Why I might be Crazy, v2.0: She’s like a friggin’ Jedi

Oh, she’s good.  She’s continued to take and take, while giving nothing, and she’s managed to make me feel like the whole thing is my fault.  She’s like a friggin’ Jedi.

The Latest:  She asked if I consider myself single.  “Yes,” I reply, since I don’t have a girlfriend.  The follow up question was, “So if a girl asked you out on a date, you would go?”  “Sure,” I said, “depending on the girl.  If I wanted to go.”  Let’s unpack this for a second.  Societal norms in American culture dictate that in heterosexual dating, the man usually asks the woman out on a date.  I can’t remember the last time I was asked out that didn’t involve the name Sadie Hawkins.  But ok, if this mythical female asker-outer, who has somehow caught my eye, asks me out and I want to go, then yes, I’d probably go.  Hypothetically.

“Then you’re not choosing me.”

She proceeds to tell me that she’s going to accept the fact that we’ve broken up (2 months ago), and she’s going to move on.  OK, so what she wants is a guy to date her exclusively.  Back in the Philippines, we have a term for something like that.  It’s…um… BOYFRIEND.

The nail in the coffin is that I’ve been walking around for the past few days feeling guilty about hurting her.  But wait, what exactly did I do to her?  Break up with her 2 months ago?

She told me that the reason she didn’t want to talk to me, during the weeks before we broke up, was that she thought we’d fight.  And she was so busy that she didn’t have time to fight with me.  I accept that.  We had been fighting.  Our recurring fight was that I was feeling like she was putting our relationship on the back burner (because she’s so “busy”), and it’s hard enough being long distance.  I just wanted some reassurance that she still wanted to be with me because her actions were saying otherwise.  Her response to me was that she didn’t want to feel responsible for my feeling secure in our relationship and that I should figure it out for myself.  So instead of continuing to be an active part of this relationship, she chose to duck and cover.

And now that we’re broken up, I’m supposed to choose her?

This coming from the woman who told me she didn’t want to be “in a relationship,” then continued to date me for 4 more months, saying that she wanted to see where things would go between us.  She eventually told me that she loved me, and a month later hooked up with another guy while she was out of town.  But she made me feel like I didn’t understand the circumstances because she had made it clear that we weren’t TECHNICALLY boyfriend/girlfriend.

She says things like, “You think I’m a horrible person,” and “I ruined your life.”  We even had a conversation a while back about how she felt that she had projected a lot of her guilt and insecurity on me throughout our relationship.  But it all came up again in this latest conversation.  How I think she’s a “bad person.”  The only thing I could say in reply is, “If you took a look at a transcript of our conversation, you wouldn’t see the words “bad person” until right now. YOU keep saying that, not me.”

Look, I know it’s hard, but sometimes when you fuck up, the best thing to do is admit it.  Going around saying, “but look at all the times I didn’t fuck up,” doesn’t really get you anywhere.  It makes you look like you’d rather protect your ginormous ego than admit that you did something wrong once.

“I hurt you and I’m sorry” goes a long way.  A much longer distance than “I didn’t do anything wrong!  except for that one thing.”  Because, ultimately, that one thing can be pretty important.

Her unwavering defense of her out-of-town make out only served to further devalue my feelings about the situation.  Every time she said, “I haven’t done anything since we’ve been exclusive,”  just reminded me that she still thinks that I was being unfair to her by allowing her cheating tendencies (for lack of a better term) to hurt me.

And now that we’re broken up, I’m supposed to be choosing her?

The big question mark in my brain was, why is she calling me from the grocery store to have this conversation?  Did she not think that this might be something I might want to talk about?  She kept saying that she HAD to talk to me today.  She HAD to. Then she abruptly had to go because other people were depending on her for something.  Her roommates were leaving to go somewhere.

Through the magic of facebook, I found out that they were going to a party.  Ahhhhhh, so.  She HAD to talk to me?  That day?  Before the party?

OK, I’m not an idiot.  I’ve been made to feel like my imagination is overactive at times, but come on.  Is it possible that she called to get my “permission” to make out with whoever this new guy is, and he was gonna be at the party?  She’s been so wracked with guilt since the last time she went out of town and made out with some guy, that this time she wanted to get me to push her into the arms of another guy.  I can hear her rationalization right now.  “But I told you that since you weren’t choosing me that I was going to move on.”

Oh, she’s good.  She’s continued to take and take, while giving nothing, and she’s managed to make me feel like the whole thing is my fault.  She’s like a friggin’ Jedi.