The Lion, the Witch, and the Audacity of this Bitch

Welcome back y’all! I know many of you are surprised I am back with another post. Some of you might have thought I was done with this blog. No, not done. I was just taking an extended break. Lots of stuff going on in my life that I did not have the time to sit down and write out what has been going on. But hopefully things will be a little calmer now, and I will have time to write again. I felt bad about leaving the last story on a bit of a cliff hanger, so I knew I had to tie up the loose ends.

If you thought that breakup was the end of this Milo story, boy do I have a surprise for you. But before that, for those who are new to this blog, I recommend you take some time to read the previous three posts before reading this one. But honestly, you can read these stories in whatever order you want. Start at the end and go back to the beginning if that's what you prefer. I also categorize these stories, so if you are looking for all the stories of a particular series at once, I recommend you check the Archive.

Like you, I was under the impression Milo’s story was over. He wanted to physically date people in order to see if there was a mutual attraction or connection. If that is something he wants, then that is fine, he is allowed to ask for that. But I was not comfortable meeting people like that. Not for anything else, this was during August of 2020. COVID cases and deaths were going down, but this is before Delta hit and a full year before we knew anything about Omicron. We thought we were doing well, but I was not willing to expose my family (especially my high-risk parents) to this still relatively unknown disease for the sake of one boy. The cost was not worth the benefit. I made that very clear to him and he understood it, even though he did not agree with it.

Soon after Milo, I started speaking to Eddie. Things did not go well with Eddie, and I moved on to other people. But then, on a cold October afternoon, as I was getting ready for a video date with another pandemic potential, who do I get a message from? None other than Mr. Milo himself. This was not the first time since the breakup that we texted. There were some cordial, “hey how’s it going?” and “Happy Onam” messages before this. Was the universe trying to tell me something? Who knows, but this time, our conversation lasted longer.

We caught up with all that has happened in the previous two months. I started a new job, I was taking classes, and he moved to a new place. After all the small talk was out of the way, I had to bring up the elephant in the room. If he was talking to me, does that mean he was not able to meet and date anyone else? He said he tried, but nothing was lasting. I get it, that was the premise of this whole blog. I figured I would entertain this again. We had such a strong connection before, it would be foolhardy to not try to work out the issues from before.

Halloween turned into Thanksgiving, which turned into Christmas. We were consistently talking for two months. I thought things were going well. When I spoke to him a couple of days after New Year’s, he offhandedly mentioned that if we were actually dating, it would have been six months by then. I assumed these to be positive signs. But soon after this call, his messages became less frequent. At first, I brushed it off as nothing to worry about. He traveled down to Florida to visit his parents and family for New Year’s. Since his work was mainly remote work at that time, he was planning on staying there for a couple of weeks. He told me he was busy hanging out with his cousins.

I could understand that. Afterall, when I am hanging out with my family, I get absorbed into our own world. But regardless of how busy I get, I make time to catch up with the person I am talking to. I started to wonder what it all meant when he could not even give me a little bit of time. After a while he stopped messaging me and I stopped checking up with him. I knew he would eventually reach out again and I found the perfect meme to send him when that happens. The text said, “If Aman could leave the hospital and run halfway through New York to meet Naina on the Brooklyn Bridge the least you can do is text me back.” This was a reference to the Hindi movie Kal Ho Naa Ho, where the lead male character left the hospital to meet the lead female character all for the sake of love. Months ago, during our first round, we watched the movie one night, so the reference would not have been lost on him. I even saved it so I would not have to search for it later.

His radio silence bothered me enough to reactivate my old profiles. I was going back online! At first there were a lot of new options. The beginning is always the most exciting. It did not take long, but I eventually matched with Grant. Y’all remember how that went? But we are not here to relive Grant’s stories: for anyone that does not know about Grant, you can read all about him starting here.

As I was contemplating the meaning of life, guess who decides to text me on a Tuesday morning in March? The funny thing is that I was almost expecting it. He pulled the same nonsense last time; dipped for a couple of months and then randomly messaged me in October. I was in a work meeting so I could not respond right away. But, I also did not want to respond right away either. The boy disappeared for two months, he could wait a few hours.

I was feeling all sorts of things: anger, frustration, neglect, loneliness, despair. But in particular I was feeling petty that morning. I stitched together a screenshot of his message onto The Chronicles of Narnia meme template, “the lion, the witch, and the audacity of this bitch” and sent it to Ezra. I needed to share my outrage with other people. Ezra, being one of my support pillars, knew the whole story about Milo.

I know my brother probably felt some type of way when I told him Milo and I were talking again. But the only reason I gave him that second chance was because of how much I liked him. I guess it was the universe’s way of saying, “don’t be a fool!” After that whole fiasco with Grant, I promised I would trust my intuition more. If something feels off, do not justify it. Follow the logical conclusion it takes me to. I told myself to stop making excuses for other people’s shitty behavior. Stop accepting less than the bare minimum from people.

In the end, I decided to respond with some generic version of, “I’m well, how are you?” I sent this message at 4:30pm. Checking the message details, I found out his fool read my message by 5:30pm. I am glued to my phone because I do not know when he will respond, but at least I know he saw the message. He will respond when he can, right?

Wrong!

I waited over 24 hours from his original message before I passive aggressively asked, “did you reach out to me just to leave me on read again?” That got his attention. Within eleven minutes, I got a response from him: “Heyyy”. That was three Ys. He was trying to be cute and friendly probably because he knew he fucked up. No bitch, that ship sailed months ago. He continues with, “sorry, I know I’m terrible. Just wanted to check in and see if you are okay? And how’s the new job treating you? I know I sort of just disappeared and I know you hate that, but I really just cut myself off from everyone to try to center myself and get over some dark thoughts.”

Wow! A lot to unpack here; where do I even begin? He knew I did not like it when he disappeared. And yet, he still did it. Not a single message in over two months! The only reason I knew he was still in Florida was because he would sometimes update his snapstory.

He mentioned that he needed to get over some dark thoughts and he cut off from everyone, not just me. I found this hard to believe. I am not saying he was not struggling with his mental health. Milo could have been, I do not know (he never told me). But what I find difficult to believe is that he cut off from everyone.

“Anyways, I’m back home now, got back last week. So I figured I’d reach out and say hi.” In other words, you came back and now you are bored. Milo probably came back anywhere between four and ten days prior to messaging me, and now is when he reached out? And “hi” probably was not the only reason he reached out to me. Did he wonder how badly he fucked up? Was he hoping I waited around for him? Does he know who he is playing these games with?

But it was by his last message that I knew he was testing the water. “I understand if you no longer want to talk. Hope all is well. Hope your brother is doing better too. Take it easy.” Does he, though? Does he understand that actions have consequences? He did something he knew I would react negatively to. This was not an apology. He did not correct his behavior, nor did he fix his mistake. He just stated the obvious and hoped I would give him another chance.

Well, now it was my turn to respond *cracks my knuckles*. I first started with, “I’m not okay, I’m in a stressful and difficult place right now. It feels like I am balancing on a pin point. One wrong move means everything comes crashing down. And because the universe likes to laugh at me, you messaged me just as mysteriously as you disappeared.” A short recap for you guys, at that time, I was still reeling from that whole Grant fiasco. I was angry and hurt; I wanted to punch things. On top of trying to control my emotions, I had to study for a certification I decided I was going to pursue as my pandemic project. I was one month away and I did not have the energy to deal with his bipolar ass.

I continued, “I’m sorry to hear that you were having dark thoughts during your time in Florida, but that doesn’t excuse the way you handled it. At the very least, you could have messaged me and said, ‘I’m not in a good place right now and I need to disconnect for some time.” I can understand that, I go offline sometimes when things get stressful. But I tell the people I care about that I am doing this so they won’t worry.” I wanted him to know that it was not his mental health that bothered me, but the way he handled the situation. I am not asking for a lot, but the bare minimum would be nice. If nothing else, then just to be respectful, y’know? “It’s good to know you’re back. I genuinely hope you are in a better place now.” I do, I really hope he has gotten himself to a stable mindset and that he is happier.

It did cross my mind that maybe he was seeing someone else while he was in Florida. Maybe things didn’t go well and that is why he is back. Or maybe things are still going on and he is collecting babes like baseball cards. I ran through a myriad of scenarios, but I accepted that he did not want me to be a part of what was going on in Florida. What else can I say except, his loss?

Now we come to the finale, “but this should be the end of our interactions because your actions spoke volumes when your words did not.” It was the perfect ending. Was I being passive aggressive? Yea. Was I being petty? Hell yea! Maybe if I was in a better mood I would have given him another chance, but I was in a “burn the world down” mentality.

So what happened after that? What’s the conclusion? Basically nothing. He read the messages and did not respond. Did I want him to respond? Acknowledgement would have been nice. Did I expect it from him? No, especially not after his disappearance act. I hope he learns something from this. I hope that in his next relationship, he is better at communicating with the person. Just because he did not work out for me, does not mean I wish ill upon him. I am not that kind of petty. 

It was not the perfect ending. Nor was it tied up nicely. But at least I can say this chapter is closed. That is fine, there are more chapters, and it all starts with a new page. So, until next time.

- Aemi