Emotional Asymmetry

So this is what I feel:

I feel happy to see her confused, I enjoy her failed attempts at making me happy. She comes back, happy, excited, telling me everything about the Forum. I smile politely and lie: "I'm glad you had a great time".

I feel aloof, I act distant. Polite, happy, sometimes excited, but certainly detached. That's my role. Detachment. Friendship, but distant. No longer the close, warm moments we had as partners in a blooming friendship. She wants that, of course. We're best friends, buddies, partners, right? We tell each other everything! She smiles, laughs, makes up half-witty jokes with genuine excitement and gladness to be around me again. I laugh at her joke again, half-heartedly. Polite. Distant. I will not give her the excitement she expects me to reciprocate - I keep it from her like withholding a bone from a dog, I keep it just beyond her reach. No matter how high she jumps, I do not give her the pleasure. I can see the question mark in her eyes, the concern. I relish in her distress. I know it will grow.

I feel vengeful. I want revenge. I don't usually hate, I don't usually want other people to hurt. But now I do. I really do. I feel it. There is no thought to it - I just FEEL it. And today, trying to understand it, I did. I found out why do I hate her so much. Why do I want to keep myself from her, just at arm's reach, just enough for conversation and sparring of ideas, but never showing her my genuine feelings again. Why do I want to make her suffer. I understand now. She did the same to me.

Last semester, I gave you myself, Leila. I saw you and I thought of you: "Wow, she is amazing. Incredibly similar to myself, and yet I could learn so much from her." I liked your beliefs, your tastes, your passion for Life and your excitement for the small things that so many people miss. I could talk to you about anything and you would understand me, listen to me, and care for me. And when you meekly started telling me about your past and your fears, I was supportive. I put my entire being into making you feel comfortable, into telling you it was all right. I would've done anything for you, anything. Absolutely anything that would've helped you in the tiniest amount, I was willing to give you. My time, my hugs, my mind, my decisions. I had no priority, only you did. I was yours.

Baring ourselves gradually to one another, all the feelings I had for you emerged. I liked you in all your ways, in all of your roles. I appreciated you as a person, as a friend, as a classmate. I trusted you as my confidante and as an adept thinker. I loved your excitement, your passion, your vices, your pleasures, your joy - your body, your mind, your heart, your soul. So I offered you what I was willing to give to you, the most important person in my life: Everything. Myself, my thoughts, my feelings, they were yours to take. Whether it was avoidable or not, I do not know. But at the time, there was just no choice to take. You were inevitable.

So I told you I liked you, as more than a friend. And it was that first time when I gave you something, and you did not reciprocate. "I have a boyfriend".

Honestly, I expected that. Rejection, it was not uncommon to me. I even knew what to say and do. My mind followed the plan I had laid out for that outcome, and tried to forget about it. But the heart does not obey the mind. I could not forget it, and without my consent, I cried inside. I had not expected it, but the rejection injured me inside.

After my first big emotional drop, my heart told me to try again. In other ways, but again. I was still your best friend, and I still gave you all of my time, all of my energy - my entire set of genuine feelings was yours to take. And you gave me back some of your own. I liked your company, you liked mine. I trusted you, you trusted me. We shared our feelings and secrets, deeper and more hidden each time, and I looked, almost feverishly, for something in you that might hint towards your love for me. But I could not find it. Intense care, deep appreciation, strong friendship, great trust, yes. But not what I was so anxious to give you: my love, my heart, my entire being.

As I slowly, only instinctively, realized there was nothing else in you for me, I felt the tidal wave of depression coming, about to crush me to nothingness, and I tried to stop it. I pretended to feel for you only what you felt for me - a solid bond of friendship and nothing else. Oh yes, it was a ruse, now I see it. It was a ruse for you, and it was a ruse for me. "I love you. I feel very strong emotional attachment to you, but I think I have totally accepted that nothing is going to happen between us, and I think that... what I feel now for you is only fraternal love". It was a great debut. Not as much for you as it was for me - as long as I convinced myself of it, I was immune to my self-pity. How could I feel rejection as long as you returned all of my feelings? I felt no true love for you then, no, only friendship. The mask of "only friendship" protected me well - it kept me from understanding that the last shred of hope I had of you returning my feelings was gone. And only until now can I see that. My unconscious shielded me from being crushed.

And now that I understand it, in my mind, my feelings changed. Not sadness, not self-pity, not love. Hate. It has been replaced by hate. No longer do I want to give her everything - I want to take it all away from her. I want to rob her. I think of the months I spent giving the best of my energy to her - waiting, wanting, asking, obeying, expecting, suffering. Suffering for a single person because she would not return my utmost feeling of love, but instead expected me to be content with her "fraternal" feelings. Suffering. I suffered. And now I want you to suffer too.

So I still act as your friend. "Do you want to go somewhere? We can go to a restaurant, Southside, wherever you want! (attempting to please me and put me in a good mood, having manipulated me in that manner so many times...)" "Meh, I don't know... you're the one who just landed. Are you hungry?" "I could eat" "Let's just drive around until we decide" "Ok". I still show her what I find interesting: "Oh, look at that tree, it's so symmetrical!" I pay for the bill, I act like a better friend. It's so much easier now that I am not truly your friend anymore. So much easier. So much easier to lie when the lie is so far apart from the Truth.

And I want to do with you what you did with me. I know you "feel" for me, I am your best friend. You've entrusted me with your secrets and your friendship. You will continue to give me your friendship, and I will reciprocate with mine fake own. But not like before. You'll see hints of true friendship, acts of trust, a friend like before. Yesterday was a hint into a day in which I was down, today I will act like a real friend. Tomorrow I may too, but focused on work. And every day you will see the same pattern you saw me act in last semester. But it will change.

You will gradually begin to notice something missing - your "friend" will no longer be there for you all the time. I will not want to go "smoking" sometimes, I'll be too absorbed in my work... or even with nonsense. Nonsense will be more important than you. I'll find better things to do, better people to hang out with. And then you'll begin missing my friendship. You will give me more than I give you, and later, months from now, you'll realize I have not been your friend for a long time, and what you gave me for all that time was for naught, was in vain. And you too will cry inside.

Fuck you.