The sneaking around, the secret keeping, it was all really fun. It made me feel like there was something special between just us. Secrets we shared, memories we kept, but after a while, I realized that not only were we lying to people, even those we cared about, but I was also lying to myself, and that wasn’t okay.

Dating older guys seems like a lot of fun, and it can be. You’re opening yourself up new experiences, exposing yourself to new things. You think he can love you like no ‘boy’ your age because he’s way too mature for games (unless you know, it’s the ones on Xbox that he ignores you for on your Skype date night), but you could be wrong.

When I was in 8th grade, I met Heather at a concert. She was a lot older than me (5 or 6 years), and she was super nice. We spent our time in line chatting and exchanged information so that we could text and add each other on Facebook. A few months later, another concert popped up near both of us, and we decided to meet up there. When I got to our meeting spot, she was with a guy (let’s call him B), and we all spent the night together huddled under umbrellas, sharing jokes and stories that made me feel as grown up as they were. B friended me on Facebook, and we chatted about movies and played Xbox together; And the rest was history. I would date other people, and so would B, but we’d always find ourselves gravitating back to each other. He’d console me over the worst breakup I’ve ever been through, and I’d be a rebound for him when a date didn’t work out. Do you see the problem here? It took me a while (not until like, four years later) to figure out I was being used in such a way that devalued myself as a person. The person who loves you should be proud of you, and be proud to show you off to his friends and family. You shouldn’t have to be kept a secret.

I was head over heels in love with him since we became friends, but he pushed me away until he left for school. B and I officially started dating my senior year of high school. I was 18, and he was 23, almost 24, and in law school. I was hesitant to say yes, but did so anyway, because I thought he loved me, at least he told me he did, even when I was having a hard time loving myself. We talked a lot about our future together, the one we’d have when I left school, if I decided to go. We talked about getting dogs and getting married. We’d been best friends for four years, so why not? We always talked about things like that, but soon after I left for college a little less than a year later, my thoughts started to change.

We shared a lot of dreams I came to realize weren’t my own. We had always talked about our plans together, but I realized they were more so his plans than mine. Whenever we talked about things in the future, he kind of said what was going to happen, as if I had no say in the matter. I wanted a life, an established career, before I settled down. I wanted to make sure I was in a safe place to be able to support myself, but he decided he’d support the both of us. He wanted to get a dog, and get a job, and have kids, one or two years after law school, when I graduated. There was no room for my plans in his, and we started fighting about it.

B was obviously in a very different place in his life than I was. He had gone through four years of college, and made friends and dated some. He’d gone to parties and met people, and had all these memories I had yet to even make for myself. I kept thinking that it was unfair for him to think that I was just ready to jump into all of his plans without thinking what would be best for myself as well. I was learning a lot about myself in the first few weeks after leaving for college. The change was really stressful for me at first, and I became distant. We would try and skype every night, but I was always too tired to talk, or too stressed and would just cry. I couldn’t talk to him about what was going on, and we started to fight about it. I tried to explain that I was having a hard time, but he was more angry that I never even asked him how his day was going. Which was true, but it wasn’t because I didn’t care. I was so stressed, and still dealing with depression (among other things), and I barely had an energy left at the end of the day to even brush my teeth. I was not mentally prepared to be dealing with everything college was throwing at me in addition to a relationship I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be in anymore.

So I ended it. My friends could see how much of a toll the relationship was taking on me, and they got me through it. I called him, and we cried. I was letting go of the last five years of my life, my best friend, but for reasons I would learn were better than staying.

My experience with dating an older person is not how all of them are destined to turn out. Our situation was unique to us, and maybe other people, but I don’t know. What I learned from this, is that no matter how much a person says they love you, and no matter how much you don’t want to hurt them, it is 100% okay to focus on you, and your happiness, because you matter more than all the nights you’ll spend crying with your friends over not knowing what to do because you’re so stressed out. Just because someone promises you a good life, a good future, doesn’t mean that they’ll always turn out the way they say they will. When you’re as young as I was in this relationship, when you’re both in such different times in your lives, you need to remember that you’re both going to want different things, and that their plans shouldn’t over power yours just because you love them and don’t want to fight about it. B and I were really great friends, and it sucks that we don’t talk anymore, but there isn’t anything I can do about that, and that’s okay. I realized our relationship was toxic, something I realized was breaking me down more than it was building me up, and that’s not good for any type of relationship. B pushed me to become a person he wanted, instead of celebrating who I was. He wanted me to be all the things I couldn’t be, so I stopped trying.

After breaking up with B, I focused on the people around me, and I ended up meeting a really nice guy, who happen to be older than me, but only by 9 days. I met a boy who listens, and that I can talk to, and although B always encouraged me to talk to him, I never did because he always tried to change me, and thought all my problems were silly, because I was only 18 years old, and not old enough to have ‘real problems’ yet.

I’ve never felt more love from any other person in my life (other than my family of course). And I’ve taken things from my last relationship and fixed some of them, so I can be better in my current, and any possible future relationships. So, B, thank you for teaching me when to recognize that I deserve better, and letting me realize that I am actually an awesome person that doesn’t need someone trying to change them every two seconds.