I wanted to tell a story that started about 21 years ago in a Schnucks store in O'Fallon, Missouri. Bare with me on this one, it's important that I get it said and it gets to the person that needs to hear it.
It's been about 3-4 months since I last spoke to someone I met when I was just 16 years old. He was in my dream over the weekend and I realized that I missed him in my life, so here we go.
A little backstory first: we dated on and off for a year when I was 17 and he was 21. The long distance with him away at school wasn't working for me, so we broke up, stayed friends but the feelings were still there. Mine eventually faded into the feelings of a very best friend. I told him absolutely everything and he listened(even if it was about another guy). We lost touch a little after I got married because my husband was not a fan of my having ANY male friends, (which,I had another realization about today. We'll get to that another time.), but we still stayed in touch when we could. He ended up in a marriage-like relationship as well up until just after I got divorced.
Fast forward to now and why we haven't spoken, nor seen each other:
We both f$&@ed up. (But mainly me) That's the bottom line, however, I don't think he ever fully accepted my apology because I don't think I ever fully accepted responsibility for my part. See, I took him for granted for a lot of years, used him to buy me lunches and dinners and drinks because I knew the feelings he had for me since I was sixteen were still very present. This was NOT okay. I let him listen to me talk about my marriage issues and then watch me date other men and hear about how bad they were and I assumed, maybe expected him to be okay with it? That's not a friend of any kind and I know that now. I see what I was doing and I see how it was hurting him.
At the time, I didn't see it and I want to tell you why. Even though I knew he had the feelings, every time he had the chance with me, he never took it. Sure, there was a lot of flirting between us and beating around the bush, but in my mind, that was all it was, just flirting since I had already put us on the back burner. I needed a flat out, blunt, tell me you want to be with me, neon signs, flashing arrows kinda thing. Not an okay to date other people.
And before you think that I'm trying to blame him for this whole thing because he didn't tell me he wanted to be with me, I'm not doing that at all. I take 95% responsibility for our falling out. It's probably too late for my apology if he ever even reads this and who knows if this can change his mind to wanting to be around me again. If it does, awesome, if it doesn't, that's okay too. I needed to accept my blame and writing it down and making it known is the best way for me to do that.
I was selfish and didn't validate his feelings. Lesson learned, the hard way.
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