Dear Ginger

My sister once asked me how I was so sure he liked me, that guy that I was seeing at the time. I told her that I just knew because liking him didn’t hurt. Liking you hurts. My chest hurts often. That’s what it was initially like with my ex too. An emotional rollercoaster, I used to call it. Once I was his girlfriend, I’d look back at it all and laugh at myself, “Oh, I was so silly, and I had gotten it so wrong.”  

Well, looking back now, I don’t think I did have it wrong. Sure he was to fall in love with me, but it was going to be a messy four years filled with heartbreak and hurt. He loved me, he’d say, but I never really believed him. You like me, you say, and I can’t bring myself to believe you either. Maybe there’s something fundamentally wrong about these partnerships. Maybe you are both telling the truth, and I just need affection and understanding beyond what either of you could offer. I’m sorry I’m putting you in the same box as an ex, because I would hate if you did that to me, but part of me thinks you put yourself there. Thinking about it now, it’s not that I don’t believe that he loved me or that you like me. What I could never believe was that he loved me as much as I loved him and that you like me as much as I like you. 

I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m not rooting for us. I want to get out, and I’ve wanted to get out since the very beginning. I fell for you and feared what would happen with you all at once, and never separately. I’ve brought it up on so many occasions. The earliest time I can remember was when you came to visit me in January. I told you I wanted to fall in love, and wondered if that was really what you were looking for – having recently gotten out of a relationship. You said it was. I’ve brought us up so many times, because I just want to get the hell out of this sooner rather than later – but you never let me. Why then am I alone in feeling so heavily invested? You’re ability to push me back to arm’s length when I get too close is frightening if not cowardly. 

What bothers me most about falling in love with you is the parallel with being in love with my ex. The difference being that I wasn’t strong enough to walk away from him at the time. I knew I should, but I couldn’t. This time, I am strong enough to walk away, and I’m just waiting for you to give me a reason to do it. Every time I doubt you, you talk it all better, but I need you to not do that. 

I need you to look beyond your feelings, because truthfully, there is no room for me in your life. Not because you’re busy beyond reason or distant beyond repair, but because you won’t make room for me.