Heartbreaker

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-lq2NI9ux4

This was one of my favorites in Guitar Hero.

But now I use the term in reference to a person who actually break hearts, like a friend of mine. Like a close friend of mine. Or like myself.

Jerol and I chatted often with each other. We started our conversations with little <3 a="a" achieving="achieving" active="active" alive="alive" almost-sure="almost-sure" but="but" clause.="clause." course="course" different="different" distant="distant" div="div" each="each" for="for" free="free" full="full" i="i" if="if" in="in" intimacy="intimacy" it="it" kept="kept" latent="latent" living="living" love="love" making="making" my="my" of="of" one="one" only="only" open="open" other.="other." our="our" possibility="possibility" professing="professing" relationship="relationship" remaining="remaining" represents="represents" s="s" sexual="sexual" she="she" since="since" states="states" that="that" the="the" use="use" was="was" way="way" with="with" woman.="woman." world="world">

Last year, under our oath of mutual trust, she told me about when she went out with Robert, and had sex many times, and how it was great, and he was great, and he thought she was great, and everything was great. I listened, I smiled, nodded, and congratulated her, while my insides began to produce sparks of jealousy, envy, and hurt. They resonated inside of me as she kept telling me, but I didn't bring myself to telling her that it hurt me. I wanted to still be her friend, her confidante, the guy she always trusts. I kept it to myself, and the jealousy grew into resentment, the envy into hatred, the hurt into solid pain and depression. But even as the days passed and the feelings grew, I managed to keep them inside and listen to her as she confided in me her secrets and feelings, as mine kept growing and strangling me inside. I stopped talking suddenly in a fit of frustration, and then I cut off communication from the world and got myself into the accident that left me crippled.

And just 3 days ago, she was telling me about how this new relationship with a guy called Mark was going. That it was the best, that it was incredible, and that he said she was gorgeous, but at the same time that Robert wanted to see her again, and she thought that she could see them and fuck them both for the time being, because Mark was going out of town... blah blah blah.

And I felt the familiar sparks of jealousy, envy, and hurt arise, and I decided to stop it as soon as possible. I still waited for a reasonable pause in her narrative, and then told her "hey, I can't take it any more, please don't talk to me about Robert and Mark again".

She went silent, and only said something like "oh", then "ok". After that critical point, the conversation was fully ridden with long pauses and awkward lines, but it was practically over. I tried to save some kind of conversation between us by being funny and apologizing, but she was done. She said "I have to go", and that was pretty much it. She was breaking my heart by telling me her fuck stories, but I think I did hers, even a little bit, too. Heartbreakers. I wonder if she'll still want us to fuck again? I hope so. Her body is pretty flexible.

And now Laura. I won't even go into much detail with Laura. I just finished writing and sending her a very long email that WILL at least break her mindset, our relationship, and all remnants of the friendship that was there. If not her heart.

Summary: We met, I fell in love, I asked her out, she said no, I hurt. I left Pittsburgh to find new experiences in Life, I got into the bike accident. A couple of months later she visits me in Chicago, tells me she has "reconsidered", and would like to try out a relationship with me. I go like "ok... I guess". We don't even exchange a kiss, she leaves Chicago, and we communicate platonically through motivational, uplifting, and touchy-feely emails, based on the hope that we might have a relationship in the future. Our love grows. My motivation for life increases, I look forward to a new and bright relationship with a great girl who shares many of my ideals, if not many others. And tonight she tells me that, before she came to Chicago, she dated a friend of mine before. Ashik, one I introduced her to.

My initial reaction was that of tentative acceptance, trying to fit that new information in with the rest of me. To no avail. I really tried to tolerate, to incur the least damage, but sparks of jealousy, envy, and hurt, similar to the ones Jerol caused, appeared inside me again. I thought about it, and thought it over again, and was trying to find nice and accepting things to say to her, but none came. I could not justify it, I could not absorb it, I could not take it. Over chat, my response had no smileys any more, and I was already brewing actual angry responses at her. She left to sleep and wished me good night, and I told her the same, but I lied. I did not go to sleep. I wrote the email containing the questions that she told me to send her.

It is one of the most hurtful emails I have written. Copy-paste right here:

questions

"so I don't think jealousy is a factor"

not on his side

many thoughts, many thoughts in my head.

writing them as they come,

so by the time we went to that dance event, you were already with him. So you had a reason to turn me down, am I right? He got there first... he was the one you chose first... or did you already have your eye on Ashik and so you didn't see me as the first choice?

I'm going to be very brashly honest here, so if you don't want to know about it, stop reading. Now. For real.

You know what this makes me feel like? Second-best. Second fucking best. Antonio, meh, he's cool, but let's keep searching. Laura, meet Julian, Jose, and Ashik. Ooh, Ashik, now that's better. Let's get together, Ashik! OK, Laura! Yaaay. Now Antonio comes by, he asks me out, and I go nah I'm not interested, (while thinking "I've got your friend to take care of me for now"). So I say "OK", like the fucking little wimp that I am, I feel rejected, and move on, with only rejection on my side to make me feel bad. But hey, I'm used to that, you know - rejection, it hurts deeply every time, but at least you learn to predict how is it going to hurt, when are you going to feel like crap, and you resign to its humbling, painful pattern. That's ok. I wrote "Pissed" on a particularly painful day, but it was OK, it was part of the hurting process I already knew. I was pissed at you, I was pissed at Ashik, but I was pissed at many other things too, so it all evened out. And hey, that's life, right?

As there was really nothing keeping me attached to Pittsburgh after you rejected me, I decided to quit the program I had already been losing faith in, and go do my own thing, fulfill my own adventures, my own wishes, start over somewhere only with myself. High risk and bad luck combined broke my body, though, and I ended up in the hospital. Damn. It sucked. I couldn't walk, I could barely move, and it'd be a year before I even realized how broken would I be for the rest of my life. Maybe only mental damage and paraplegic state would've been worse. But hey, that's life, right?

So a couple of months pass, and you visit me in Chicago with my parents. I'm very happy to see you, surprised that you'd decide to spend Christmas Eve with my family instead of yours, but yeah, you don't really celebrate Christmas, so no big deal. We start looking at some zodiac signs playfully, you hint that you're thinking about us when you say we should look up OUR zodiac sign compatibility, and then, on your second night here, you tell me you had been rethinking what I had told you, that you actually were interested in me but you had just not told me about it when I asked you... so I think, "if she had just said yes to me when I asked her, instead of waiting until I had a life-crippling accident, I might just still have my full health and my bicycle". But she didn't. She rejected me for some reason, and now my life has taken a giant downturn I might never recover from. And now I've got a potential future girlfriend that doesn't quite like me in the "usual" sense, but at least likes me enough to want to have a relationship with me. So a bit of good there, if mixed in with all the buts. But hey, that's life, right?

And just tonight you come and tell me that you were having a relationship with Ashik before. Secretly, instead of the potential one that you KNEW you and me could have had, you went with him as your first choice and considered me as the "maybe-for-later guy". So now I'm being told that, not only did your flaky guy-choosing skills allow me to leave Pittsburgh and ride into the worst accident I've ever been involved in, but that the love you have been professing for me, the one that you've used to try to motivate me into a better attitude and spirit, is second-best? That this love isn't a feeling you've been keeping latent since we met, but something you had to reconsider, that I was plan C, the one you thought would be a good option after several failed attempts with other guys, one of which I even INTRODUCED you to???

You know, I consider myself a tolerant person. But not limitlessly so, and especially in matters of the heart. My heart rose so high when it met you, it hid and cried when you said no, it shyly and slowly came out of its hiding place while you were in Chicago, it's been slowly rising to try and take a positive uptake on life, trying to use you as a motivator, and the fact that you actually loved me strongly, sharing the best I found in me to give to you. And now that you tell me about Ashik, I think it broke. Everything that we had built to support it crumbled to dust, vanished, and my heart just sunk and dropped so hard, hit rock bottom, and broke. Hard.

Yes, now my feelings are speaking, and not necessarily my neutral self, but what I feel is very true. I have the urge to call you a slut for going around looking for the best guy in your eyes, being so quick to grab him, and then when it somehow doesn't work out, go back and look for the less-fit middleman you left behind. But that would be rude, so I won't call you that. I don't know who took the initiative, and I don't think I want to care.

I have to clarify, I bear no ill will towards Ashik. My feelings might suggest otherwise when/if I actually see him, but he has very little fault in this matter. He has not been the one messing around with my heart, even if he was an involuntary accomplice. He's still a great guy, and I guess you're still a great girl, but that doesn't mean that you haven't hurt me like I'm attempting to show to you here.

I'm assuming you and Ashik were already together at the time of the dance events. Even if he wasn't, even if that didn't help string the events that led to my accident, I'm still plan C. Either the best left-behind or the pity project. You've been using second-best - not even - third-best love to uplift my life and tell me that everything's going to be all right.

You know, it freaking hurts, but it's making my decisions so much easier as I write this. Pittsburgh WAS a great place to return to, when the Laura that I knew before still lived there, the Laura who loved me genuinely and who wanted a relationship with me because of who I was, and not because I was the best option left behind. Now I'm realizing that returning to Pittsburgh, as fun as it would be to jump off its bridges sometime, has now even less people I care about genuinely. Plus two very sad and heart-breaking memories. (Yes, there's another one before you, but I told you about her).

You know, I COULD keep myself quiet, tell you that I understand what happened, that it doesn't affect me, and act as if nothing so important had happened, as if we still had a chance to keep growing a relationship between us. But I'm tired of doing so. I'm tired of being subservient and of forgiving falsely. I've done it - I've sacrificed honesty and expression in the past for the sake of respect and tolerance, and of discovering the "mystery that is" behind a boy-girl relationship, the "miracle of love" that people talk about so much. But doing that hasn't worked for me so far anyway, and given the incompatibilities both of us already knew we had... it just isn't worth it. It's not worth the potential incompatible relationship, it's not worth your caring and friendship in the way that I see you now. I have opened myself up to you completely, and you probably also have, so that link is already open, and it is not yet to be closed. That is why I decided to write you this letter of expression, of telling you what I really feel and think. Destroying what we have and might have had in the future. We trust each other enough to tell each other everything, right? I still trust you with honesty. But not with relationships. Not even friendship.

No, you did not cause my accident, that was my reckless doing and the car driver's. No, you did nothing wrong by dating Ashik, that's natural selection at work. No, you did nothing wrong by coming back and wanting to form a relationship with me after your other relationships had not worked out and I was in a wheelchair, that's just changing your mind, even if it is for plan C. But making me think that your love for me was as strong and pure as mine was for you, and allowing me, helping me lift my hopes up on it, and afterwards telling me something akin to your love being fake... that truly hurts. I do not accept, respect or tolerate that. And you might say that your love for me was indeed pure and strong, but I do not see it that way. I do not feel it that way. I don't see how it could be seen that way.

I had so many things to tell you about the potential relationship between us, that we had in our minds, but I guess they are worth very little to you now. Or to me. I have never been so honestly expressive to a girl's comment in the past, so this is a first for me. Sending this letter will take boldness and discourtesy, but it's what I feel like doing. I guess I should thank you for this new experience.

I also want to thank you for your times of friendship and support while you were in Chicago. It did help me recover and it did make me happier for a while. And the book you suggested, good book. Try out the pendulum experiment, it's cool. But those moments do not balance out with this massive disappointment. It does not work out that way.

I do have some questions for you, if you still think it's worth answering them:

1. Was your relationship (either actual or brewing) with Ashik what made you say you didn't like me when I told you I liked you?
2. Did you come to Chicago to visit me and "reconsider your decision" mainly because you felt pity on me?
3. During which time period were you and Ashik involved in your relationship?
4. Did you and Ashik have sex? How many times?
5. So what IS it exactly about me that you disliked, and for which you didn't want to date me initially? If it wasn't self-confidence, what was it?
6. Do I possess only the "logical/clear-headed" attractor for you, or do I possess some of the other attractors you mentioned as well? (physical/chemical/romantical/emotional)?

I believe you at least owe me your honesty after I have given you mine.

Tell me what you think.

Sincerely,

Antonio

ps1: I told you had a darker side.

ps2: I guess the grammar and math classes are off.

ps3: Did you ever imagine I might react this way?

ps4: Feel free to tell you want about this. I'll do the same.

ps5: Good thing southwest flights are changeable.

ps6: I resign as your valentine. You still have time to find another.

ps7: I'm sure Julian can help you set up your WiFi access point.

ps8: Have I gone ahead and destroyed something precious between us?

ps9: And despite its extreme over-usage, coarseness, and lack of literal meaning, the spirit of reckless truthfulness that pervades in me right now compels me to tell you:

FUCK YOU

She broke my heart. I hope my message at least chips hers, makes her cry, makes her feel terribly guilty, makes her afraid of relationships for a long part of her life. Heartbreakers. My two best potential relationships, gone in a few days.

Man, if she could've at least told me 24 hours earlier, I wouldn't have bought my tickets to Pittsburgh already! Now where am I supposed to fly to?

I think the answer is fairly obvious :). Helloooo, Austin!