I'm not normally a crier...

This post is going to be harder to write than I thought. On one hand, once I start things are going to flow very easily. On the other, I'm not going to make a large part of the story public, so bear with me, I hope it makes sense.

So i'm not normally a crier. That's the title I went with. An alternative could've been 'it's not you it's me'. Either way, the content of this post sucks. Last week my boyfriend and I broke up. Well actually he broke up with me. Via text. Yes, via text. Of my friends that I've told, they've all been horrified that it was done via text. A couple dates, text is fine, 5 months, not so fine. For me though, I'm in 2 minds about it. 


Maybe we should go back a bit. Relationships aren't always easy, long distance relationships even more so. For as long as he was living in the same city as I am, things were going well. But when he moved away, I visited him a couple times. First time everything was great, well at least I thought so. The second time things were a bit weird between us. It was like we were with each other, but we'd lost the ability to communicate. We would go out for lunch or head for a day trip somewhere, but most of the time there was silence between us.

I returned home and decided to give him some space. Rather than me staying in touch with him, I waited for him to contact me. I hated waiting but I felt that we needed it. Eventually I heard from him. After that point, we spoke every now and then, but every time we did I didn't have the balls to ask the important question, as in what's wrong. After consulting my right hand man, I ended up sending him a text that next time we chat, I'd like to talk about us. He thought that was a good idea, and we spoke that night. He agreed things were weird, and could go down 2 routes. The first was we could break, which he said he didn't want to do. The other was for me to visit him in a few weeks and see if we could get things back on track.

At the time I was glad that he chose option B. But after we hung up it all started to sink in. Obviously I liked him, I cared about him, I wanted what was best for him. But how could breaking things off then and there even be an option? Other than a weird trip to visit him, our time together had actually gone quite well. I was happy. I thought he was happy. Why would he want to break up?

As I lay in bed last night, I cried. I didn't bawl my eyes out but I cried. I'm not normally a crier. Ok maybe I'll get a bit emotional but I'd never cried over a guy before. I really really liked him. It was hard not thinking about him, but at least I knew where things were and I'd see him in a couple weeks and we'd try to see where things are going and see if we could get back on track. The next week didn't go so well. He was stressing out about things, and I said if you want me to leave you alone for a bit, I'm happy to do that. If you need me to be patient, consider it done. Which he was glad for, he said he needed to chill out without me, and I was ok with that. I stayed out of contact and said message me when you're ready.

Later that week I was at the gym, and a Taylor Swift song came on. Bloody Taylor Swift. One of the million songs that she wrote about breaking up with someone. It actually made me really sad. I held it together, which surprised me because I had the song on repeat. What can I say, I missed him.

Later that night I went out for dinner with one of my best mates, I pretty much gave him the lowdown. I think the waiter came to us 3 or 4 times asking if we were ready to order, but we were too busy talking. Afterwards we went out for another drink. It was then that I looked at my phone and saw a text from the boyfriend.

The text. The breakup text. It was long, he apologised more than once for doing it via text. It included the usual it's not you, it's me. Isn't that standard for breakups? Well I knew what was going on behind the scenes, so I understood it. I was glad I was with my mate and had a drink in my hand because I needed it. I read it, he read it. I read it again. I don't know what I said, probably not much. Just that when the waiter had come up to us and asked if we were ready and he'd told him that we needed more time as I was going through a breakup, how right he was.

That night I cried again. I'm only human, and I'm allowed to be emotional, right?. He's the first guy I dated in a long time that I really felt a connection with. Not just the sexual chemistry but we just got along really well. What upsets me the most is that it wasn't like things had gone downhill and we tried to work things out and couldn't. We were just living in different cities and he decided to just call it off.

Eventually the next day I wrote him a reply. It was measured and thoughtful which I think was good in hindsight. Had we broken up by phone I probably would've been lost for words. Obviously in person would've been ideal but if he couldn't do it via phone, I doubt he would've done it in person. On the other hand, while I understand his reasoning behind it, and honestly I do (and I don't expect you to because you don't have all the info), he needed to do what he needed to do but I feel like I never really got a chance to say goodbye. I think that's my biggest issue right now. I want closure, but I don't feel i've gotten that through a text.

How long does it take to get over someone?  Obviously I will eventually, but these days, with social media in your face, you see everything. He said he hoped maybe down the line we could reconnect. I assume he meant as friends, which I don't have a problem with. But I'm not going to be the first to make a move. He blocked me on a couple of apps (you know the ones) but didn't unfriend me on Facebook, or unfollow or block me on Instagram, or snapchat. So yeah I still see him being happy, which i'm happy about. But have to stop myself liking things he posts or pictures on instagram. I guess everything will happen with time. And if I do hear from him again I do, and if I don't I don't. Welcome to relationships 101.

So I have a boyfriend...

I don't really know how to begin this post. I seem to only post sporadically these days, but I reckon this is worthy of a post. The latest news is that I have a boyfriend :) I've only recently started calling him my boyfriend - I haven't dated a lot while i've lived here so it still feels a bit weird. Before that he was the guy I was seeing. I didn't even use the word dating.

So I'm not an experienced dater in the slightest. One of the things that happen growing up in an ultra religious household was that I wasn't expected to have a girlfriend, which was fine with me to be honest. When I did date girls it was at a point in my life when my parents thought it was time to get married so it was to find a wife. I think I've probably blogged about my experiences dating girls previously. I did have a boyfriend back when I lived in New York but that was all new to me.

Since I moved back to Australia I felt like it was time to let loose a little, keep everything casual, friends, hookups, but I always got to the point where I said I wasn't looking for anything serious. You know of the guy in my previous post, a hookup became friends which started leading into something more, but I didn't let it develop into anything more.

Enter a new guy from stage left. He was in town for work, which was fine as far as I was concerned. It started casually, and it started to develop from there, only this time I let it. We were hanging out alot. Drinks, movies, dinner, watching TV sharing a bottle of wine, we even did a trip away one weekend which was alot of fun. All those things would fall under the category of dates.

That being said, things have moved along slowly, at least from my end. While he's technically been living in my city, he hasn't met any of my family or friends. Obviously they've heard about him but that's it. Meanwhile, even though he's not actually from here, i've met a number of his friends. I remember the first time we met a friend of his, his first words were "so this is the boyfriend", so I guess, yes, I was the boyfriend. It felt weird, but good.

I was chatting about him to one of my friends and I said something along the lines of "I just take a while to open up to people". His response was dead straight... "A while? You don't open up to anyone. Ever." So maybe he's right. Maybe my boyfriend will take a while to learn about me. Until then, he's still my boyfriend, and there's other things to deal with. Like the fact that he's not living here anymore. Ideally i'd like to move where he is, but easier said than done. We'll see how the coming weeks go, but i'm happy, and in a good place :)

The incidental homewrecker

Hello blog readers. This is the story about how I became known as an incidental homewrecker - at least according to one of my friends.

Ever met someone for a random hookup and it kind of developed into something more? I met someone online (as you do, or at least as I do) and we really hit it off. I'm just gonna call him A for ease. We stayed up till about 2.30am texting and when we actually met instead of just hooking up we spent a few hours chatting over a bottle of wine. We started seeing quite a bit of each other, maybe a couple times a week. Cooking each other dinner, watching TV, having a few drinks. Yeah I may have spent the night but still. When we first met he'd just gotten out of relationship, and I wasn't looking to get into one with my life kind of being up in the air for a number of reasons, so it worked out well. Though we did start to develop feelings for each other. We both realised it but didn't let it develop further. Which I was quite ok with.

At one point he mentioned his ex wanted to reconcile but he wasn't sure that he wanted to. Let's call the ex D. As in dickhead, or douche. Take your pick. We talked a bit about it but it was his decision and nothing for me to get involved in. We started hanging out less, he said he was busy with work and he went away and he was dealing with the ex. I liked him. But we weren't dating. I was quite happy to let him figure out what he needed to figure out. Yes I wanted to remain friends either way, but I didn't want to get in the way of anything.

And then one day I received this:

Firstly, woohoo, my first ever text from someone's ex. Secondly, umm hell no. At this point we hadn't hung out for about 6 weeks, the texts had been few and far between, maybe once a week, along the lines of "Hi, how's it going?". I was at the point where I understood he needed to work things out and I thought i'd wait for him to contact me, rather than the other way around. If he didn't, so be it. But his ex texting me to stay away from him? No fucking way do I take orders from that dickhead/douche. 

The first thing I did was contact A, basically saying D had somehow gotten my number and wanted me to stay away from A and never contact him again. Which I wasn't willing to do just because D wanted it so, and even if they did get back together there was no reason we couldn't be friends. That being said, I'd leave the ball in A's court.

As for D, I took my time in replying. I had a few versions that I ran past a couple of friends. They were like the good angel and the bad angel. One of them thought my responses were perfect. The other thought they were inflammatory and aggressive. Which they were, but that's how I felt. Hell hath no fury like a gay scorned, or something like that. You can see the progression below. On the far left is all me, a sarcastic bitch on a plate.

Somehow I ended up sending the one below - a sanitised version. See, I can be nice too.

D sends a reply, apologising. Apologising is one thing, apologising because you were drunk is another. Of course I then regret not being my original true self in the first place. If there was ever a time to give it to him, this was gonna be it.

Putting something behind us is fine, but he's still a dick.

I ended it by saying I couldn't ask for more. But he's still a dick. And if I never hear from him again i'll be overjoyed. Though in some ways I hope he does message me again, it's quite entertaining.