Grouphug.us

I read this one incredibly personal confession addressed to a specific woman. Not gonna lie, I bawled oceans (a symptom of the menstrual cycle, I'm sure).

Dear D.L.N.*,

I still love you. You’ve broke[n] my heart twice now and I still love you. I flew across the country to be with you for one night and you shut me down, just like you did when I came to Israel for you only a few years before.

How do I know I still love you? Because even after suffering without you for six years, after being acquainted with so many other women, you are still without peer in my heart. Because I am more intimately acquainted with your flaws than anyone else. When you shut me out of your life for three years, you didn’t need to tell me you didn’t know how to deal with what you were feeling. I had to carry that pain in my breast for three years. Through every night when I couldn’t sleep because all I could manage to do was cry, I still loved you.

Through every hard moment when I needed someone to be there for me and there was no one, I still loved you.

Through every beautiful place I’ve seen since then that was tainted by not being able to share it with you, I still loved you.

Through every time I wanted to reach out to someone and tell them I love them, I still loved you.

Through every time I woke up alone with that quick, loathsome sting of the heart upon realizing you weren’t there, I still loved you.

Every day, for the past six years, from the moment I was first aware of your existence, till now, I still loved you.

And yet, you have the audacity, the sheer gall to say that we can’t be together because I’m not mature enough for you? Wasn’t my intelligence and maturity for my age [the things that] attract[ed] you to me in the first place? Didn’t one of your ex-boyfriends used to send you pictures of his turds to marvel over with him? I’ve been waiting six years for you, and you couldn’t even give me one fucking night when I flew 3,000 miles to be with you? I didn’t want to have sex with you, and yet, that’s all you could see in me when I was with you. And so what if I did want to have sex with you? For the last six years, I have waited for you, not so much as looking upon another woman. I view my virginity as a beautiful gift to give to you, something I can give that you can never return, and that I can only give to one person on this earth, and I wanted to give it to you. I wanted you to teach me how to be a real man, in more ways than just the crude and obvious.

And now I’m stuck. How can I even have sex with anyone else when I love you so much? Why would I want to share that gift with someone who I don’t feel this way towards? I’ve never even kissed a girl, and you couldn’t even give me that. How can I even date another girl when I know I’ll never be able to care for her even remotely as much as I care for you?

How dare you portray yourself as some sort of arbiter of empathy, some sort of force for justice in this world, when someone who cares for you so deeply was so hastily and carelessly cast aside because you couldn’t put up with my being a little nervous around you for an hour. Not to mention an hour that was borne from months and months of romantic build up, of promises of romance and adventure galore.

Do you know what a poison it is to promise to a man that he’ll be able to hold you, to kiss you, to whisper sweet nothings, to take you on grand adventures, to do these things for the very first time, and then renege at the peak of his excitement to be with you? Let alone twice!

And yet, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t the man you needed to me. I’m sorry I let you down. And I’m ashamed at myself, because even with all my hate for you, I know I’d still do absolutely anything for you. I know my love for you is as strong as it ever was. And it’s the absolute most elaborate, intricate, excruciating torture to know that a woman of your sheer perfection and class exists, and is capable of loving me (as she has twice prior), and refuses to give me one more chance when I have been so steadfastly dedicated to her.

And in the most bizarre of ways, I thank you. The first time you hurt me, anyways, as bad as it was, was a learning experience. I learned more through that than I could’ve through any amount of schooling or time or work anywhere else. You taught me maturity. You taught me patience. You taught me how to deal with heartache. You taught me wisdom. But most importantly, you taught me how to forgive. I only wish you would learn how to, too.

- S


*Name changed for privacy purposes.