(no subject)
we met at the bus stop during my first week or two at mizzou. it was a monday morning and we were on campus. the bus was late and there was a huge mob of disgruntled people waiting for it. i was on the sidewalk and i turned my head, eyes connecting with him. i stared silently for a second or two before turning away, trying to ignore my fluttering heart. i may have made a few more chances at glancing at him. then the bus came, we boarded, and i didn't think i'd see him again.
that afternoon, i was back on campus and leaving my art class. most people finished their classes by 3pm, but my art class didn't end until near 5pm. i was on one of the last buses scheduled before it turned to the night bus schedule, which had a completely different location and didn't go directly to my apartment complex. i got to the bus stop and scrolled through the music on my ipod touch. then he walked over and stood near me. i took out my earbuds and began to wrap them up when he took out his zune. i mentally groaned, missing my opportunity to possibly talk to him, and started to put my earbuds back in.
"are you done with classes for the day?" i looked up and saw that he had put his zune back into his backpack, and was looking directly at me. i smiled and said, "yeah, how about you?" he said yes, probably along with something else, but i was too distracted keeping eye contact with him. he was so cute, almost beautiful in a way. he had a lip ring, which i took to pretty quickly. a "bad boy," talking to me! i was as giddy as a school girl, my heart racing and my stomach filled with butterflies.
he held out his hand. "i'm tyler," he said. i shook his hand, saying, "i'm alexis."
"nice to meet you." i was sure i was blushing at this point, though i'd never really thought i was a blushing kind of person.
the bus arrived and we got on. tyler gestured to the seat next to him and i sat down. we conversed a bit about random things. i showed him an art piece i was working on, he shared his interest in stumbleupon and recommended it to me. i showed him my pepper spray, which was attached to my lanyard of keys. he told me a story about how his father had mace that could kill a bear. immediately after he finished, he paused and said, "i don't know why i told you that." i giggled, thinking i was making him just as fluttery as i was.
we got back to the apartments and he said, "see you around" before heading to his room. i smiled all the way back to my room before realizing that i probably wouldn't see him again until wednesday. i remember that tuesday going very slowly, and i might have even gone to bed early that night, anticipating the possibility of seeing tyler again.
it was a rainy wednesday morning. curses. i had my mizzou umbrella up as i walked to the bus stop, extremely eager to see if tyler would be there. sure enough, he was there amongst the group of students waiting for the bus. i walked up to him, covered his head with my umbrella, and smiled. he smiled back and said good morning.
we ended up on the shorter bus, standing near the door. i found out that it's extremely difficult to stand on a bus packed full of wet students as it moves, but my full attention was on tyler. he was asking me questions, one of which was what my religion was. i said that i was agnostic/atheist, because i thought there was no real proof of a god and found it silly and a waste of time to devote myself to something i didn't believe in. he said that he was the same.
we got off the bus and tyler said, "do you mind?" as he hopped under my umbrella. i smiled (to be honest, i probably never stopped smiling the whole bus ride) and said, "not at all." he continued to ask me questions as we walked to class. i jokingly asked him if i was just his research subject. he laughed, shook his head, and said, "no, you're more to me than a test subject." my heart raced and i'm sure my eyes lit up, innocent and hopeful. we arrived at his class building and parted. i was anxious for the day to end so i could see him at the bus stop later that evening.
we rode home together and he asked if i'd be interested in coming over. i remember now, it was because he was trying to type me with his knowledge of the myers-briggs type indicator. he had me read a type description on the computer as he did other things. it didn't sound like me, so he clicked to another one. i said that this one sounded much more like me and he smiled. "we have the same personality type," he said. he explained that we were the rarest of types, only about 3% of the population. i didn't remember it at the time and had to ask him later for the type, but that is how i began to identify myself as an INFJ.
we shared our similarities, made tilapia and potatoes for dinner, he shared a favorite song of his and a video game. we shared things about ourselves that we had never told another person before. we had just become friends that day, but honestly felt like we'd known each other for years.
by the time i felt tired, it was nearly two in the morning. i said i had to go get some sleep, because i had a class at 9.30am. he wrote down his building and room number, along with his phone number. i still have this piece of paper. his handwriting is very neat.
i believe i went over to his apartment again the next day. i remember that i was cramping pretty bad, but didn't have any pain relievers and i was most certainly not going to leave this pretty boy's side. the day we first hung out and the day we got together is kind of fuzzy, but i think it was a back-to-back thing.
we were watching tv in his living room, sitting awkwardly on the couch together. it was midnight and he turned the television off suddenly. he said, "i don't really know how to say this, so i'll just come out with it-- i like you." i'm sure he said some other things, but i was so busy rejoicing in my head that i didn't pay attention. when he was done talking, i said, "well, i feel the same." there was a silence that fell between us, which i felt the need to break by saying, "so, what are we gonna do about it?" i said it meaning to get a response of whether he wanted to be in a relationship or not. but he smiled and pushed his head closer to mine, his eyes glancing at me through his long eyelashes. that was our first kiss.
and so began our relationship. the very first friend i had made at college, and he just happened to become my boyfriend.
that weekend was a three-day weekend. my three roommates all went home and i was left alone. i invited tyler over on one of the nights and we watched a movie together. i had told him that i couldn't watch scary movies because i'd get nightmares. his very first instinct was to have me watch a horror movie. nice, right? i told him, "if i have nightmares, i will be complaining to you!" the movie was "30 days later." after it was over and we discussed my thoughts on the movie, we were both on the couch again awkwardly. i'm sure i said something along the lines of, "so what now?" tyler's response was to pin me down on the couch and make out with me. it got very heated. his hands slid up my shirt and grasped me gently through my bra.
he stopped and suggested we go back to my room. we stood up and i held his hand, leading him to my room. we shut the door and laid on my bed, resuming what we were previously doing. my shirt and bra came off in the process, as did his shirt, and that was the first time i had ever felt attracted to a shirtless male. he was skinny, you see. rail thin, just like me. he was also pale, which made the light shining through my window bounce off of him. he gently held, squeezed, kissed, and licked my breasts for what felt like hours. i finally gathered the courage to touch him through his jeans. our fondling of each other went on until we just stopped, unable or unwilling to go further. we laid in my bed together, letting our bare chests touch gingerly.
"i really like your breasts," he whispered, smiling at me. "really?" i asked and he nodded. he then told me that he was sorry for not having an erection. i was puzzled by this because he sure felt hard when i was touching him. he explained that his anti-depressant causes him to not be able to get and erection, and if by some miracle he does, it's near impossible to get him to climax. i started feeling bummed, but then he told me that he took adderall. he had to take it three times a day and it helped him get erections and keep them. we were fooling around after it had worn off, though. it was late at night and the medication had worn off around ten o'clock or so. i got it, but didn't really understand how it would really affect our intimacy.
it was over that weekend that we became "facebook official," though we didn't attach each other's names to it. i did it this way because i'm friends with a lot of my family on facebook, and i didn't want them checking his page to see if he was suitable for me or not, blah blah blah. tyler agreed and was fine with this arrangement.
tyler was a psychology major, and i quickly realized that i was basically dating a therapist. he wanted to help me with everything. he wanted to get me on every single medication possible so that i was somewhat "normal." previous to meeting tyler, i was on the same anti-depressant for about three years. i had plenty of relapses though, and tyler said that it was not normal to do that. when he asked me about changing medications, i shrugged it off and said, "i could, but i'm too lazy to." meaning i didn't want to go through the switching of medicines, feeling different, etc.
but tyler pressed on. he insisted that i make an appointment with the university's psychiatrist. i did and it was set for the first week in november. it was near the end of september at the time, and because i was a new student in the mental health department, the wait for an appointment was longer. but i booked it and tyler was thrilled. we had the same psychiatrist by coincidence, but tyler was glad that i was going to meet with her.
any time that he could, he brought up changing my anti-depressant. he went on about how much better i'd feel, how much healthier our relationship would be, how it would just be great all around. i remember that it was a battle with my mother on changing medications. she thought i was just doing it because my new boyfriend said to do so. which, to some extent, i was. but i was doing it so he would shut up about it, honestly.
then came some evening that tyler and i had a disagreement. i believe it was his take on drugs and alcohol clashing with my lack of doing either. i had never done any drugs, had never smoked anything, and had never had any alcohol in my life before i met him. he, on the other hand, had a history of doing hard drugs. he was on meth for a while.
anyway, he was trying to convince me to smoke a cigar with him. i strongly said no and stook to my feelings about it, but he didn't understand my aversion to it. he went ahead and smoked some of it, then put it out. i just felt so distant from him at that time. he didn't understand and i lacked the means of proper communication to convey my feelings about it. so i went home feeling like shit. i ridiculed myself mercilessly in my head for it, making me feel worse and worse. then i made it to the point where i had to release it somehow. i broke my over-a-year-long record of not cutting that night.
i texted tyler about it and he was already asleep. but i just wanted him to know, instead of trying to hide it from him. i mean, it was on my left forearm. it was going to be pretty hard to hide. i believe we had already begun being intimate at the time, so i knew i had to tell him. i also caved and said that i'd call the mental health department the next day to see if i could get an earlier appointment with one of the clinical nurses, because i was feeling suicidal. an appointment was made for that friday, no questions asked. it was the beginning of october at this point.
i wrapped my cuts in a bandage and tried to forget about them. when i hung out with tyler the next day or so, he was very distant. he was playing his computer game while i sat on his bed. i took his attention away from it and put it on me. we had somewhat quick sex and directly afterwards, he was back on the computer. no snuggling, no talking, nothing. i felt rejected and eventually went back to my apartment, ashamed.
i don't remember if this took place over text or in person, but he basically told me that my cutting had made him feel very uncomfortable and distant from me. he said that until i was put on new medication and feeling better, he was banning intimacy with me. for some people, this might not be a big deal. but to me, it was a huge deal. i literally was being rejected by him, for something i had no control over, no less! and the intimacy i shared with tyler was unlike any other person i'd been with. it was addicting, to say the least, so knowing that it was banned devastated me.
i went to my appointment with the nurse practitioner and was prescribed a higher dose of the medication i was already on. i started taking it that day and hung out with tyler that night. while we were eating a dinner we had worked together to make, he smiled at me and said, "have you noticed how much more you're smiling and laughing? i didn't think i'd see a change until one to two weeks from now, but i can see that it's already affected you. this is the most i've heard you talk since we met." i blushed and smiled, glad that it had finally happened and tyler was happy with the results. and when he was happy, i was happy.
come the first week of november and tyler's birthday. i bought him a t-shirt and a gift card to game stop, as well as baked him a wonderful cake. i put so much effort into preparing this cake and was so proud of the results. his birthday was on a sunday, so he'd gone home for that weekend. i was lonely, but waited for sunday to roll around so i could spend time with him on his birthday. the night before, tyler had gone to a party with his friends and drank a new kind of beer. it had twice the alcohol content of regular beer and tyler's medications double the effect, as well. i didn't hear from him until around 3pm on his birthday, saying that he had just got up. he explained that he had, in reality, drank 15-20 beers the night before. his hangover was the worst he'd ever had.
i didn't think he'd be able to drive home, but he managed to later in the day. i went over pretty late in the evening with my cake and present. he was touched by the cake and said that his own mother hadn't even gotten/made him a cake. that made me feel special. he was very exhausted from the day and we didn't spend much time together. i gave him some birthday sex, though. this was also the very first time that he said he loved me, and i said it back.
around this time in the relationship, tyler had begun to notice a problem with my, ahem, downstairs area. he voiced it to me and i immediately made a doctor's appointment, because i knew if i didn't, he would just continue to mention it until i did. i had gotten used to his persuasion methods by this point. i was tested for and confirmed that i had bv, bacterial vaginosis. it causes a fishy smell and taste, especially after sexual activity. i had no other symptoms. the doctor gave me pills to take for a week and then i'd be cured.
i also was having issues with my birth control pill. i was having breakthrough bleeding almost every month, bleeding two out of the four weeks of pills. the breakthrough bleeding was always light and always a nuisance. it created an aversion to sex because i was disgusted with myself and my body. fishy smell/taste AND blood that shouldn't be there? i was a vagina monster.
this became so disheartening to me that i brought it up with tyler. i asked if breakthrough bleeding bothered him enough to not want to have sex. he said no, as long as we put a towel down. i was so relieved because being intimate with tyler was something i truly enjoyed.
i tried different brands of birth control pills. if it got rid of the breakthrough bleeding, it messed with my moods. if i still breakthrough bled, i was fine emotionally. this went on for many months of our relationship, putting a strain on us. as well as the birth control pills being a problem, i was having recurring attacks of bv. i was given the vaginal gel the second time i was diagnosed, and used it almost every month for a while. it was so embarrassing and i always felt disgusted with myself and my body. why couldn't it be normal for a change, so i could have regular sex with my boyfriend?
anyway, back to the relationship. in mid-november, tyler asked me if he could have lunch with his most recent ex-girlfriend for the second time. the first time was in september, fresh into our relationship. i didn't want to come off as the jealous girlfriend, so i said yes to him having lunch with her. it killed me both times he did it.
the second time was on a wednesday. i spent an hour with him before he walked off to meet her for lunch. as i walked to my class, i was trying not to cry. when i made it to the building and the room, i was already late. but i dropped my backpack in an empty chair and left for the bathroom without permission. i shut myself in a stall and cried for about ten minutes. after i cleaned myself up, i headed back to class. a passing professor glared at me, thinking my red eyes were because i was high. i ignored him and the rest of my day continued to get worse.
tyler met up with me for the evening bus ride home and i asked how the lunch went. he said it went fine, told me some story about her, and my stomach turned as i pretended to listen. after he finished, i said, "i don't think i'm comfortable with you having lunch with her anymore. it made my day worse, i cried on the way to class thinking about you and her..." he rubbed my back and said he understood and was sorry that he had hurt me.
i thought that was the end of her, but no. she occasionally texted him, and it always seemed to be when i was hanging out with him. i wanted to spit fire any time i saw her name light up on his phone. she continued to be a nuisance all the way until the end of our relationship.
back on subject, let's skip to my birthday. tyler didn't automatically say he'd come back for my birthday. it was over thanksgiving break, which meant he'd be home for the week. i was hurt. my own boyfriend didn't think that i'd want to see him on my special day? it basically took me bringing it up to him more than once before he said that he'd try to make arrangements to make it back in time for my birthday. to my delight, he did, although a very sick tyler. he met my mother and the rest of my family. we eventually went back to my place, watched a movie, and he left around ten o'clock because he was exhausted and sick. no birthday sex for me, which really bummed me out.
then winter break comes along. a whole month without tyler. i chose to stay in my apartment instead of flying home to stay with family, so i was pretty bored. tyler and i talked on the phone every night around ten o'clock. he hardly ever texted me during the day, which had seriously begun to stress me out. i was used to constant texts from my previous boyfriend. i didn't ask for constant texts, but i brought it up to tyler that texting makes me happy. it showed that he was thinking of me and that made me smile. he understood and said that he'd try to be better about texting me.
tyler decided to visit me about mid-break. i was ecstatic. he drove down from his house, spent the night, and drove back the next evening. i didn't want him to leave and it clearly showed on my face. i was holding back tears and tyler could sense it. he asked why i was so upset and said that he would be coming back. i told him that i knew that and it's just that i'll miss him. he left, i watched him drive off, and i cried. tyler addressed this issue later over the phone, saying that he had never seen such desperation on someone's face, that it looked like he had just broken up with me. i shrugged and said that it was normal for me to do that. i didn't think my level of sadness was uncalled for at all.
around this time, tyler began to want to help with my sleep issues. i tried to tell him that i was fine, i'd dealt with it for years and was at peace with the fact that i was an insomniac. but i knew tyler's ways. he continued to bring it up, saying it could help with my anxiety. i made an appointment with my psychiatrist, brought it up, and she prescribed me anti-anxiety pills that doubled as sleep aids as well as daytime anxiety-relievers. once again, tyler was happy, so i was happy.
as a side note, i moved apartments over winter break. my roommates were bullying me via facebook and stalking my tumblr, which i didn't know they knew i had, so drama ensued. i was approved for a move because of security breech. i packed, moved, and unpacked all of my stuff in a single day with the help of my uncle and grandfather. i also did this while i had an ear infection and was battling that, so i exhausted myself. but yeah, spring semester = completely new apartment and roommates.
the weekend before classes started up again, i randomly and without telling anyone about it drove an hour to a place in the country to get a twelve-week old black pomeranian puppy. dogs were not allowed in university housing, which is what i was classified as, but i didn't do anything else bad so what could housing a dog get me? a warning at the most, if i was caught. i had named him colby, which was tyler's middle name.
a few days after i got colby, i confronted tyler about why he was acting so distant. he said he didn't like that i'd name him with his middle name. it was clingy and uncomfortable to him. it also bothered him that i didn't talk to him about it before doing it. he said it affected us both, because what if we wanted to sleep over? i renamed the dog shadow, but two weeks after buying him, i sold him to another family. i thought he was a sickly dog and i couldn't afford the vet bills for him anymore. i later found out that it was the food he was eating, but there was also the matter of potty-training a small puppy from the second floor of an apartment building in the winter with snow on the ground. so i was free of the dog and things continue on as they were.
at one point, tyler decided to take it upon himself to get me to start drinking. not because he was a huge drinker himself, but because i was having anxieties and aversion toward it. we tried wine and i hated it. he didn't understand why i didn't want to drink, so he kept pushing the question, "why?" this went on for a few weeks, if i remember correctly. randomly one night, after again asking me why, he stopped. he said, "i've decided to stop pressuring you about drinking. i'll let you decide if and when you want to drink." i was relieved and thanked him, and he really did keep to his word.
i eventually turned to vodka, first with screwdrivers and then with straight shots. the second time we did shots, tyler introduced me to the computer game "starcraft 2." we made a deal that for every game i won against the computer, tyler would take a shot. i took some shots with him. i stopped at five and a half shots, while tyler made it to seven. and again, his medication doubles the effect of alcohol on him. he was funny for a few minutes after his last shot, then he got sick. i felt bad and we went to bed kinda late, then tyler had a hangover the next morning.
spring break rolled around and tyler had invited me to his house to meet his family and friends. i was so happy, because i perceived it as him wanting to get more serious with me. i could really see a future with him. i fantasized about it frequently. anyway, i meet his family and i just adored them. plus his house was way out in the country. across the street was a fence and the people had horses! his yard was huge and his house was the only one for a good while. i grew to love it there. his mother became like a second mother to me and i loved his younger brothers and pets. i had a wonderful time.
then tyler began to talk to me about shrooms. he said it was a great experience and it was one of the drugs he tries to do at least once a year. he told me that you can't overdose on it, etc etc. i eventually said that i'd do it with him and he bought them from a friend. tyler turned the lights off, turned on his red lava lamp (the lamp we usually had on when we had sex), and made a playlist of all "explosions in the sky" albums. we laid on his bed the whole night, first just listening to the music and then talking about things we were thinking about.
then tyler changed. he started hitting me, biting me, calling me names, cursing me out, and then just not talking to me. i kept saying, "you're not my tyler, you're not my tyler!" i helped him get ready for bed and i'd planned on spending the night. but as soon as we laid down again, his phone buzzed. a text from his most recent ex-girlfriend, saying she was in a bar and thinking of him. he says out loud, "she'll be fine, she's smart..." referring to her being okay alone in a bar because she was smart, but it pissed me off. i left and went home, where my roommates were still awake. they were party-ers and were playing some dance game on the wii, but i went in and vented to them about tyler's ex-girlfriend and told them that i was tripping on shrooms. then i went to bed.
the one time i went home my freshman year of college was for easter weekend, but it was really planned because we were putting my dog, jasmine, down. it was very depressing for me and i hated being home with an intense passion. it held awful memories and i missed being on my own. i missed tyler, but he was very different this weekend. i thought he would want to comfort me in the loss of my first dog, the dog i grew up with, and he knew how much animals meant to me. but no, he hardly texted me at all. he would ask if i was okay, but what am i supposed to say to that? then he didn't know why i was upset with him. i told him that i'd want to talk about anything else, something completely random, instead of him constantly asking me if i was okay. because no, i was not okay. i was grieving hard. but he just didn't understand.
summer rolls around and i decide to stay in columbia instead of moving home, because i was taking a summer class the entire month of june, and because my family was going to be moving at the beginning of august anyway. but tyler moved home and i was alone again. we talked on the phone mostly every night and texted somewhat regularly. we had promised to try to visit each other every three weeks. we never made it to three weeks. we visited each other about every two weeks or so, mostly me visiting him because he had a summer job. i grew very close to his family and enjoyed seeing them very much. they treated me like i was already part of their family and it felt great.
i also took advantage of summer counseling from the university. i wanted to do some cbt about my anxiety and depression. the therapist i was seeing was only there for the summer and she left toward the middle of july. at that point, i was tired of having weekly sessions that wore me out, because i just talked the whole time about personal stuff. there was hardly any cbt involved until the last few sessions. i stopped going after she left, much to tyler's dismay. he wanted me to continue counseling.
as summer came to a close, i moved into a three-bedroom condo that was directly down the street from the apartments i used to live in, and where tyler would be living that semester. i wanted my own space because i would be housing my cat and family dog, because my family moved to hawaii on my father's air force orders. a four-bedroom apartment with three roommates was not an ideal living situation for myself and my pets. tyler helped me move some of my things into my new home, while my family helped with the rest.
tyler moved back later that month. then he switched apartments almost immediately and i helped him move his stuff from one level of the apartment building to the third. it was very tiresome.
the semester started and we were both busy with classes again. he hardly ever wanted to come over to my place to hang out, and i didn't much like going to his place, either. sometimes we couldn't be arsed to leave our homes, so we didn't hang out some nights. this is where the distancing began.
i had started a job in the summer that i decided to keep throughout the semester. it was a kennel attendant job at an animal hospital. we took out the dogs, cleaned the cages, and fed/watered them and the cats. i loved it at first and for a while into it, but it eventually got to be too much of a cleaning job and not enough interacting with the animals, so i quit around november. anyway, this is important for the next story.
i had work around 4pm. i also had an appointment with my psychiatrist at 2pm. just to be safe and not have to worry about catching a bus home, i texted tyler at 1pm, asking for a ride home from the hospital. i gave him basically 3hrs notice. he didn't answer my texts or my calls. none of them. i tried for those full three hours and it was important to me that he drive me home, because i hate being late for work. i ended up very late coming out of the hospital and ended up catching the 4pm bus, which is when i was supposed to be at work. i was infuriated! i rode the bus all the way to the apartment complex and went to tyler's apartment. at this point, i wanted to see if he was home and even alive, because i was having awful images of him being kidnapped or thrown into a ditch on the side of the road somewhere. i'm a worrier and my imagination doesn't help.
imagine my anger when i saw him sitting at his computer with headphones on. i said, "hey!" and he looked up at me, clearly very confused as to why i was there. "i've been texting and calling you," i said. he got up without a word and buried his hands in his backpack, looking for his phone. he got it out and scrolled through it while i continued to bash into him. "why didn't you have your phone? i needed you! you weren't there for me when i needed you and now i'm late for work!" all he could muster up at first were quiet 'i'm sorry's, before he started to fight back.
"it was only three hours," he argued. "i thought you were dead! i thought you were kidnapped or hidden behind some bush or in a ditch somewhere!" i said. "that's stupid," he said. i continued to yell at him before i excused myself, because i was already half an hour late for work. i turned my back on him and just left. i was furious and felt betrayed. i was only asking him to be there for me.
it's hard for me to think about, but in reality, he wasn't ever there when i needed him. i would ask for a favor or say that i really wanted to see him that night, and it wouldn't happen. i constantly felt rejected by the guy who supposedly loved me.
tyler then thought i was being too dependent on him, and he didn't want that in a relationship. he thought i had "father hunger," which is basically a father complex. my relationship with my father is practically non-existant, and tyler's immediate response is, "that's not normal." so i threw myself back into counseling, for him.
after bringing this up, our relationship grew rocky, but i was oblivious to it. tyler and i celebrated our one year anniversary in the beginning of september and i really thought that i was going to be with him for a long time. i brought up marriage and stuff, which kind of shocked tyler. he had a whole future for himself planned out until he was about thirty-years old, to a freaking t. i always thought that i would do what my mom did-- graduate college and get married straight afterward. that's just how i'd always seen it. but tyler didn't want that, and i didn't want to wait years and years to get married. so we kind of agreed to disagree on this subject for the time being.
then that fateful night rolled around... i had already done two shots at my house before tyler invited me over. i did a third shot at his place and offered some to him, but he didn't want to drink. my memory is fuzzy of how we got to the subject, but tyler began to tell me that he didn't feel comfortable in the relationship anymore. he said that he'd give it a week and we'd readdress it then. i said no, that i didn't want to put off the inevitable. if he wanted to break up with me, then he should do it.
so he did. he began to say how much he enjoyed our relationship, how he was glad i met me, how he wanted to stay friends if possible. my listening faded out as i started to cry. i just couldn't believe it. and he never gave me a straight answer as to why he was breaking up with me, so i was just so confused. he said he'd drive me home, and when we both stood by the dresser where his keys were, we both noticed his eyeglasses. the only reason he got them was because i thought he looked hot in them. we looked at the glasses, then at each other. he smiled weakly before his chin quivered and he began to cry himself. he went back to the bed and sat on the edge of it, head in his hands as he cried. i put my head on his back and shed a few more tears, as well. i couldn't believe it.
the few months after the breakup felt like hell. we were still trying to be friends, and still hung out pretty regularly. but he met a girl a month and a half after our breakup. naturally, i was hurt. how could he move on so fast?
there was one night in particular where we had texted each other about hanging out that night. when evening rolled around, i texted him with no response. i called a time or two with no answer. i thought, "what the hell, i thought we were supposed to hang out?" seven or eight o'clock rolled around and i finally said, to hell with this, i'm going over there.
his roommates answered the door and i apologized for bothering them. i said that tyler and i were supposed to hang out and he wasn't answering his phone. one of his roommates went to knock on his door. he told him that i was here and i waited by the door. tyler stumbled out, his face groggy from sleep.
"hey, i thought we were supposed to hang out?" i said. "i don't know, i didn't mean tonight," he muttered. "well that's what i took it as," i said. we were standing in the living room at this point, having this conversation as his roommates lingered in the room.
"can we go back to your room?" i asked, making a step forward before he stopped me. "i was taking a nap," he said. "so?" i asked. "i wasn't taking a nap alone," he said.
"WHAT?"
millions of things ran through my mind at once. he was sleeping with her. he was SLEEPING with HER. in his bed. in his bed we've FUCKED and SLEPT on! i was trying to decide between running into his room and bitching the girl out or continue to bitch out tyler. he made my decision for me and ushered me outside onto their porch, shutting the door behind us. there were camping chairs on his patio and we sat in them. i don't remember the exact conversation, but i got angry enough to cry. i also said multiple times that i wanted to meet her, right now. he agreed the first few times i said it, but then began to say that i was too emotional to civilly meet her at that point in time. i argued that i was just going to go in, introduce myself, and leave. he said, "that's what you THINK you'll do, but you're going to go in there and as soon as you see her, you'll start crying again and cause a scene."
that did it. i broke down crying harder than i could remember doing since the breakup. i repeated, "you don't care about me, you just don't fucking care about me anymore." the rest of our conversation is a blur, but i didn't stop crying. i drove home, sat in my chair, and called my mother. when she answered, i sobbed into the phone, "he was in bed with another girl..." "oh my god," she said, as i continued to cry and attempt to tell her what had happened. she didn't say much advice as much as she said, "oh my god," over and over, but at least she listened. she was my only friend at that point.
after that, tyler and i stopped hanging out. we saw each other maybe once a week, where he would come over to my place for an hour or so and we would talk, which always ended up with me crying, he'd leave, and i'd feel even worse about myself after he left. i tried to say that i was over him, tried to convince myself and tyler that i was over him. but one time when he was over, he said that he didn't think i was really over him. i cried, again, and shook my head. "i'm not over you," i said. "i still love you..." he didn't really respond.
he didn't end up going out with this girl, even though i'd found out that they had kissed a few times, which definitely hurt. our relationship was down to emailing, once or twice a week. i would ask how things were going with his life, but he never asked me about mine. he only answered direct questions i asked him. i kept saying that he wasn't making me feel like a friend very much at all. he then, in some weird and confusing type of way, basically said i wasn't a friend to him. that's when i emailed him back and said that i was done talking to him.
that was around january, and i didn't talk to or email him for two months. i went through the deepest depression, dug myself quite a hole of guilt and heartbreak. i was worse than rock bottom. i had failed out of my spring semester because i stopped going to classes and doing the work, due to my depression and heartbreak. i began to not give a flying fuck. i said that i was going to find a job and just work around mid-december. but then i had a few days of major guilt about not continuing my education, so i jumped into online classes at the community college that began january 9th. i'd forgotten that i'd lost motivation to actually DO the shit that they wanted me to, and i was already behind within a few days of starting. i was so overwhelmed with this that i contemplated just dropping all of my classes and working, like i'd planned before. my mother told me to buckle down and raise my grades, but my dad said that i was an adult and could make my own decisions. i quit the classes about a month into them and began my search for a job.
after about mid-january, i started putting my personal ad up on craigslist. i wanted to meet someone new and hopefully start a new relationship. i ended up meeting about ten guys within a few months and sleeping with four of them. it was a slew of one-night stands and dating that only lasted a week to a month long. i went from guy to guy, just wanting attention, but i never met anyone worthwhile. the one guy i thought would make it, i dated for a month. and on valentine's day, he raped me anally. nice, huh?
it took me two months to find a job. at the beginning of march, i began to think about tyler again. nothing about getting back together with him or anything. just wanting to know how he was doing. so i shot him an email. he was studying for the GRE, so he was busy. i suggested meeting up for lunch and he said that he wouldn't be opposed to it, just that it be after his GRE. i agreed and waited until the date of his test had passed before i sent another email.
we met up at panera. he mistakenly told me the wrong time to meet, so we only had half an hour to chat before he had to go to work. it wasn't enough time to get my answers. i wanted closure and to seek his friendship again. neither were properly addressed. so about a week later, we met up at panera again, this time with two hours to talk.
i regret going to this lunch meeting. i found out that tyler had thought about breaking up with me months before he actually did. i found out that he had no plans to break up with his new girlfriend, who he started dating about three months after our breakup (the reason this bothered me is because at our first lunch, he told me that he was thinking of breaking things off with her). i found out that he couldn't be my friend.
i left our lunch crying. the one person i trusted and felt comfortable around, the only real friend i've made since high school, and he couldn't be my friend. he felt that he would get in the way of me growing on my own. he also had a girlfriend, and i was his ex. it didn't need any more explaining, but i wanted so bad not to believe it.
i was depressed for a week after this lunch, the last day being especially depressing. i was crying over everything, contemplating cutting and suicide. i texted my mom, tyler's mom, and tyler himself. my mom suggested moving home, tyler's mom suggested counseling and a new hobby. tyler, well, he went full psychologist on me. i had thought that if i truly felt that i needed him, that he would come. he would be by my side and everything would seem better. but he said no. it was a hard night.
i'm writing all of this down, this extremely long story of a year and a half of my life, because i hope it helps me get over him. i mean, i'm over not being with him. i just need to get over losing him as a friend too, even though he said that he wanted my friendship.
i'm on okcupid and match.com right now, and occasionally putting my personal ad back up on craigslist. i'm focusing on working to pay the bills and rent. i'm focusing on the possibility of getting a dog. right now, i'm just going through the motions.
so i suppose i'll sign off on this. goodbye, tyler. i truly thought you were the one for me, but i guess not. though i currently say it with a bitter tone, i wish you the best for your life.
edit: 7/7/12// i found out that tyler is in a relationship with a new girl. we were emailing during the first week they were together and he did not mention this. i stumbled upon it when i went to his facebook profile and saw that he’d changed his relationship status. i was… furious? hurt? upset? i was an emotional wreck.
first, i shot him a quick email. i basically asked when he had planned on letting me know he was in a new relationship and that i was confused, because last i spoke with him, he said he wanted to stay single for a while. then i said that he made me sick to my stomach.
this anger, frustration, betrayal, what-have-you, just bubbled in my blood before i couldn’t just sit around anymore. i decided that i wanted no further contact with him. at all. ever. no facebook, emailing, lunches… nothing. so i went over to his apartment. (wow rereading that, i realize it makes no sense, but it does if you keep reading).
needless to say, he was extremely surprised to see me. the very first thing i asked him to do was go get his phone. no hellos, no “how are you’s.” when he came back (we were outside on his patio btw), i asked him to delete my number because i wanted no further contact with him. he was speechless. he wanted to know why. he wanted to know what caused me to come to this conclusion.
and then, we talked. and talked. he didn’t want to delete every single way of contact with me. i was a big part of his life. he still cared about how i was doing, how my life was going, etc. being in his presence and feeling that familiar-ness almost made me decide not to go through with what i has planned. but i knew deep down that i needed to initiate the no-contact thing. not wanted- needed. i had to create more distance to be able to put him further in the back of my mind.
so i made him delete my phone number from his phone. i’ve already deleted and blocked him on facebook. i sent him an email with photo attachments from when we were together (since he had none, and i figured it’d help him deal with ‘losing me’ better). after he replies that he received the email, i’m deleting that email account. after that, he will only know where i live.
he’s said that if this is what i wanted in order to be able to move forward in my life, that even though he was sad to do so, he would respect my wishes. he wouldn’t bother me by coming over or anything. i gave him my roommate’s name and some description, so that if for any reason he needed to contact me, he could send her a facebook message and she’d let me know. that’s the only way he can contact me, besides coming over uninvited (which i did tonight to him, but that’s beside the point).
i feel really good. my mom told me not to go over there, but i did it anyway. she’s kinda annoyed with me, but whatever. every time i saw tyler on facebook, saw an email from him… i just became furious. that tends to happen with my exes. he still wanted to be friends, but his definition of friend was emailing every few months and maybe getting lunch once in a while. MY definition of a friend is hanging out, being allowed to text, being there for one another. we weren’t ever going to reach a friend-compromise, so yeah. no contact.
should be good.
that afternoon, i was back on campus and leaving my art class. most people finished their classes by 3pm, but my art class didn't end until near 5pm. i was on one of the last buses scheduled before it turned to the night bus schedule, which had a completely different location and didn't go directly to my apartment complex. i got to the bus stop and scrolled through the music on my ipod touch. then he walked over and stood near me. i took out my earbuds and began to wrap them up when he took out his zune. i mentally groaned, missing my opportunity to possibly talk to him, and started to put my earbuds back in.
"are you done with classes for the day?" i looked up and saw that he had put his zune back into his backpack, and was looking directly at me. i smiled and said, "yeah, how about you?" he said yes, probably along with something else, but i was too distracted keeping eye contact with him. he was so cute, almost beautiful in a way. he had a lip ring, which i took to pretty quickly. a "bad boy," talking to me! i was as giddy as a school girl, my heart racing and my stomach filled with butterflies.
he held out his hand. "i'm tyler," he said. i shook his hand, saying, "i'm alexis."
"nice to meet you." i was sure i was blushing at this point, though i'd never really thought i was a blushing kind of person.
the bus arrived and we got on. tyler gestured to the seat next to him and i sat down. we conversed a bit about random things. i showed him an art piece i was working on, he shared his interest in stumbleupon and recommended it to me. i showed him my pepper spray, which was attached to my lanyard of keys. he told me a story about how his father had mace that could kill a bear. immediately after he finished, he paused and said, "i don't know why i told you that." i giggled, thinking i was making him just as fluttery as i was.
we got back to the apartments and he said, "see you around" before heading to his room. i smiled all the way back to my room before realizing that i probably wouldn't see him again until wednesday. i remember that tuesday going very slowly, and i might have even gone to bed early that night, anticipating the possibility of seeing tyler again.
it was a rainy wednesday morning. curses. i had my mizzou umbrella up as i walked to the bus stop, extremely eager to see if tyler would be there. sure enough, he was there amongst the group of students waiting for the bus. i walked up to him, covered his head with my umbrella, and smiled. he smiled back and said good morning.
we ended up on the shorter bus, standing near the door. i found out that it's extremely difficult to stand on a bus packed full of wet students as it moves, but my full attention was on tyler. he was asking me questions, one of which was what my religion was. i said that i was agnostic/atheist, because i thought there was no real proof of a god and found it silly and a waste of time to devote myself to something i didn't believe in. he said that he was the same.
we got off the bus and tyler said, "do you mind?" as he hopped under my umbrella. i smiled (to be honest, i probably never stopped smiling the whole bus ride) and said, "not at all." he continued to ask me questions as we walked to class. i jokingly asked him if i was just his research subject. he laughed, shook his head, and said, "no, you're more to me than a test subject." my heart raced and i'm sure my eyes lit up, innocent and hopeful. we arrived at his class building and parted. i was anxious for the day to end so i could see him at the bus stop later that evening.
we rode home together and he asked if i'd be interested in coming over. i remember now, it was because he was trying to type me with his knowledge of the myers-briggs type indicator. he had me read a type description on the computer as he did other things. it didn't sound like me, so he clicked to another one. i said that this one sounded much more like me and he smiled. "we have the same personality type," he said. he explained that we were the rarest of types, only about 3% of the population. i didn't remember it at the time and had to ask him later for the type, but that is how i began to identify myself as an INFJ.
we shared our similarities, made tilapia and potatoes for dinner, he shared a favorite song of his and a video game. we shared things about ourselves that we had never told another person before. we had just become friends that day, but honestly felt like we'd known each other for years.
by the time i felt tired, it was nearly two in the morning. i said i had to go get some sleep, because i had a class at 9.30am. he wrote down his building and room number, along with his phone number. i still have this piece of paper. his handwriting is very neat.
i believe i went over to his apartment again the next day. i remember that i was cramping pretty bad, but didn't have any pain relievers and i was most certainly not going to leave this pretty boy's side. the day we first hung out and the day we got together is kind of fuzzy, but i think it was a back-to-back thing.
we were watching tv in his living room, sitting awkwardly on the couch together. it was midnight and he turned the television off suddenly. he said, "i don't really know how to say this, so i'll just come out with it-- i like you." i'm sure he said some other things, but i was so busy rejoicing in my head that i didn't pay attention. when he was done talking, i said, "well, i feel the same." there was a silence that fell between us, which i felt the need to break by saying, "so, what are we gonna do about it?" i said it meaning to get a response of whether he wanted to be in a relationship or not. but he smiled and pushed his head closer to mine, his eyes glancing at me through his long eyelashes. that was our first kiss.
and so began our relationship. the very first friend i had made at college, and he just happened to become my boyfriend.
that weekend was a three-day weekend. my three roommates all went home and i was left alone. i invited tyler over on one of the nights and we watched a movie together. i had told him that i couldn't watch scary movies because i'd get nightmares. his very first instinct was to have me watch a horror movie. nice, right? i told him, "if i have nightmares, i will be complaining to you!" the movie was "30 days later." after it was over and we discussed my thoughts on the movie, we were both on the couch again awkwardly. i'm sure i said something along the lines of, "so what now?" tyler's response was to pin me down on the couch and make out with me. it got very heated. his hands slid up my shirt and grasped me gently through my bra.
he stopped and suggested we go back to my room. we stood up and i held his hand, leading him to my room. we shut the door and laid on my bed, resuming what we were previously doing. my shirt and bra came off in the process, as did his shirt, and that was the first time i had ever felt attracted to a shirtless male. he was skinny, you see. rail thin, just like me. he was also pale, which made the light shining through my window bounce off of him. he gently held, squeezed, kissed, and licked my breasts for what felt like hours. i finally gathered the courage to touch him through his jeans. our fondling of each other went on until we just stopped, unable or unwilling to go further. we laid in my bed together, letting our bare chests touch gingerly.
"i really like your breasts," he whispered, smiling at me. "really?" i asked and he nodded. he then told me that he was sorry for not having an erection. i was puzzled by this because he sure felt hard when i was touching him. he explained that his anti-depressant causes him to not be able to get and erection, and if by some miracle he does, it's near impossible to get him to climax. i started feeling bummed, but then he told me that he took adderall. he had to take it three times a day and it helped him get erections and keep them. we were fooling around after it had worn off, though. it was late at night and the medication had worn off around ten o'clock or so. i got it, but didn't really understand how it would really affect our intimacy.
it was over that weekend that we became "facebook official," though we didn't attach each other's names to it. i did it this way because i'm friends with a lot of my family on facebook, and i didn't want them checking his page to see if he was suitable for me or not, blah blah blah. tyler agreed and was fine with this arrangement.
tyler was a psychology major, and i quickly realized that i was basically dating a therapist. he wanted to help me with everything. he wanted to get me on every single medication possible so that i was somewhat "normal." previous to meeting tyler, i was on the same anti-depressant for about three years. i had plenty of relapses though, and tyler said that it was not normal to do that. when he asked me about changing medications, i shrugged it off and said, "i could, but i'm too lazy to." meaning i didn't want to go through the switching of medicines, feeling different, etc.
but tyler pressed on. he insisted that i make an appointment with the university's psychiatrist. i did and it was set for the first week in november. it was near the end of september at the time, and because i was a new student in the mental health department, the wait for an appointment was longer. but i booked it and tyler was thrilled. we had the same psychiatrist by coincidence, but tyler was glad that i was going to meet with her.
any time that he could, he brought up changing my anti-depressant. he went on about how much better i'd feel, how much healthier our relationship would be, how it would just be great all around. i remember that it was a battle with my mother on changing medications. she thought i was just doing it because my new boyfriend said to do so. which, to some extent, i was. but i was doing it so he would shut up about it, honestly.
then came some evening that tyler and i had a disagreement. i believe it was his take on drugs and alcohol clashing with my lack of doing either. i had never done any drugs, had never smoked anything, and had never had any alcohol in my life before i met him. he, on the other hand, had a history of doing hard drugs. he was on meth for a while.
anyway, he was trying to convince me to smoke a cigar with him. i strongly said no and stook to my feelings about it, but he didn't understand my aversion to it. he went ahead and smoked some of it, then put it out. i just felt so distant from him at that time. he didn't understand and i lacked the means of proper communication to convey my feelings about it. so i went home feeling like shit. i ridiculed myself mercilessly in my head for it, making me feel worse and worse. then i made it to the point where i had to release it somehow. i broke my over-a-year-long record of not cutting that night.
i texted tyler about it and he was already asleep. but i just wanted him to know, instead of trying to hide it from him. i mean, it was on my left forearm. it was going to be pretty hard to hide. i believe we had already begun being intimate at the time, so i knew i had to tell him. i also caved and said that i'd call the mental health department the next day to see if i could get an earlier appointment with one of the clinical nurses, because i was feeling suicidal. an appointment was made for that friday, no questions asked. it was the beginning of october at this point.
i wrapped my cuts in a bandage and tried to forget about them. when i hung out with tyler the next day or so, he was very distant. he was playing his computer game while i sat on his bed. i took his attention away from it and put it on me. we had somewhat quick sex and directly afterwards, he was back on the computer. no snuggling, no talking, nothing. i felt rejected and eventually went back to my apartment, ashamed.
i don't remember if this took place over text or in person, but he basically told me that my cutting had made him feel very uncomfortable and distant from me. he said that until i was put on new medication and feeling better, he was banning intimacy with me. for some people, this might not be a big deal. but to me, it was a huge deal. i literally was being rejected by him, for something i had no control over, no less! and the intimacy i shared with tyler was unlike any other person i'd been with. it was addicting, to say the least, so knowing that it was banned devastated me.
i went to my appointment with the nurse practitioner and was prescribed a higher dose of the medication i was already on. i started taking it that day and hung out with tyler that night. while we were eating a dinner we had worked together to make, he smiled at me and said, "have you noticed how much more you're smiling and laughing? i didn't think i'd see a change until one to two weeks from now, but i can see that it's already affected you. this is the most i've heard you talk since we met." i blushed and smiled, glad that it had finally happened and tyler was happy with the results. and when he was happy, i was happy.
come the first week of november and tyler's birthday. i bought him a t-shirt and a gift card to game stop, as well as baked him a wonderful cake. i put so much effort into preparing this cake and was so proud of the results. his birthday was on a sunday, so he'd gone home for that weekend. i was lonely, but waited for sunday to roll around so i could spend time with him on his birthday. the night before, tyler had gone to a party with his friends and drank a new kind of beer. it had twice the alcohol content of regular beer and tyler's medications double the effect, as well. i didn't hear from him until around 3pm on his birthday, saying that he had just got up. he explained that he had, in reality, drank 15-20 beers the night before. his hangover was the worst he'd ever had.
i didn't think he'd be able to drive home, but he managed to later in the day. i went over pretty late in the evening with my cake and present. he was touched by the cake and said that his own mother hadn't even gotten/made him a cake. that made me feel special. he was very exhausted from the day and we didn't spend much time together. i gave him some birthday sex, though. this was also the very first time that he said he loved me, and i said it back.
around this time in the relationship, tyler had begun to notice a problem with my, ahem, downstairs area. he voiced it to me and i immediately made a doctor's appointment, because i knew if i didn't, he would just continue to mention it until i did. i had gotten used to his persuasion methods by this point. i was tested for and confirmed that i had bv, bacterial vaginosis. it causes a fishy smell and taste, especially after sexual activity. i had no other symptoms. the doctor gave me pills to take for a week and then i'd be cured.
i also was having issues with my birth control pill. i was having breakthrough bleeding almost every month, bleeding two out of the four weeks of pills. the breakthrough bleeding was always light and always a nuisance. it created an aversion to sex because i was disgusted with myself and my body. fishy smell/taste AND blood that shouldn't be there? i was a vagina monster.
this became so disheartening to me that i brought it up with tyler. i asked if breakthrough bleeding bothered him enough to not want to have sex. he said no, as long as we put a towel down. i was so relieved because being intimate with tyler was something i truly enjoyed.
i tried different brands of birth control pills. if it got rid of the breakthrough bleeding, it messed with my moods. if i still breakthrough bled, i was fine emotionally. this went on for many months of our relationship, putting a strain on us. as well as the birth control pills being a problem, i was having recurring attacks of bv. i was given the vaginal gel the second time i was diagnosed, and used it almost every month for a while. it was so embarrassing and i always felt disgusted with myself and my body. why couldn't it be normal for a change, so i could have regular sex with my boyfriend?
anyway, back to the relationship. in mid-november, tyler asked me if he could have lunch with his most recent ex-girlfriend for the second time. the first time was in september, fresh into our relationship. i didn't want to come off as the jealous girlfriend, so i said yes to him having lunch with her. it killed me both times he did it.
the second time was on a wednesday. i spent an hour with him before he walked off to meet her for lunch. as i walked to my class, i was trying not to cry. when i made it to the building and the room, i was already late. but i dropped my backpack in an empty chair and left for the bathroom without permission. i shut myself in a stall and cried for about ten minutes. after i cleaned myself up, i headed back to class. a passing professor glared at me, thinking my red eyes were because i was high. i ignored him and the rest of my day continued to get worse.
tyler met up with me for the evening bus ride home and i asked how the lunch went. he said it went fine, told me some story about her, and my stomach turned as i pretended to listen. after he finished, i said, "i don't think i'm comfortable with you having lunch with her anymore. it made my day worse, i cried on the way to class thinking about you and her..." he rubbed my back and said he understood and was sorry that he had hurt me.
i thought that was the end of her, but no. she occasionally texted him, and it always seemed to be when i was hanging out with him. i wanted to spit fire any time i saw her name light up on his phone. she continued to be a nuisance all the way until the end of our relationship.
back on subject, let's skip to my birthday. tyler didn't automatically say he'd come back for my birthday. it was over thanksgiving break, which meant he'd be home for the week. i was hurt. my own boyfriend didn't think that i'd want to see him on my special day? it basically took me bringing it up to him more than once before he said that he'd try to make arrangements to make it back in time for my birthday. to my delight, he did, although a very sick tyler. he met my mother and the rest of my family. we eventually went back to my place, watched a movie, and he left around ten o'clock because he was exhausted and sick. no birthday sex for me, which really bummed me out.
then winter break comes along. a whole month without tyler. i chose to stay in my apartment instead of flying home to stay with family, so i was pretty bored. tyler and i talked on the phone every night around ten o'clock. he hardly ever texted me during the day, which had seriously begun to stress me out. i was used to constant texts from my previous boyfriend. i didn't ask for constant texts, but i brought it up to tyler that texting makes me happy. it showed that he was thinking of me and that made me smile. he understood and said that he'd try to be better about texting me.
tyler decided to visit me about mid-break. i was ecstatic. he drove down from his house, spent the night, and drove back the next evening. i didn't want him to leave and it clearly showed on my face. i was holding back tears and tyler could sense it. he asked why i was so upset and said that he would be coming back. i told him that i knew that and it's just that i'll miss him. he left, i watched him drive off, and i cried. tyler addressed this issue later over the phone, saying that he had never seen such desperation on someone's face, that it looked like he had just broken up with me. i shrugged and said that it was normal for me to do that. i didn't think my level of sadness was uncalled for at all.
around this time, tyler began to want to help with my sleep issues. i tried to tell him that i was fine, i'd dealt with it for years and was at peace with the fact that i was an insomniac. but i knew tyler's ways. he continued to bring it up, saying it could help with my anxiety. i made an appointment with my psychiatrist, brought it up, and she prescribed me anti-anxiety pills that doubled as sleep aids as well as daytime anxiety-relievers. once again, tyler was happy, so i was happy.
as a side note, i moved apartments over winter break. my roommates were bullying me via facebook and stalking my tumblr, which i didn't know they knew i had, so drama ensued. i was approved for a move because of security breech. i packed, moved, and unpacked all of my stuff in a single day with the help of my uncle and grandfather. i also did this while i had an ear infection and was battling that, so i exhausted myself. but yeah, spring semester = completely new apartment and roommates.
the weekend before classes started up again, i randomly and without telling anyone about it drove an hour to a place in the country to get a twelve-week old black pomeranian puppy. dogs were not allowed in university housing, which is what i was classified as, but i didn't do anything else bad so what could housing a dog get me? a warning at the most, if i was caught. i had named him colby, which was tyler's middle name.
a few days after i got colby, i confronted tyler about why he was acting so distant. he said he didn't like that i'd name him with his middle name. it was clingy and uncomfortable to him. it also bothered him that i didn't talk to him about it before doing it. he said it affected us both, because what if we wanted to sleep over? i renamed the dog shadow, but two weeks after buying him, i sold him to another family. i thought he was a sickly dog and i couldn't afford the vet bills for him anymore. i later found out that it was the food he was eating, but there was also the matter of potty-training a small puppy from the second floor of an apartment building in the winter with snow on the ground. so i was free of the dog and things continue on as they were.
at one point, tyler decided to take it upon himself to get me to start drinking. not because he was a huge drinker himself, but because i was having anxieties and aversion toward it. we tried wine and i hated it. he didn't understand why i didn't want to drink, so he kept pushing the question, "why?" this went on for a few weeks, if i remember correctly. randomly one night, after again asking me why, he stopped. he said, "i've decided to stop pressuring you about drinking. i'll let you decide if and when you want to drink." i was relieved and thanked him, and he really did keep to his word.
i eventually turned to vodka, first with screwdrivers and then with straight shots. the second time we did shots, tyler introduced me to the computer game "starcraft 2." we made a deal that for every game i won against the computer, tyler would take a shot. i took some shots with him. i stopped at five and a half shots, while tyler made it to seven. and again, his medication doubles the effect of alcohol on him. he was funny for a few minutes after his last shot, then he got sick. i felt bad and we went to bed kinda late, then tyler had a hangover the next morning.
spring break rolled around and tyler had invited me to his house to meet his family and friends. i was so happy, because i perceived it as him wanting to get more serious with me. i could really see a future with him. i fantasized about it frequently. anyway, i meet his family and i just adored them. plus his house was way out in the country. across the street was a fence and the people had horses! his yard was huge and his house was the only one for a good while. i grew to love it there. his mother became like a second mother to me and i loved his younger brothers and pets. i had a wonderful time.
then tyler began to talk to me about shrooms. he said it was a great experience and it was one of the drugs he tries to do at least once a year. he told me that you can't overdose on it, etc etc. i eventually said that i'd do it with him and he bought them from a friend. tyler turned the lights off, turned on his red lava lamp (the lamp we usually had on when we had sex), and made a playlist of all "explosions in the sky" albums. we laid on his bed the whole night, first just listening to the music and then talking about things we were thinking about.
then tyler changed. he started hitting me, biting me, calling me names, cursing me out, and then just not talking to me. i kept saying, "you're not my tyler, you're not my tyler!" i helped him get ready for bed and i'd planned on spending the night. but as soon as we laid down again, his phone buzzed. a text from his most recent ex-girlfriend, saying she was in a bar and thinking of him. he says out loud, "she'll be fine, she's smart..." referring to her being okay alone in a bar because she was smart, but it pissed me off. i left and went home, where my roommates were still awake. they were party-ers and were playing some dance game on the wii, but i went in and vented to them about tyler's ex-girlfriend and told them that i was tripping on shrooms. then i went to bed.
the one time i went home my freshman year of college was for easter weekend, but it was really planned because we were putting my dog, jasmine, down. it was very depressing for me and i hated being home with an intense passion. it held awful memories and i missed being on my own. i missed tyler, but he was very different this weekend. i thought he would want to comfort me in the loss of my first dog, the dog i grew up with, and he knew how much animals meant to me. but no, he hardly texted me at all. he would ask if i was okay, but what am i supposed to say to that? then he didn't know why i was upset with him. i told him that i'd want to talk about anything else, something completely random, instead of him constantly asking me if i was okay. because no, i was not okay. i was grieving hard. but he just didn't understand.
summer rolls around and i decide to stay in columbia instead of moving home, because i was taking a summer class the entire month of june, and because my family was going to be moving at the beginning of august anyway. but tyler moved home and i was alone again. we talked on the phone mostly every night and texted somewhat regularly. we had promised to try to visit each other every three weeks. we never made it to three weeks. we visited each other about every two weeks or so, mostly me visiting him because he had a summer job. i grew very close to his family and enjoyed seeing them very much. they treated me like i was already part of their family and it felt great.
i also took advantage of summer counseling from the university. i wanted to do some cbt about my anxiety and depression. the therapist i was seeing was only there for the summer and she left toward the middle of july. at that point, i was tired of having weekly sessions that wore me out, because i just talked the whole time about personal stuff. there was hardly any cbt involved until the last few sessions. i stopped going after she left, much to tyler's dismay. he wanted me to continue counseling.
as summer came to a close, i moved into a three-bedroom condo that was directly down the street from the apartments i used to live in, and where tyler would be living that semester. i wanted my own space because i would be housing my cat and family dog, because my family moved to hawaii on my father's air force orders. a four-bedroom apartment with three roommates was not an ideal living situation for myself and my pets. tyler helped me move some of my things into my new home, while my family helped with the rest.
tyler moved back later that month. then he switched apartments almost immediately and i helped him move his stuff from one level of the apartment building to the third. it was very tiresome.
the semester started and we were both busy with classes again. he hardly ever wanted to come over to my place to hang out, and i didn't much like going to his place, either. sometimes we couldn't be arsed to leave our homes, so we didn't hang out some nights. this is where the distancing began.
i had started a job in the summer that i decided to keep throughout the semester. it was a kennel attendant job at an animal hospital. we took out the dogs, cleaned the cages, and fed/watered them and the cats. i loved it at first and for a while into it, but it eventually got to be too much of a cleaning job and not enough interacting with the animals, so i quit around november. anyway, this is important for the next story.
i had work around 4pm. i also had an appointment with my psychiatrist at 2pm. just to be safe and not have to worry about catching a bus home, i texted tyler at 1pm, asking for a ride home from the hospital. i gave him basically 3hrs notice. he didn't answer my texts or my calls. none of them. i tried for those full three hours and it was important to me that he drive me home, because i hate being late for work. i ended up very late coming out of the hospital and ended up catching the 4pm bus, which is when i was supposed to be at work. i was infuriated! i rode the bus all the way to the apartment complex and went to tyler's apartment. at this point, i wanted to see if he was home and even alive, because i was having awful images of him being kidnapped or thrown into a ditch on the side of the road somewhere. i'm a worrier and my imagination doesn't help.
imagine my anger when i saw him sitting at his computer with headphones on. i said, "hey!" and he looked up at me, clearly very confused as to why i was there. "i've been texting and calling you," i said. he got up without a word and buried his hands in his backpack, looking for his phone. he got it out and scrolled through it while i continued to bash into him. "why didn't you have your phone? i needed you! you weren't there for me when i needed you and now i'm late for work!" all he could muster up at first were quiet 'i'm sorry's, before he started to fight back.
"it was only three hours," he argued. "i thought you were dead! i thought you were kidnapped or hidden behind some bush or in a ditch somewhere!" i said. "that's stupid," he said. i continued to yell at him before i excused myself, because i was already half an hour late for work. i turned my back on him and just left. i was furious and felt betrayed. i was only asking him to be there for me.
it's hard for me to think about, but in reality, he wasn't ever there when i needed him. i would ask for a favor or say that i really wanted to see him that night, and it wouldn't happen. i constantly felt rejected by the guy who supposedly loved me.
tyler then thought i was being too dependent on him, and he didn't want that in a relationship. he thought i had "father hunger," which is basically a father complex. my relationship with my father is practically non-existant, and tyler's immediate response is, "that's not normal." so i threw myself back into counseling, for him.
after bringing this up, our relationship grew rocky, but i was oblivious to it. tyler and i celebrated our one year anniversary in the beginning of september and i really thought that i was going to be with him for a long time. i brought up marriage and stuff, which kind of shocked tyler. he had a whole future for himself planned out until he was about thirty-years old, to a freaking t. i always thought that i would do what my mom did-- graduate college and get married straight afterward. that's just how i'd always seen it. but tyler didn't want that, and i didn't want to wait years and years to get married. so we kind of agreed to disagree on this subject for the time being.
then that fateful night rolled around... i had already done two shots at my house before tyler invited me over. i did a third shot at his place and offered some to him, but he didn't want to drink. my memory is fuzzy of how we got to the subject, but tyler began to tell me that he didn't feel comfortable in the relationship anymore. he said that he'd give it a week and we'd readdress it then. i said no, that i didn't want to put off the inevitable. if he wanted to break up with me, then he should do it.
so he did. he began to say how much he enjoyed our relationship, how he was glad i met me, how he wanted to stay friends if possible. my listening faded out as i started to cry. i just couldn't believe it. and he never gave me a straight answer as to why he was breaking up with me, so i was just so confused. he said he'd drive me home, and when we both stood by the dresser where his keys were, we both noticed his eyeglasses. the only reason he got them was because i thought he looked hot in them. we looked at the glasses, then at each other. he smiled weakly before his chin quivered and he began to cry himself. he went back to the bed and sat on the edge of it, head in his hands as he cried. i put my head on his back and shed a few more tears, as well. i couldn't believe it.
the few months after the breakup felt like hell. we were still trying to be friends, and still hung out pretty regularly. but he met a girl a month and a half after our breakup. naturally, i was hurt. how could he move on so fast?
there was one night in particular where we had texted each other about hanging out that night. when evening rolled around, i texted him with no response. i called a time or two with no answer. i thought, "what the hell, i thought we were supposed to hang out?" seven or eight o'clock rolled around and i finally said, to hell with this, i'm going over there.
his roommates answered the door and i apologized for bothering them. i said that tyler and i were supposed to hang out and he wasn't answering his phone. one of his roommates went to knock on his door. he told him that i was here and i waited by the door. tyler stumbled out, his face groggy from sleep.
"hey, i thought we were supposed to hang out?" i said. "i don't know, i didn't mean tonight," he muttered. "well that's what i took it as," i said. we were standing in the living room at this point, having this conversation as his roommates lingered in the room.
"can we go back to your room?" i asked, making a step forward before he stopped me. "i was taking a nap," he said. "so?" i asked. "i wasn't taking a nap alone," he said.
"WHAT?"
millions of things ran through my mind at once. he was sleeping with her. he was SLEEPING with HER. in his bed. in his bed we've FUCKED and SLEPT on! i was trying to decide between running into his room and bitching the girl out or continue to bitch out tyler. he made my decision for me and ushered me outside onto their porch, shutting the door behind us. there were camping chairs on his patio and we sat in them. i don't remember the exact conversation, but i got angry enough to cry. i also said multiple times that i wanted to meet her, right now. he agreed the first few times i said it, but then began to say that i was too emotional to civilly meet her at that point in time. i argued that i was just going to go in, introduce myself, and leave. he said, "that's what you THINK you'll do, but you're going to go in there and as soon as you see her, you'll start crying again and cause a scene."
that did it. i broke down crying harder than i could remember doing since the breakup. i repeated, "you don't care about me, you just don't fucking care about me anymore." the rest of our conversation is a blur, but i didn't stop crying. i drove home, sat in my chair, and called my mother. when she answered, i sobbed into the phone, "he was in bed with another girl..." "oh my god," she said, as i continued to cry and attempt to tell her what had happened. she didn't say much advice as much as she said, "oh my god," over and over, but at least she listened. she was my only friend at that point.
after that, tyler and i stopped hanging out. we saw each other maybe once a week, where he would come over to my place for an hour or so and we would talk, which always ended up with me crying, he'd leave, and i'd feel even worse about myself after he left. i tried to say that i was over him, tried to convince myself and tyler that i was over him. but one time when he was over, he said that he didn't think i was really over him. i cried, again, and shook my head. "i'm not over you," i said. "i still love you..." he didn't really respond.
he didn't end up going out with this girl, even though i'd found out that they had kissed a few times, which definitely hurt. our relationship was down to emailing, once or twice a week. i would ask how things were going with his life, but he never asked me about mine. he only answered direct questions i asked him. i kept saying that he wasn't making me feel like a friend very much at all. he then, in some weird and confusing type of way, basically said i wasn't a friend to him. that's when i emailed him back and said that i was done talking to him.
that was around january, and i didn't talk to or email him for two months. i went through the deepest depression, dug myself quite a hole of guilt and heartbreak. i was worse than rock bottom. i had failed out of my spring semester because i stopped going to classes and doing the work, due to my depression and heartbreak. i began to not give a flying fuck. i said that i was going to find a job and just work around mid-december. but then i had a few days of major guilt about not continuing my education, so i jumped into online classes at the community college that began january 9th. i'd forgotten that i'd lost motivation to actually DO the shit that they wanted me to, and i was already behind within a few days of starting. i was so overwhelmed with this that i contemplated just dropping all of my classes and working, like i'd planned before. my mother told me to buckle down and raise my grades, but my dad said that i was an adult and could make my own decisions. i quit the classes about a month into them and began my search for a job.
after about mid-january, i started putting my personal ad up on craigslist. i wanted to meet someone new and hopefully start a new relationship. i ended up meeting about ten guys within a few months and sleeping with four of them. it was a slew of one-night stands and dating that only lasted a week to a month long. i went from guy to guy, just wanting attention, but i never met anyone worthwhile. the one guy i thought would make it, i dated for a month. and on valentine's day, he raped me anally. nice, huh?
it took me two months to find a job. at the beginning of march, i began to think about tyler again. nothing about getting back together with him or anything. just wanting to know how he was doing. so i shot him an email. he was studying for the GRE, so he was busy. i suggested meeting up for lunch and he said that he wouldn't be opposed to it, just that it be after his GRE. i agreed and waited until the date of his test had passed before i sent another email.
we met up at panera. he mistakenly told me the wrong time to meet, so we only had half an hour to chat before he had to go to work. it wasn't enough time to get my answers. i wanted closure and to seek his friendship again. neither were properly addressed. so about a week later, we met up at panera again, this time with two hours to talk.
i regret going to this lunch meeting. i found out that tyler had thought about breaking up with me months before he actually did. i found out that he had no plans to break up with his new girlfriend, who he started dating about three months after our breakup (the reason this bothered me is because at our first lunch, he told me that he was thinking of breaking things off with her). i found out that he couldn't be my friend.
i left our lunch crying. the one person i trusted and felt comfortable around, the only real friend i've made since high school, and he couldn't be my friend. he felt that he would get in the way of me growing on my own. he also had a girlfriend, and i was his ex. it didn't need any more explaining, but i wanted so bad not to believe it.
i was depressed for a week after this lunch, the last day being especially depressing. i was crying over everything, contemplating cutting and suicide. i texted my mom, tyler's mom, and tyler himself. my mom suggested moving home, tyler's mom suggested counseling and a new hobby. tyler, well, he went full psychologist on me. i had thought that if i truly felt that i needed him, that he would come. he would be by my side and everything would seem better. but he said no. it was a hard night.
i'm writing all of this down, this extremely long story of a year and a half of my life, because i hope it helps me get over him. i mean, i'm over not being with him. i just need to get over losing him as a friend too, even though he said that he wanted my friendship.
i'm on okcupid and match.com right now, and occasionally putting my personal ad back up on craigslist. i'm focusing on working to pay the bills and rent. i'm focusing on the possibility of getting a dog. right now, i'm just going through the motions.
so i suppose i'll sign off on this. goodbye, tyler. i truly thought you were the one for me, but i guess not. though i currently say it with a bitter tone, i wish you the best for your life.
edit: 7/7/12// i found out that tyler is in a relationship with a new girl. we were emailing during the first week they were together and he did not mention this. i stumbled upon it when i went to his facebook profile and saw that he’d changed his relationship status. i was… furious? hurt? upset? i was an emotional wreck.
first, i shot him a quick email. i basically asked when he had planned on letting me know he was in a new relationship and that i was confused, because last i spoke with him, he said he wanted to stay single for a while. then i said that he made me sick to my stomach.
this anger, frustration, betrayal, what-have-you, just bubbled in my blood before i couldn’t just sit around anymore. i decided that i wanted no further contact with him. at all. ever. no facebook, emailing, lunches… nothing. so i went over to his apartment. (wow rereading that, i realize it makes no sense, but it does if you keep reading).
needless to say, he was extremely surprised to see me. the very first thing i asked him to do was go get his phone. no hellos, no “how are you’s.” when he came back (we were outside on his patio btw), i asked him to delete my number because i wanted no further contact with him. he was speechless. he wanted to know why. he wanted to know what caused me to come to this conclusion.
and then, we talked. and talked. he didn’t want to delete every single way of contact with me. i was a big part of his life. he still cared about how i was doing, how my life was going, etc. being in his presence and feeling that familiar-ness almost made me decide not to go through with what i has planned. but i knew deep down that i needed to initiate the no-contact thing. not wanted- needed. i had to create more distance to be able to put him further in the back of my mind.
so i made him delete my phone number from his phone. i’ve already deleted and blocked him on facebook. i sent him an email with photo attachments from when we were together (since he had none, and i figured it’d help him deal with ‘losing me’ better). after he replies that he received the email, i’m deleting that email account. after that, he will only know where i live.
he’s said that if this is what i wanted in order to be able to move forward in my life, that even though he was sad to do so, he would respect my wishes. he wouldn’t bother me by coming over or anything. i gave him my roommate’s name and some description, so that if for any reason he needed to contact me, he could send her a facebook message and she’d let me know. that’s the only way he can contact me, besides coming over uninvited (which i did tonight to him, but that’s beside the point).
i feel really good. my mom told me not to go over there, but i did it anyway. she’s kinda annoyed with me, but whatever. every time i saw tyler on facebook, saw an email from him… i just became furious. that tends to happen with my exes. he still wanted to be friends, but his definition of friend was emailing every few months and maybe getting lunch once in a while. MY definition of a friend is hanging out, being allowed to text, being there for one another. we weren’t ever going to reach a friend-compromise, so yeah. no contact.
should be good.