I Came Home Heartbroken & Immediately Made It Worse

 Dear Diary, 

    Coming home from Italy was supposed to feel like returning to normal life.

    Instead, I came home to what I can only describe as emotional whiplash.

    While I was in Italy, LG had already started acting weird with me.

    He was barely responding, taking forever to text back, and just generally felt…off.

    At first, I tried not to read too much into it because I was literally across the world, he was busy, I was busy, and I knew he had a lot going on.

    Then I got home.

    And almost immediately, he sent me this long message basically saying that he didn’t know if I wanted him to be “the one,” followed by a list of reasons why he apparently shouldn’t be.

    Which was confusing because I had never asked him to be my husband.

    I wasn’t asking him to promise me forever.

    I just liked him.

    A lot.

    So naturally, I responded.

    I told him that I wasn’t expecting constant attention from him. I told him that I had my own life too. I told him that I didn’t think it was fair for him to decide how I would feel about him or whether I would regret him.

    Basically: I argued my case.

    And then…

    Nothing.

    He ghosted me.

    After months of talking.

    After everything.

    No actual conversation. No proper ending. No explanation.

    Just silence.

    So obviously, I handled this extremely well and maturely.

    Just kidding.

    I cried for two days.

    Eventually, I unadded him on Snapchat because I was tired of seeing his name, seeing him post, watching his Snap score go up, and knowing that he was very much alive while actively choosing not to speak to me.

    And a tiny part of me thought that if he noticed I had removed him, maybe he would finally reach out.

    He noticed.

    And he unadded me back.

    Amazing!

    Love that for me.

    I’d love to say that was the moment I gracefully accepted the situation, focused on myself, journaled, drank water, and entered my healing era.

    But that would be a lie.

    I am not particularly good at sitting alone with my feelings.

    So instead, I found distractions.

    Specifically, two of them.

ENTER: FBOY

    We are calling the first one FBOY because, well…

    He is one.

    He is 25, lives in the city, and is very clearly not looking for a relationship with anybody.

    Which currently works just fine for me because I’m not exactly looking for one either.

    At least not with him.

    If I’m being completely truthful, LG is the only person I actually wanted a relationship with.

    With FBOY, the dynamic is very different.

    There is no pretending that this is some deep romantic connection.

    We both know what it is.

    We hung out, we had fun, and the attraction is definitely there.

    He also knows that I’m a virgin.

    And funny enough, he told me that he respects me too much to be my first.

    Which I was completely okay with because I don’t want him to be my first either.

    I like our dynamic exactly where it is.

    What surprised me, though, was what happened afterward.

    Because for someone I have literally nicknamed FBOY, he is secretly kind of a softie.

    After everything, we ended up staying up and just…talking.

    About our lives.

    About relationships.

    About things that have hurt us.

    About the people we’ve become because of those things.

    And by the end of the night, I remember thinking that he might be the human embodiment of the phrase:

    Hurt people hurt people.

    I don’t think he is secretly waiting for someone to “fix” him, and I definitely don’t plan on trying.

    But I do think underneath all the obvious emotional walls and questionable dating habits, he’s actually a sweet guy.

    And weirdly?

    I think we could become really good friends.

    Maybe friends who occasionally make terrible decisions together.

    But friends nonetheless.

ENTER: ARTHUR

    Then we have Guy #2.

    We’re calling him Arthur because he looks like the cartoon character.

    I’m sorry.

    Once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

    Arthur lives about ten minutes away from me, which is extremely convenient compared to the city boys I apparently keep collecting.

    For reference, FBOY lives around forty minutes away.

    LG did too.

    Apparently my type is men who require crossing a bridge.

    Anyway.

    Arthur is…

    Something.

    I thought I would like him more than I actually do.

    And I realized that pretty quickly.

    For starters—and maybe this sounds shallow—but I do not think he is a good kisser.

    At all.

    And unfortunately, that turned me off from him way more than I expected.

    The bigger difference, though, is how little I care what he thinks about me.

    With LG, I analyzed everything.

    What I said.

    How quickly I responded.

    Whether I was being too much.

    Whether I was being too distant.

    Whether something I said sounded weird.

    I cared because I cared about him.

    With Arthur?

    I genuinely do not care.

    I don’t really filter myself around him because his opinion of me doesn’t carry much weight.

    Which probably sounds horrible when I say it out loud.

    And to be fair, it kind of is.

    Because I know exactly what I’m doing.

    Arthur is a rebound.

    I am absolutely using him as a distraction from LG.

    There. I said it.

    The funniest—or maybe saddest—part is that one night Arthur and I were sitting in his car making out, and the entire time my brain was somewhere else.

    I kept thinking about LG.

    Missing him.

    Thinking about how different it felt being around him.

    Thinking about the way he kissed me.

    Thinking about conversations we had.

    Basically doing the exact opposite of what a rebound is supposed to accomplish.

    And yet, that didn’t happen with FBOY.

    Which I’ve been thinking about.

    I think it’s because FBOY and I aren’t trying to imitate anything.

    He doesn’t remind me of LG.

    Our dynamic doesn’t feel like LG.

    I don’t expect anything from him that I expected from LG.

    So when I’m with him, I can actually be present.

    Arthur, on the other hand, feels like I’m trying to shove someone else into an empty space.

    And unfortunately, he does not fit.

SO…AM I OVER LG?

    Absolutely not.

    I wish this was the part where I told you that I met two new guys and magically stopped caring.

    I did not.

    I still miss him.

    I still think about him.

    I’m still angry about how everything ended.

    And if I’m being completely honest, I don’t even fully feel like it did end because there was never really a conversation.

    There was just silence.

    And I think that’s the part I’m struggling with most.

    I can deal with someone telling me that they don’t want me.

    I can deal with rejection.

    What I hate is not knowing.

    But I also know myself.

    And I know that sitting in my room rereading old texts and waiting for someone to decide whether they want to speak to me is probably the fastest way to drive myself insane.

    So here we are.

    One heartbreak.

    Two rebounds.

    Zero emotional stability.

    And apparently an ongoing attraction to men who live forty minutes away.

    Maybe this isn’t my healing era yet.

    Maybe this is just the part where I make questionable decisions, learn things the hard way, kiss a few people I probably shouldn’t, and eventually figure out what I actually want.

    At least it’ll make good blog content.

xoxo, Keke♡