puzzles, thank god you are an aspiring social scientist and thank god you are a history major that trained you to piece together various sources of information to make sense of the past, by digging through the ruins of memories, texts, conversations, and songs. It is probably not a healthy thing to do. But now I know, too.

If they pull the rug and change the word all of the sudden, they don’t actually like you.

Don’t get me wrong. It is true that he does like you a lot. It is also true, that, he’s just not that into you. Two sides of one coin can be true at the same time. He is not lying to you. He likes you so much that he’s been lying to himself to the extent that he ignores he’s just not that into you. And he is just being as truthful and tactful at the same time as he always is, trying not to hurt you.

He likes you a lot that you give him a secure and supportive presence that he’s been longing for all his life. He likes this sense of security so much that he ignores that he also has so many other feelings to be satisfied by in a relationship. The sense of security is everything he’s been looking for and he never wants to let it go. That’s why he tells himself, “I’m willing to make this work.” Alas, there’s a reason we call it, “falling” in love, and when you are falling, gravity does the work. He did not fall, at least not that much. He was a little scared to fall. He did not want to get his hopes up. You are what he needs, but maybe not what he wants.

He's just not that into you. Maybe he did not quite enjoy the food he was having with you. Maybe he did not have enough of a chance to sing his heart out in public. Maybe he did not feel excited by the multithreading but mundane conversation. Maybe he had expected you to be more extroverted than you currently were, but you were not. Maybe he didn’t think the content of your essay is as good as he’d expected. Or maybe, he was also secretly not very happy with how you look yet thought to himself not to judge people by appearance. And many more maybes. Maybe, he had an image of an ideal person, and more and more things about you didn’t check off. He wanted you to be more talkative and playful but he was a little disappointed. It only takes one reason to be into somebody but millions not to be. But he still tells himself, “I’m willing to make this work.” He might have not enjoyed things that you enjoyed as much but he was trying hard to make you happy. As long as you are happy, you will stay. Perhaps when he got away from you and felt that excitement somewhere or with someone on the trip, he finally realized in the back of his mind, too, that you were not what he wanted, ideally. Then he started to see all the differences you have, couldn’t bear you anymore, and ended up not bothering to reply to your messages at one point. The affection was drowned by the voice. But even then, he was still trying to make this work. He didn’t want this to end, he was dragged away, and he didn’t know why. 

The hints and signs had always been staring right at you, in all the words he said and all the things he did. You just got too carried away by how happy you felt with his acts of service and turned a blind eye to any of them. When you take off your rosy-tinted glasses and look back, it is just so clear. So so clear. He never said he liked “you,” as in, “you are a super cool and interesting person and I wanted to know more about you,” but always only said, “your kindness and supportiveness made me feel accepted.” He was probably intimidated by how much you liked him and felt uncomfortably pushed to move forward. But he wanted to reciprocate your feelings by saying, “I do like you a lot, and I am super super happy to have met you.” He made gestures to maintain a sense of security when he saw how disappointed you felt at the first sign of him showing not ready to commit. But you failed to see his struggles. The struggles between needing security and wanting excitement. How many times, when he said, “I’m willing to” and “I don’t mind that,” he actually meant “I’m not sure about it but I guess I’m okay with it.” He is an okay-with-pretty-much-anything kind of guy.

There are other struggles, too, perhaps. Struggles that are not related to what you say and do, but related to who you are, or whom you remind him of. Why would he say he’s not jealous of his brother’s name when he was not particularly happy with the characters of his own name? Why would he say he needed a secret plot to make him speak the language when he claimed that he wanted to maintain the ability to speak? Why would he be willing to spend the extra few more hundreds of dollars on show tickets for friends but felt not okay with fifty dollars worth of unreturnable stuff? Why would he want to buy you stuff when he does not even get himself a desk? Why did he present himself as technically an engineer, but not really, when he actually wanted to be a teacher? How did he feel when he wanted to stay in his current role when his family constantly told him to move to a higher-paying one that he would be also decent at? “It is...what it is” is what he always says.

You did fix his insecurity about a healthy relationship, but you also stirred so many other insecurities that he perhaps has. You are at once his balm and his bane, and you are blind. He probably did not feel that good about speaking your native language but said he would improve it because of you. He probably did not feel that good about the way that you would use money but rationalized it as the view on money being similar-ish. He probably did not think that your career in education was promising or would be approved in his world, but he wanted to reassure you it was. Why? Probably because he had been fighting against these things all along his life, with people around him. People he wanted to be close with but never could be. Otherwise, why would the rock band be such an important element everywhere in his life, on his screensaver, in his apartment, from his childhood dream? It was his source of strength, pillar of spirit, and reason to persist.

He probably didn’t even realize that he was doing uncomfortable things to himself to make the relationship last, because he was so good at this mode of behavior from all his other relationships, with friends or with family. Compromises are the only way to keep the status quo. It was almost like second nature to him now, but he did not particularly enjoy it.

And now you are making him do things he thought would make you happy but was not particularly enjoyable for him. You pose a version of the world that he wanted but was not allowed for him. You are seeing him as someone he thought he was but does not want to be seen as. You failed to see the real him, who he’s been hiding from you, and perhaps from everyone else, including himself. Maybe he tried to show a part of himself to you at one point and he wished that you would see, but he didn’t feel that you could empathize so he went back to the shell. He wanted to feel desired without asking. But there’s nothing you can do if he is subconsciously in hiding. So, he was still, unhappy with you. And uneasy all along. And after weeks of playing the script of a caring date, the struggles tired him out. He could not sustain the voice in the back of his mind that “this is not gonna work.”

Yet, this is just half of the puzzle, isn’t it? And there is the other half of the puzzle, that is you. Aren’t you as conflicted about yourself as he is? Aren’t you trying to fight against so many things in the world around you as well? Aren’t you also wishing someone would like your true self without you making any effort but at the same time anxious about showing who you are? He sensed it from your teethy emojis every time. That’s why he tried to reassure you. But in the back of his mind, the algorithm reported, “we are not good for each other.”

He’s so smart so he definitely knows. And now you do, too. Two kindred spirits, two adjacent pieces of a puzzle, and two moths fluttering at the same flame. The Universe can bring two people together only to just as quickly tear them apart. You’re not really strangers but you would be strangers once again.

See? That’s how two sides of one coin can be true at the same time. Funny how human minds can work their way to reconcile so many conflicting and opposing thoughts and feelings about the same fact. The human brain thinks in a chaotic, jumpy, unstructured way and is not well suited to handle complex decisions coming from the heart, so humans tell stories. Humans are so good at telling stories to make peace with themselves and make sense of the world. Is that why he likes chaotic games? Is that why he almost exclusively reads and writes young-adult novels, too? Making sense.

Over the days, you have also come up with so many versions of stories to try to capture the truth and all the versions provided a piece of truth to the ultimate one. That he does like you a lot, but he is just not that into you, and he’s right about the feeling that you are not good for each other, and this is not going to work. Back in your mind, you knew it from the beginning, too. You have already rehearsed how you would react to his rejection before even meeting him: maintain your last bit of composure, farewell, turn away, cry, and move on. And that was what you did, well, minus the composure.

Now that the story is complete, some other thoughts begin to fit in, too.

“Is it a good thing that we reminded each other of our ex-es?” “Shouldn’t the actual feeling of being in love be that you would want to do things to make the other person happy and it won’t feel like an effort, in addition to just being, safe and accepted?”

Am I writing this story just to make peace with myself or to really make sense of the world? I will never know. This is just one plausible line of best fit given all the available data points and it may not even be remotely true. There are many other much simpler explanations, like, he just knows he can do better than this, or, he is just afraid of commitment. Either way. He is long gone and out of your control. Writing this down is just the final step of moving on.

I guess most others who are stricken by a sudden break-up would recount the history with a regurgitation of intense feelings as their starting point. But I, driven by an instinctive force of curiosity, rationalization, and puzzle-solving, went too far the other way. People say there’s no need to find a reason for a love that ends and most of the time there is no reason to be found after all. Luckily, I can piece together enough information to make the most sense of what may have happened this time. If there were a next time, I pray not, will I have the courage of living without knowing, or sapere aude? 

Perhaps the evanescence of human nature ought not to have been the focus; perhaps a deep level of spiritual mutual understanding would be too much to ask; perhaps the fleeting moments of connection, of felt beliefs, of passing tenderness, and of a vision of a shared future only warrants not the hammering of the investigation into our deeper selves.

Instead, they do warrant reflections on happiness. I felt happy when I was taken care of and when I was held tightly. I felt happy to be heard and responded to when I talked about almost anything that I care about. I felt happy when I can offer affirmation and see others discover new pieces of themselves. I felt happy to have been accompanied. I am grateful to know that someone would be willing to make me feel cared for even after only knowing me for not that long. I am sorry that I forget to see others’ needs and take care of others’ happiness. I am happy that I am learning.

On the day of New Year’s Eve, the day we had originally planned to spend together, the day after things suddenly ended in my world, I still went on with the plan, going from place to place in the pouring rain. “The rain will stop. The sky will clear up.” I thought to myself. I ran in the rain but still missed the train that I had planned to get on. “So what I missed this train. I will just take the next one.”

The days after, friends and families went on a relay race to hear me retelling the story, to help me reconstruct reality, to offer generous space for my shattered self, and to heal my heart with love. “Hey I’m so sorry to take your time. I’m so grateful that you are willing to listen to me. I know I sometimes only come to you in crisis but I promise I’ll be more caring for you, too” I said a million times, and every time I hear “Hey, you don’t have to be sorry. You don’t have to do anything for me. This is what friends are for.” I cried so hard, not because of a loss but because of a gain. A gain of feeling loved when you don’t have to do anything to get it. If it weren’t for the loss, I wouldn’t have this gain. It felt like a rebirth through fire. Love has always been around me but I have not accepted it until now.

We all deserve love, even on days when we aren’t our best. We all deserve love. It is the best part of being alive.

On this last day, I went out to take a morning walk again in a drizzle before a storm hit California. The sun was out. So was the rainbow. Oh, the Universe.

“So, uh, how should I categorize this?”

“Umm...an exclusive date? But it felt like it’s more than that...so, an almost committed relationship?”

An almost committed relationship. The almost committed relationship. We said we would exchange gifts, but he never did. I guess this is the actual gift that he left.

If I were to put a poetic end to my version of the story about this almost committed relationship, nothing fits better than the last song I was listening to at the sight of the rainbow:

If the tide takes California

I’m so glad I got to know ya

And if the sky falls from Heaven above

Oh, I know, I had the best time falling into love

We’ve been living on a fault line

And for a while, you were all mine 

I’ve spent a lifetime giving you my heart 

I swear that I’ll be yours forever 

Till forever falls apart 

We never had it from the start