I sent him that email soon after I finished typing it up around 3am Wednesday morning. Everything I wanted to say I managed to say. I left some things out obviously. I also downplayed my crush on him but I was truthful about everything else. The main thing i wanted to get across to him was that I've been really respectful of his boundaries. I have never done anything outside of daydreaming to assert my feelings. And honestly his reaction to that weekend and his low blow comment was the issue.
I wasn't sure if he was going to respond or what he would say if he did. Because of this I didn't get much sleep that night/morning. I made plans to head to our local farmers market with friends at noon but of course I was late. I spent much of that trip replaying what I wrote. When I got to work at the University I checked me email several times but there was nothing from him. I'm not sure what I was expecting anyway, the boy barely responds to my text messages but i figured because he asked me to write him he would get back to me.
Around 5 I finally got his response. Prepare yourself for how thoughtful it is:
i want you to know that i read your email in its entirety. you have given me more to think about than i was thinking about before. i feel terrible that i have abused your trust in me. i want you to know that you have been a better friend to me in four years than most of my lifelong friends. the problem in my point of view as well as yours is that my attitude is for lack of better term, 'sub-human', most of the time. i AM sorry. i am not as articulate or thorough as you are so for now i will say no more.
That's it. Nothing else. It couldn't have been more generic. And what the hell does sub-human mean? I spent about an hour googling it and I still have no clue what it means. I concluded that it doesn't mean you can treat people like shit because your thought process regarding situation is less than human. I don't understand.
Needless to say I was not thrilled by the response. I mean, i'm happy he wrote me back. I'm glad he read the whole thing. And to be fair he has apologized several times these past few weeks in his own weird way. It's just not how i'd go about apologizing cause i'm more empathetic and sincere. And He isn't. He's subhuman. Whatever that means. When I got to work Friday, I wanted things to finally resolve themselves. At first we attempted to make light conversation. I wasn't expecting him to bring up our email exchange but a part of me was waiting for him to call a truce. He didn't. Instead we spent the night smiling weakly at one another. It was weird.
As we where cleaning up the store I bumped into him in the breakroom. He looked at me and made a weird cat purring/growling noise followed by a grimace. I looked at him and said 'really, we haven't spoken all night and that's all you have to say'. This motherfucker smirks at me, begins to walk away and says "yea, i guess it is". This flippant reaction infuriates me. I am infuriated. For everything he has put me through I am enraged that he seems mad and dismissive towards me. When we get outside we are arguing like a weird married couple. I ask him why he's mad. That he does not have any reason to be mad. He says he's not mad but i've been ignoring him all night. I'm the one who is acting immature.
We then start arguing through squinted eyes and closed mouths. He asks if I got his email. I replied that I did but i didn't get much from it and that after tonight he could have just written 'go fuck yourself' because if this was his attempt at making things better it's shit'. He gets angry and says 'that's what you got from my email. Go fuck yourself?' and because i'm mad i'm like 'yep, that's what i got". But then instead of getting angry, he looks generally exhausted. He looks just exhausted and he asks me to 'stop. just stop doing this'. And while i am heated and want to beat the shit out of him i'm sort of taken aback to hear him say this.
I tend to hold grudges for a while. I am stubborn and my thought process can be very narrow. It's been a month since "rumble in the bronx' gate and there we were still talking about it. There I was still wanting an apology i realized I was never going to get. I have been clinging in anger rather than sadness. And it's not to say this boy isn't wrong because he is. If he is not attracted to me than none of that shit should have gone down. If he is attracted to me none of that shit should have gone down with him having a girlfriend. But on my part though I could have said no. But i didn't want to appear like a prude, I didn't want to give the impression that i wasn't interested and I didn't want to be like his gf who doesn't like being around him. So i participated with little hesitation. But I still participated. I went along because I wanted to even when I felt it wasn't normal.
But we have been unable to resolve this mess because of me. And for the first time since this all went down, i realized I didn't want to do this anymore either. I'm as exhausted. I can't sleep. I can't eat. My mind is consumed with this situation. I want to be right. I want to make sure that i am not crazy in thinking what we did and what he said afterwards is a crock of shit. I have been embarassed by the situation. That i've put so much into a boy who turned out to be what everyone warned me about. My ego has been bruised. And that is what i've been clinging on to but it's wearing me thin. And in that moment I saw it was doing the same to him.
Because Sean was going to a movie after work and I was getting a ride from a very patient co-worker I couldn't stick around and respond to him. I started walking away and he said i could email him again if I wanted to. I said i'd think about it but I didn't write him one that night. I was too tired and confused by the whole night. When I woke up though I decided that i'd had enough as well. That despite wanting to make this boy feel like the shit that he is, being the bigger person is sometimes better than being right(even though i am).
So before I went to work Saturday I penned him what hopefully has marked the end of my drama between him:
maybe for the time being email will be the best way to communicate for while. And don't worry this one will be a lot shorter than the last. I promise. I'm sorry last night was sort of a disaster. I wasn't ignoring you (entirely) but i'm not going to lie and say i didn't try to keep my distance.I appreciate what you said in your last email and though we express our feelings differently, I know that you feel terrible about what's gone down between us. Subsequently i feel terrible for holding a grudge and being unable to understand your POV. I googled Sub Human and I still don't think I understand what that means but i assume it explains why you see things they way you do. But I happen to be all human, it's just who i am. I feel the way i do, i react on emotion and I want things fixed they way i want them. I'm a selfish prideful human being what can i say. But it doesn't give me the right to be a dick. Up until last night I was hoping everything could be resolved with a simple head nod and hug it out but realistically it's just going to have to work itself out on its own over time and i'm sorry if i'm pushing things. I can't push time and I can't push how we resolve this and I especially can't push you. You're never going to know how i feel, you're never going to know how I think and the same applies to you, I can't pretend to know what your feeling or what your thought process is just because i want to be right about my own.
A part of me wants so desperately for things to be normal again that I get upset that its not. It just feels weird not being able to talk to you and go to you like I use to. It's feels abnormal. It feels...dare i say... Sub-normal? But i def don't want work to be our battleground because of this. I respect our friendship more than that and work should be the last place where awkward and tense filled interactions between us occur. We're better than that. So even if our conversations in the next couple of weeks are short and shallow, even if we spend our shifts dodging each other in the aisle and giving wry smiles maybe just for awhile it's what we need. And up until last night I wasn't willing to accept this but it may be for the best. Plus fighting like an old married is embarrassing, lol. It doesn't mean i should be a dick to you and want to hulk smash your face when you sort of do this weird 'well what do you expect' eye roll thing. But it also doesn't mean you should take my silence and aisle dodging for being an asshole. I realize now, that space is probably the best. Maybe for a bit the space between us is necessary, not desired, but necessary. At least until a new normal between us is established.
On Sunday (cause Saturday he spent his whole shift literally avoiding me) I called a verbal truce. I wandered into the back of the store, held my hands up and told him i wasn't there to fight or yell. I just wanted to know if he got my email (he hadn't checked his email in days so no) and then I said I was sorry. Not for the mess that we are in but of how i've been reacting to it. That i know in his weird way he's been trying to apologize to me but that i've been less than receptive because it isn't how i imagined it. I told him that I wasn't sub-human and i'd never understand what that meant but that as a full human i'd have to just accept his attempts and move on.
And with that we ended Rumble in the Bronx gate. I'm not sure what is going to happen next. I am certain how friendship will be greatly altered after this. I know that it won't be the same. But i am okay with this. I'm okay with him being my first mistake. I'm okay with moving on.
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