An Open Letter

As I lay down to read my book for the night, it started off with Naomi giving an account of her past issues with her abusive ex. I don't think anyone in this relationship was abusive, but it does serve as an extreme example. She said originally she never knew if he was bad to her, because he never gave her a reason to. She knew what bad looked like, because of all of the extreme examples she grew up around. But he never did any of those things, and so she would have no choice but to believe him with his subtle implications of her being sensitive or crazy. But he absolutely was abusive and manipulative.

Now I absolutely do not think I was either of those things, but I absolutely do acknowledge the fact that in the relationship I probably wasn't exactly what she would want. I think that fact is a mixture of both me as a person, but also the frictions that we had. I was pretty upset with myself with the comment that I made in our last argument, and that absolutely is still something I regret. I obviously hate the fact that I said that for all of the reasons I've mentioned before, but also for the fact that this was a mistake that I absolutely reasonably could have avoided. I of course made mistakes and other things throughout the relationship, but those were within my very strict expectations I hold for myself, and so at the end of the day I don't feel like it was reasonable for me to do things differently at the time. But this was different.

There is a small silver lining to it however. I think for a lack of a better word, this lets her blame me and hate me in her mind. If I had not done that, I think it would be pretty difficult for her to move on, since things would have gone from seemingly good and fine to over. But at least this way she has a concrete horrible thing that I did that she can use to end it in her mind. I think this makes it easier for her, at least in the short term. I don't know if she will really be able to use this as something to learn from however with that scapegoat. But at least I'm happy that she hurts less right now. And I guess that thought makes me hurt a little bit less.

We said we would talk for arguably the last time this Saturday. It kind of hurts me because I don't actually have anything I want to ask her. I also think that we will not be friends or on good terms. The narrative I've told myself is that I need to have self respect for myself. I shouldn't keep bending myself over to try to have this a good term friendship, when they changed their mind on that. I'm fine navigating there ego and other things, but that was when we were at least both on the same page about what we wanted going forward. Once she blindsided me by changing that and refusing to clarify things or communicate at all, that to me was an indication of that person that I thought of them and the person that they are showing are different. The person I thought of was someone who asked that we be friends afterwards and that we can be on good terms, and still talk. I remember saying that I didn't think we really had much for a reason to talk afterwards, but she pushed for that. And then after a week of no contact to let us grieve the relationship, she changed that which undid a lot of the processing I had done. I understand that they may have their reasons and stuff like that, but the part that I was not okay with was the blatant disregard for my emotional state. A breakup is always rough. And I think what they did was incredibly selfish in avoiding contact or an uncomfortable conversation, and so instead they just didn't have that which led me on, and dropped me harder again. I don't think someone that I could trust or want to be around would do something like that. I really value emotional maturity and empathy, and the end of the day along with several other actions I just don't think that's there. I'm happy for the good things in the relationship, but as I've got into to know them better along with their flaws I don't think about that someone that would be good for me in my life. And so our ways part a little bit early.

I know this is incredibly superficial and stupid, but part of me feels like a vengeful happiness about how she doesn't know about my job offer, and the salary.