The Inevitable
Hey y’all, happy Tuesday! And what a Tuesday it is today. I do not know when you are reading this but when I am posting, it is Tuesday, 2/22/22 (or if you are in the majority of the world outside of the US, 22/2/22). Last week was a bit hectic, I will probably write about it in a future post, so I did not have time to write. Also, this next part is kind of depressing, so I did not want to ruin anyone’s Valentine’s Day with a sad story (least of all mine). But now seems like the best time to continue my tale of Milo.
I left off last time talking about how Milo lost a close friend and I was worried things would turn sour. Well, I was right about that. Thinking back, it would be unfair to put all the blame on the friend’s death. There were other issues I recognized, but I had hoped they were minor things. If we had given some time and effort, I thought we could have compromised and worked through them. But I think the death sped everything up and made the breakup inevitable.
Well, he said the main issue was that we could not hangout in person. Obviously not! There was still a pandemic raging throughout this country. I was still in lockdown in my own house. Milo lived about two hours away, how would I have been able to see him? It simply was not feasible at that time.
Unless, of course, I told my parents about him. They had been on my case for months about this whole “find a guy/get married” business. If I told them I had a potential guy, I am 83% sure they would have let me go on a date with him. But I was not ready to reveal him to them yet. I needed to verify some more things before he could be presented.
I told Milo that when he first brought up the issue. He started out by saying it was hard for him to gauge anything between us until we started dating in person. He did not want to put any pressure on me or risk getting sick or putting my parents at risk, but he just could not wait for however long to finally meet me in person. In the following weeks, he wanted to get out there and start meeting and dating people. But we could still talk and he would like to go out on a date with me when things were better.
Um….what now? I was fine with him wanting to date other people. Listen, I am not going to force you to stay if you do not see the value in our “relationship”. But do not expect me to be your backup. At first he was like, “I don’t mean for you to be a backup” (paraphrasing here). But when I asked him to clarify what he meant, it was radio silence.
That was one of my biggest issues throughout the three months we had been talking. He would not respond to some of my messages. I brought it up twice. The first time, he made a comment about how it was not intentional and I let it slide. The second time I brought it up, it was soon after his friend died. I did feel guilty about it. But I told him it was not just the last couple of weeks, those were understandable, but since the beginnning. He said that sometimes there was nothing more to say. But the thing is, those messages he did not respond to were leading statements, conversation pieces. There were things he could have added.
Something in me felt uneasy. In hindsight, I think I saw the warning signs that whatever this relationship was, it was ending. But at the time, I just felt ignored. That was the main driving force behind reactivating my Hinge account and downloading Coffee Meets Bagel again.
This blog is not to constantly write “woe is me” stories. It is about my life, my experiences, and also my faults. Don’t think I did not notice the irony/karma in how things turned out. I have always felt that emotionally cheating on someone is worse than physically cheating on them. In my opinion, to get to the point of physically cheating, the person is no longer emotionally invested. I was not emotionally invested in whatever this thing was. So, I went looking for attention elsewhere. I think the reason this breakup only made me slightly upset was because I was anticipating it.
That did not make it any less painful. The breakup happened during our late-night conversations, we had just finished the last episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. This was my first time watching this version, I watched the old FMA over a decade ago, back when Cartoon Network aired anime late at night. I barely slept for 3 hours. My anxiety was so high, it induced diarrhea. I was just one look away from breaking down and crying. But worst of all, I could not enjoy the fact that Ezra got a job.
Yup, that is right! Summer 2020, the kid got his first real, out of college job. He was already doing better than I was after my bachelor’s. I worked part-time at two different jobs for four years before I got my first full-time position. I was so happy for him, but I could not enjoy the happiness. I was in the middle of a breakup; I was feeling a rollercoaster of emotions. I explained to Ezra what was going on and he totally understood. I do not know what I would do without the kid. He is one of the few people who grounds me. We may get on each other’s nerves, but it never lasts. I know he will have my back. I strive to be that kind of support for him as well.
My heart-to-heart with Ezra got me thinking, how many relationships was I going to let go of without a fight? My philosophy has been: “you should stay because that is what you want to do, not because I asked you to.” So, my initial reaction was to let Milo go. He was the one who wanted out. But there was something in his message that kept coming back to me. He said, “it isn’t whether it will work or not, it’s whether we are going to try or not.”
What did he mean by that? What did “trying” look like to him? If it was something reasonable, I would not mind doing it.
I know I can be difficult at times, but it is not like I am not immobile. I changed some behaviors for him. He asked for more phone calls, I let him know when I was available (it was mainly after midnight, once everyone had gone to sleep). But it felt like he was not willing to be flexible for me. He would not send me selfies even though he wanted them from me. I did not mind sending him photos, but he could have at least reciprocated more. Whenever we would watch movies or shows, he refused to turn on his camera. I wanted to see his face. It felt like pulling teeth in order to see his face. Neither of us are perfect, and clearly, we fell short of what the other expected, but was it enough to end it? Or was it worth fighting for?
I reached out to Milo, but he only responded the next morning saying he was still trying to process everything. It was a cryptic message, but sure, take your time to figure things out. The longer it took, the surer I was of the inevitable. I did not respond to that message, at least not for a few days.
After not hearing from him for the rest of the week, I sent a simple “hi” on Friday just to test the waters. His next message came on Saturday, letting me know that his friend’s memorial was that day. I guess the family was holding a memorial service a month after his friend passed away. I asked him about it and he said the memorial was beautiful, but it was Sunday by the time we were having this conversation. Hours later, he asked me if I wanted to watch a movie that night.
I was enraged! How dare he act as if everything was fine, like I hadn’t been wreaking myself over what was going on! But I was not about to let my frustration get the better of me. I composed myself and responded, “I’d rather we talk about what happened last week.” Of course, I did not get a response from him. I sent him another message at midnight saying I would be up for another hour, if he wanted to talk. Still no response.
He messaged me the next day in the early afternoon, asking if I wanted to talk then. This conversation was not something I could just respond to while I was doing other things. No, I was going to need time and space. I told him I would not be available until 3:30. No response from him.
Around 3:50pm, he asked me to respond when I was free. I told him I was free now. He started off by asking me what was on my mind. Umm…sir, you were the one who was processing everything. What was on your mind?
His response was, “I would like to see you and date you in person but I still want to be able to meet and date other people until that happens.”
Y’all, correct me if I am wrong, but this seemed an awful lot like a backup. I am not okay with that; I made that very clear. The only way we would go out on a future date was if, at that time, he was not seeing anyone else. At least he agreed to that. He also admitted we probably should not talk anymore, unless we want to be just friends.
That was fine, just not right now. I had to disentangle all of my feelings for him. Going from something more to just friends was nothing new for me. I just needed some time. It was poetically raining that afternoon. Milo’s story does not end here. But you will have to come back to find out what else happened. So, until next time.
- Aemi
