Before you read any further, I need you to know this is not an angry letter. It is not meant to be the ramblings of a woman scorned or an account of all the ways you did me wrong. I don’t want you to read this letter and think that I hate you; I never have and never will hate you.
Was I mad at you for the things you did? Yes.
Have I forgiven you for the way you treated me? For the most part, yes.
This letter is nothing more than a way for me to express my feelings and achieve some form of closure. Because even though I may not be over you yet, I’m well on my way.
Looking back, I think what upsets me the most is knowing that things will never be the same between us. We’ve known each other for around eight years now, most of those years spent being friends. As time went on, we naturally went our separate ways. Still, we checked in with each other every so often, and there were also the rare occasions where I’d run into you at events with our mutual friends. The older I got, the more I valued the time I got to spend with you and the more I enjoyed your company. The shy, awkward boy that stared at me from across the room in our middle school Geometry class had morphed into a funny, charming man that gave me butterflies every time I saw him. After almost eight years of you being in and out of my life, we finally had our first kiss. It was a long time coming, and I mark that as the exact moment everything changed.
After that kiss, I was no longer secure in how we were labeling our relationship. We entered a limbo between “friends” and “significant others,” which is a place I don’t think we ever escaped. We would go long periods where we would stay in almost constant contact, and then— all of a sudden—we wouldn’t be talking at all. I would always wonder what I had done to make you stop talking to me this time. Did I say something wrong? Did he get bored with me? Did he find someone better to talk to? I found myself in an unhealthy place where I could only feel validated if your name popped up on my phone. This infrequent contact alone would have been enough to thoroughly confuse me on where we stood relationship-wise, but then you also had to throw in the handful of times you visited me at college and the few times you tried to take me on dates when I was on breaks from school. Suffice to say, I was getting a lot of mixed signals from you.
However, I can’t say you’re solely responsible for the mess this has turned into. In all honesty, I blame myself for a lot of what happened between us. Mutual friends of ours told me multiple times that you were keeping your options open by talking to other girls. You yourself told me at one point that you weren’t sure you wanted a girlfriend. I then tried to follow suit and pursue other interests (i.e. other boys), but I always found myself drawn back to you. My common sense was clouded by the hope that you would one day change your mind and decide you wanted to be with me. I ignored all the signs that were made clear by your actions: ignoring me when I wanted to talk about issues between us, rubbing my face in the fact that you were simultaneously seeing other girls, and being all around evasive when it came to any sort of commitment. I let all of those things go because I figured that any relationship with you would be better than no relationship with you. It is this philosophy that I am convinced has caused me so much unnecessary heartache over the past few months.
I can’t believe how much time I spent waiting and wishing for you to want me. Every time I think about all the other important things I could have devoted this time to, I feel like a silly little girl. I hate that I let you treat me like a second thought, keeping me as an alternate for when you got bored with your other girls. I hate that I let you fool me into thinking you somehow cared about me the most, giving me a reason to stay. I hate that I let myself become a weak-willed person who allowed themselves to be continuously unhappy and insecure simply on the off-chance that you might decide to choose me. No, I don’t hate you; I hate who I was when I was with you.
It took a lot of soul-searching for me to reach this conclusion, but I’ve officially decided that I am going to be done with you. Too much has happened between us that I don’t think we could ever be friends again, and I believe I owe it to myself to no longer pursue any sort of romantic relationship with you. I’m sad to see that after eight years it has come to this, but I honestly don’t see how it can be any other way.Please don’t get me wrong; of course I want the best for you, and I sincerely hope you’re happy. But, while I care about your happiness, I care about my happiness more. So, I’m going to do my best to get over you. Day by day, I’ve noticed myself feeling a little bit better, which gives me hope for the future. Having dealt with this whole ordeal, I know that I am a stronger person, which is something I guess I have to thank you for. I’m sure that one day soon, I’ll be okay.
Time heals all wounds, right?
