Have you ever stayed with someone just to make sure that they miss you when you’re gone?
I did, and let me say that it’s an extremely overrated experience in more ways than one.
While in the throes of a dysfunctional and essentially one-sided relationship, I did everything that I possibly could to make sure that this person would wake up and realize what a good thing he had lost once he left me.
The way I put on, you would have thought we were going to be like that old couple on In Living Color that always says “and we still together” at the end of their skit.
People would say, “Girl, leave him alone, why are you bothering? He obviously doesn’t care about you.”
“But he will,” I would reply with sheer determination.
“And once I get him to the point where he is so in love with me because I’m such a wonderful girlfriend, then I’m gonna throw up the deuces and he’ll be sorry.”
I tried this twice – with the same man – and experienced two totally different outcomes. I still can’t decide which was worse.
The first time, I was the best non-girlfriend a man could have. I even had his friends saying, “Dude, what’s your problem? Can’t you see that this girl loves you and wants to be with you?”
But I accidentally fell more for the idea of us being together and lost sight of my initial plan. None of my hard work, dedication or deception paid off. He still didn’t want me. And it sucked.
He only called me when he was going through something and had no one else to talk with. He didn’t know (or care, for that matter) what was going on in my life. When I would try to incorporate my life into our conversations, he would either shift the focus back to him – or shut our whole interaction down.
It was really bad, but I decided that it was worth it to continue my charade for vendetta purposes. Big mistake.
The second time, I decided that instead of trying to break him down into being my boyfriend, I would bend my emotions and actions into what he thought best suited the nature of our non-relationship.
I would be supportive, but somewhat stand offish, to make sure that I didn’t smother him, buying into the “absence makes the heart grow fonder” bit.
I’m going to friend my way into his heart. I wanted him to feel like he could talk with me about anything and we could share – and all of that jazz. This time, there would be no imposed expectations or futile attempts of me trying to force something that didn’t fit.
Believe it or not – this time it actually worked. And it sucked.
I decided that I was going to stop calling him, spending time with him, I was going to shut him out of my life altogether. But to my surprise, it wasn’t because I was getting even – but because I had gotten sick of him.
The same things he did when he didn’t like me, he did when he “opened his eyes and saw that he loved me and we were meant to be together.”
He was in love, but still could have cared less about my feelings and experiences. He loved the fact that I was in love with him and was so self-absorbed (and bamboozled by round two of my plan) that he didn’t see that I didn’t love him anymore.
And the worst of it all is that I felt guilty for not keeping the contact that I had established over the years of our non-relationship. I knew how it felt to be left hanging and didn’t want to be guilty of the things that I had accused him of so many times.
Was it wrong for me to do? Absolutely. But please Bellevue, I’m still paying … or playing … or getting played in the game I set up to win.
