JEN
I only knew her for three and a half months. I’ve never said “I love you” to anyone but when I was with her, I would see those three words like neon lights in my head and I’d have to remind myself to stop and think clearly.
Perhaps I’m inexperienced.
Perhaps I’m a hopeless romantic.
Perhaps it was just my heart.
We got along so well that I really didn’t know how to act. I know now that I’m guilty of putting her on a pedestal and that she must’ve been pressured from it. But I couldn’t help myself. Everything she did was just right. Every mistake she made was too small to matter. I remember looking her dead in the eyes on multiple occasions and telling her, “There isn’t a single thing about you that I dislike”. And I really meant it. And to that she’d promptly reply, “Me too”.
The hours flew by with her. A whole day with her and we’d make plans to see each other again the very next day. Her presence was so comforting to me. I would commute back and forth from Richmond Hill to Waterloo just to see her. When I was in Richmond Hill, I’d see her more than my parents.
We did a love languages test together once. My top trait was physical touch. Hers was acts of service.
The sex was good.
Cuddling with her was just as good.
My favorite memories with her:
- When I surprised her with flowers (white and pink roses because she’s a Sanrio fan) and it made her so happy that when we were lining up at Markville’s Bath and Body Works, she couldn’t stop dancing and telling me, “I’m so happy!”
- On my birthday when she treated me to Copacabana and on the way back she had a food coma but would still force herself to wake up at red lights so we could kiss
- Our first kiss was during the credits of Kung Fu Panda in a drive-in theatre. The moment our lips touched, Oogway Ascends started playing. Since then, it’s established itself as a classic song between us
She said she couldn’t keep up with how headass I was. I can’t blame her for that, I am pretty headass and she’s never experienced something like this in the past. Even showing affection was hard for her. She was damaged and I hope to god that I was a healing experience for her.
She was so damaged that on our first date she went on a rant about how she was traumatized by a specific girl in high-school before. I, being absolutely clueless about trauma, just listened. Her family was poor when she was a child so she rarely saw her parents since they worked. She had daddy issues. Her grandma was her guardian. And she watched her slowly die from dementia last year. She was fat before and still thought she was ugly. Her ex showed up at her house crying and begged her to take him back.
Even with all this she was so kind to me. Even when I lied to her she forgave me the next morning. She tried so hard to work on her imperfections and her past. She acknowledged that she wasn’t perfect. She’d beat herself up about small things and I’d always reassure her. There were times when I’d joke too much or cross a line but I know that I put in the effort to show her endless kindness, love, and affection.
Our last messages are as follows:
C: Back home safe. Thanks for everything and wishing you the best
J: Thank you :-) You were v kind to me and I appreciate it
C: And that’s exactly how I want you to remember me
I’ve since deleted our messages and photos together. I’m endlessly thankful and appreciative of the memories we shared together but don’t see any gain in reading our old conversations or looking at pictures of us being headass together.
She didn’t like the way I acted around my friends. I do act differently around friends and give in to peer pressure so this is something I have to work on.
She didn’t like that I lied about not telling others about what we were doing in bed. I am completely in the wrong here.
She didn’t like that I called her “baby” when we didn’t have a label. Perhaps I was moving too quick but it had already been two and a half months at that point.
She didn’t like that our sex drives didn’t match. I tried keeping up but after seeing her so often, I started to underperform. When I was away in Waterloo, she told me that she was losing sexual attraction to me. The hurt I felt when I heard that is unmatched to anything I’ve felt as I write this. The person that I see a future with was losing sexual attraction to me. It might take a while for me to perform well in bed again.
I told her how hurt I was by that (while holding back tears) and I’m sure that pushed her farther away. Her existence was no longer neutral. After hurting me, her existence was causing harm to others. She must have felt that way.
Noticing that she was acting colder to me hurt. Her still acting cold after not seeing me for three weeks hurt. Her telling me that she would take her blanket back tomorrow to wash hurt because I knew she wouldn’t be coming back. Her telling me that she didn’t want to take any pictures together at Christmas Market hurt. It hurt to know that she had already decided that we wouldn’t work out.
It hurt when I told her I’d never message her again and she replied, “Me too”. It hurt when I unfollowed her because she posts stories all the time and I didn’t want to be reminded of her right now. It hurt even more when I checked later to see that she had unfollowed me too. I’ll really never see her again after feeling the way that I felt about her.
She said that she couldn’t keep up with how headass I was. She told me that she’s never been like this in the past so I know that she really did try to be as headass with me as possible. It just makes me feel like the headass moments we shared are now less genuine. I’m just bitter.
She said that even talking to someone everyday was a challenge for her. She values her independence. I applaud her bravery. But I thought I could be the one that she could talk to everyday.
A part of me wants to blame others for us not working out. A part of me thinks that I’m to blame for us not working out. But I’ve come to accept that, it just wasn’t meant to be. Thinking about what I should’ve done doesn’t change the fact that we’re no longer seeing each other. I wouldn’t have acted any differently if I went back in time but lost my memories of the future. I still would’ve looked at her earnestly and told her that I didn’t dislike a single thing about her.
Some things I liked and disliked about her: (I’ll put dislikes first to end it on a positive note)
Dislikes:
- Messy
- Bad relationship with brother and mom
- Wanted her kids to go to church
- Needed much more independence than me
- Didn’t get along with Sejoon
Likes:
- Made me happy
- Put in a lot of effort
- Kinky
- Nice ass and thighs
- Communicated well
- A+ meme scholar
I think it’ll take me a week for the initial wave of sadness to pass and a month for me to stop thinking about her everyday.
I hope she’s able to overcome her troubled past. Thinking about everything she’s been through made me cry when I was on the phone with David and Carolyn last night. She deserves to feel genuinely happy after experiencing all that.
When she cried while telling me how she felt, I shed a single tear. I’m not even trying to be poetic, it really just happened that way.
Above all else I want her to be happy. I want her to remember the kindness I showed her and look for it once more. I want her to be able to love herself first. I’m hurting now but I’m happy that I was the one to show her unconditional kindness.
I’ll never see her again but I will occasionally think about her happy flower dance. I’ll make sure to give the next girl flowers too.
I’ll make sure that I acknowledge how to deal with trauma next time.
I’ve exhausted my thoughts about Jen.
That was a lie.
I had a nosebleed this morning because I haven’t been sleeping properly.
As I laid awake in bed, I couldn’t stop myself from once again going through our memories together and visualizing the events in my mind’s calendar. What if I hadn’t done that on November 11th? What if I talked about something else on December 7th? The hope of making things right again hasn’t left me yet.
I never expected that accepting the fact that I’m not the one for her would be so difficult. Especially since I was ready to accept the fact that she was the one for me.
It seems so daunting to start anew with someone else after I spent so much time and effort making her feel loved. I know that I’ll eventually get over this but right now, building myself back up and doing this over and over again feels beyond what I’m capable of.
I only knew her for three and a half months. If she was already unhappy after such a short period of time, how could she be happy with me forever?
I’m once again hurt thinking about how we made plans to have a cottage getaway but that was cancelled because Blue Mountain wasn’t open due to Covid. So we planned to move our trip back to family day. And another one in the summer. I made a google docs of things I wanted to do with her. The only thing she added to that was “pegging” as a joke. Thinking about that now it feels that I wasn’t really robbed of a future with her. We were simply incompatible to begin with. I also created a shared playlist for us and a google sheets of things we would do at the cottage. She created a rap playlist for me even though I never showed too much interest in rap. But, I really did like listening to it because she was the one that made it for me. In response, I created a classical playlist to help her pug, Charlie, fall asleep. It seems clear to me now that I was too headass and she was trying desperately to keep up.
I was too quick to show too much affection. She hadn’t healed from her past and wasn’t ready to accept my affection. Who’s at fault here?
Neither of us. If anything I’d blame God.
If anything, I hope that I helped heal her and that in the future, she’ll be able to accept love like that a million times over. Just not from me.
I wanted to message her yesterday. Today, I redownloaded Hinge to un-match with her there. I’ll distract myself with my ACTSC331 exam today.
As much as I hate feeling this way, I’m grateful that I have my friends and family to support me. And there’s a strange beauty in losing control of your emotions. To be absolutely swept away by your heart and abandon logical thinking.
The vsco girls were right when they captioned images “bittersweet memories”.
Let the healing begin, please and thank you.
I can’t even focus on my exam.
I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve been thinking poorly of her in order to make me think that I hadn’t lost too much. I’m even more ashamed to admit that it’s been working. I feel as though I’m stabbing her in the back since I know so much about her troubled past yet I’m still telling myself that she’s a nobody with no friends who won’t go anywhere. Even when I know that she tries harder than me in school. Even when I know that her past friend groups have fucked her over time and time again. Even when I know that she works out more often than me. Even when I know that her Mom puts an unbelievable amount of stress on her. Even when I know that she tries her best and she’s scared.
I hate thinking like this.
But will reminding myself of how happy she made me let me heal? Will thinking about her beautiful body help? The memes we shared? The nights where we just laid in bed and talked? All the UberEats BOGO deals with 30% off stacked on top too? The small kisses on my shoulder? Kissing at red lights?
Who knows.
Because I don’t.
Her favorite salad was Milestone’s Roasted Beet & Goat Cheese Salad.
I feel like there’s three parts in the relationship we shared:
Part 1: Getting to know each other
Part 2: Sex
Part 3: Distance
After getting to know each other, the only thing we’d do was fuck. Now that I think of it, it actually got in the way of things. We planned to paint and she brought over all the material to do so, but we never did because we were too busy fucking. We couldn’t watch more than half an hour of any movie or show because we’d just end up fucking. It took over our relationship. She unintentionally made it happen and I let it happen. And I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t miss it.
When the sex stopped being as satisfying and we had distance between us, it’s almost as if the relationship had been reduced to a shell of its former self. The beginning of the end.
I thought I could keep up with her but I was off by a long shot.
I was lost in the sauce. Lost in the poon, if you will.
She accidentally told me once that if I wasn’t able to get hard so quickly after cumming that she would have left me after our argument on me lying.
I feel like I ended up being too clingy. I started getting used to the daily hour long calls when I was in Waterloo started expecting more and more of her time. Little by little, I had took away what little privacy she had left and she felt suffocated. She must’ve realized this when we stopped calling as much and finally had her own space again.
I feel that as time passes, I care less about what my partner feels and more about what I feel. Another thing I really need to work on.
And I still miss just booling with her. I thought we were so compatible. But as I reflect, I feel that it was just our humor and personalities which matched — which are still big things. But I was ignoring so much because I was just infatuated with her.
Still, it’ll be difficult to find another girl that I vibe this hard with.
I wonder if I liked her more or my attachment to her. I don’t know why I let myself get attached to quickly. I knew she needed space but eventually I stopped giving it to her. I need to respect boundaries.
Listened to “I wish you love” by Sam Cooke and the lyrics be hitting.
I wish you bluebirds in the spring
To give your heart a song to sing
And then a kiss oh but more than this
I wish you love
And in July a lemonade to cool you in some leafy glade
I wish you health oh and more than wealth. I wish you love
My breaking heart and I agree that you and I will never be
So with my best my very best I am setting you free
I just messaged someone else. I’m not sure if it was the right thing to do.
I regret it, it doesn’t feel right. I should have waited at least a week.
She messaged me this morning:
J: Hey, are we able to make this work again :(
J: I’m willing to try my best to make things work between us
Exactly four mornings ago, she messaged me saying that I wasn’t the one for her romantically and that she couldn’t picture us dating.
So I told her my feelings. Basically, what I talked about in this journal. We met up to talk and I told her I needed more time while she did my brows. The deadline I gave myself is three days from now. Is that enough time?
She apologized and communicated why she acted the way she did and said that she was scared and that she’d try her best to change for the better. I fully believe her — I really do. But what I’m scared of is her best not being enough again. She tried her best the first time, I’m sure of it.
I have no idea how to feel. On the drive back, I pulled over and cried.
I want to cry. I want to jump for joy. I want to blame myself. I want to learn to love. I want more time. I want to make up my mind now. I want to know she’s not the one for me. I want to know that we were meant to be.
I wonder if I’ll sleep soundly tonight.
I don’t know how to describe how I feel right now. Looking at old photos or remembering moments we had together doesn’t make me feel anything at all and I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing. My heart’s already accepted what to do but I just don’t know what that decision is. That must be why I don’t feel anxious or sad or bitter or happy or regretful anymore.
I just don’t know what my heart’s decided for me yet.
There really is no right answer.
I’m afraid that she misses the attachment so badly that she’s willing to overlook important things that would otherwise be a deal breaker for her. But does that stem from that fact that I feel that I’m not worthy of her?
Even if we were to get back together, the fact that she isn’t able to keep up with how headass I am is going to affect us negatively in the long run. This is really the only worry I have but it’s one that can snowball once again into a reason to end things.
Right now, I think I’ll give it some more time and most likely I’ll message her about these two things. But I feel like I should give it another chance and try again. I don’t think I’ve ever been met with a dilemma like this before.
Maybe making a pros and cons list will help:
PROS:
- I miss her
- She communicated her reasons for ending things well
- She’ll put in the effort to make things work
- We vibe hard
- Early on so easier to fix issues
CONS:
- She ended things in the first place
- I might not be able to properly handle her past traumas
- I’m too headass for her
- She may only miss the attachment we had
- Highly probable that I’ll be hurt once again
Did I purposely put the cons last? Did I purposely put the pros first?
I wish there were a mathematically sound way to prove that one was better than the other.
What if we work out? What if we don’t work out?
Shut up.
I believe that I know what my heart has decided — with the help of eddies. I thought about her and didn’t feel a wave of love wash over me anymore. Instead, I was given a sliver of hope and the feeling of dread for the work that I would need to put in.
Sejoon put it nicely. If he broke up with his girl today and asked to get back together tomorrow, things wouldn’t be the same at all. The relationship’s already been tainted.
Carolyn said that I need to find someone who’s able to match the vibe and energy levels consistently, otherwise it’s unsustainable. And that she hopes that she can find healing somewhere, because it really sucks how much she’s been hurt.
Nicole said that when things didn’t work out with her ex, she wanted to message him that she wanted to make things work again but it just takes time to heal.
David said that this is the right move. I told him that this felt like poker and I had just folded my hand. Imagine I was dealt a suited king and queen (the king being me and the queen being Jen, suited since we vibed so hard ahah). I obviously raise pre-flop and there’s only one other person who calls. The flop: Ace, suited 10 and suited 3. Now, I have a straight draw and a flush draw. I imagine this being the month of October that I spent with her. Not a single worry in the world and just pure vibes. I tell her that there isn’t a single thing I dislike about her. I give her flowers and she does her happy dance before I leave to Waterloo. I’m losing to an Ace pair but it’s definitely hopeful. I don’t have position. I have enough of a hand to place a continuation bet. Maybe 1.5x my original bet. My opponent thinks for a moment and calls. Perhaps a slow play? This is when I come back from Waterloo and we can’t stand being away from each other. Every moment with her makes me feel more sure that we have a future together. I’m excited to see what the next card holds. On the turn, there’s an 8, not suited either. Most likely nothing for either of us. I can still make that straight and flush but I start counting my outs. And I don’t have position. It’s a check from me. We’ve already had our first argument and I’ve just left for Waterloo. Not being able to see her everyday just doesn’t feel right so we call everyday to make things seem like it’s still okay. I genuinely enjoy the calls with her but even I start thinking that calling everyday is too much and I’m really fucking headass. She starts acting colder. My opponent shoves all in and they’ve got me covered. On what? Pair ace? That’s the only thing on the board that made it. With my suited king and queen, I only have an Ace high on the board. Even a pair 10 or 8 will beat me. Do they have a pocket pair? And I don’t have position. She’s just told me that she doesn’t see a future with me romantically. I need a moment to think. She messages me back saying that she wants things to work out and she’ll try her best. Do I call all-in here with just a straight draw and flush draw? I have around a 25% chance of hitting them here. I’m thinking if that’s good enough odds to call here. If only I had position. The only thing that matters now is if I call or fold. I start thinking about what’s happened leading up to this moment and if I played my hand correctly. Calls all around and suddenly a shove like this? I didn’t know that she felt this way about being headass and the struggles of talking to someone everyday until the moment she told me. Her actions and words have hurt me. I entered this round hopeful that I’d win with a suited king queen but now I’m just not sure. At this point, I’m just thinking of reasons why not to fold. This time, I try listening to my heart since I know its already made a decision. It’s as if I call into the void for an answer and after what seems like too long, the response is an eerily low but resounding “…no…”. I look at my hand once more, think about the odds of winning and reflect on how I played them. I fold. My opponent doesn’t show and I don’t ask to see the river.
I messaged her that I don’t want to continue things this morning. She replied hours later thanking me for making her “super happy and fulfilled” and that there were no hard feelings. Even as we part ways, it feels so sweet and wholesome.
It just sucks so much. Wanting to get back together but knowing that it’s not the right thing to do and would only lead to more hurt and heartbreak. It hurts even more knowing that she wants to get back too. But if we did, she’d end up hurt too and I absolutely cannot have that.
There are moments when my heart tells me that I could make it work. And I’m sure in a perfect world it really could, but I have to be real with myself and remind myself that all the facts point towards this not working out again. Accepting that truth is unbelievably difficult for me.
I messaged Anson and told him that Jen and I were over and that he knows best how to cheer her up. It felt like the right thing to do at the time but now I’m doubting myself. He’s a real one though and I’m confident that they’ll be by each others’ side for a long time to come. Them losing weight and gaining confidence together was definitely a healing experience for them both.
I listened to Oogway Ascends tonight and smiled.
Thank you Jen. You taught me how to care for someone.
I just found out that I passed LTAM. A part of me thinks that it was a joint effort. This thought made my moment of celebration a little sour. It’s been a month now and I think about her around every other day. Cheerio.
Went back to my gamgam’s place to play mahjong with the boys. Realized the Starbucks straws by the front door cabinet were from the last day I’d seen her. Funny how even a straw can make me feel sentimental. The act of throwing it out one last time at the dumpster by Doncrest felt like it had some sort of meaning behind it. It’s been two months now and I’m occupying my time with work, anime, books, calisthenics and piano.
This will most likely be my last entry here. The only edits to prior entries have been to fix minor grammatical errors. Every sentence I’ve written here was my genuine truth in the moment and I hope some parts remain as my genuine truth for a while to come.
I read this from start to finish and I’m glad I decided to write about her. To be able to read about how I felt when I was deconstructed to a vulnerable, emotional piece of shit is quality content to self-reflect on.
There were things I could’ve done better. There were things she could’ve done better. I highly respect her and wish her all the best. I know she must feel the same way.
