It’s been nearly ten years now dude. It took a few of them to get over you. Pathetic huh?

 

Not the you that I grew to know when you moved away and ‘kept in touch’, but the you I spent time with. Laughed with. Kissed.  Talked until the early hours.

The first day I met you was awkward af, let’s be honest. You were dating my ‘friend’. I use that term lightly as she never really was a friend to me.  The awkwardness was about an hour into this day out, when she mentioned the band you were in and then I clicked. Your name, and the band name. You’re the dude who’d asked me out previously on face party. I’d never seen your photo, but some shitty photo to promote your band where you wrote your band name in ketchup.  I looked at you, and you looked at me, and you knew I’d realised. We laughed about that years later.

 

I’m going to be honest, I couldn’t stand you when you dated her.  I thought you were uptight and lame.  I’m not going to lie, I didn’t like you after you dated her and maybe it’s karma that the only reason I hung out with you was because you were moving across the pond, had a lot of herb and I was the only person in town.  I guess it served me right for being a freeloader.

I did fall for you though. Fuck knows why. I think it was your talent, and ambition. Not the fact you were a musician, you could have been a talented passionate writer and i’d have dug it. You know, just the way someones eyes light up when they talk about what they’re passionate about. That was you. I dug it. I still do dig it and find it so hot when someone is so passionate and talks about their work.

I also thought you were hilarious and if you know me (which you never really did) I love to laugh until my sides hurt. I like dry humour. Witty people. Sarcasm. Banter.

Admittedly I wasn’t the best judge of humour for those weeks. I was either drunk or high.  So i’d probably laughed at anything. In fact, I did. Your goldfish, you claimed was called Geoff ‘like the bus’ and you mocking me looking at the stars and rambling about space and shit.  ‘I don’t know what you were saying, you were talking hebrew or some shit’.

You had me in stitches. Even when the confusion cleared and I realised you hadn’t yet broken up with your girlfriend, I selfishly wanted to see you still. Especially because every weekend was ‘the weekend’ you were breaking up. How selfish was I? were we? Both of my exes knew your ex girlfriend and told me how lovely she was after you and I parted ways.

Karma. I lost so much respect for myself during this time. Hanging out with a guy I was really into but knowing he hadn’t officially broken up with his girlfriend. I’ll never be such a dick again. No matter how much i’m into a guy. I’ll never sink that low.

I won’t go into how awful it was how you broke up with her. Just another shitty thing you did to add to the list. You relayed it to me as if you thought it was amusing how cruelly you broke up with the chick you were in a long term relationship with.

You were nice to me though.  Back in the day before this. I remember you telling me I can do anything I want. You encouraged me to take any shitty job, to save up and go travelling because you knew I had a bad case of wanderlust.

 

When we spoke about your ex (the one when we were teenagers), and I said ‘she was harsh, but she was stunning’ you didn’t even hesitate and looked at me and said ‘you’re stunning’.

I don’t know whether I was too swoony, if you changed, or if you were always a bit of a dick but after you moved you bragged to me how much break up ‘hook ups’ you had post relationship. Nice. Telling a girl you promised you’d call and keep in touch, claimed to want to take to a broadway show, about your hook ups. I remember how repulsed I was when I found out how you broke up with your ex. Not cool. Really shitty.

 

You’d contacted me on occasion and every time it would end in an argument. The sweet, funny guy I once enjoyed talking to had become an insufferable twat. Such a sleaze. Saying gross things. Making it clear you never wanted to be my friend. I was so lame wanting your friendship so much. Wanting more than that once upon a time.

Eww.

The way you spoke to me was gross. You never failed to make me feel like I didn’t matter and that I was a POS.  Good one. Your talents don’t end with music.

The way you continued to speak to me, knowing I had a boyfriend. Gross.

Being a creep is so not attractive. I never fully cut off contact though because I missed the guy I spent those months with. It took me a long time to realise that he never existed.

 

I used to wonder why other girls were worthy of dating, but I wasn’t. I was just someone you wanted to flirt with and have fun.  I would wonder what made those chicks more special than me. Was I not skinny enough? was it that I wasn’t out there chasing my dream but was just still at college struggling to get my work done, was it because I wasn’t confident enough?

I’d compare myself to other chicks. Feel inferior. Wonder why this has happened with more than one guy. A guy never wanting to commit, or be official but always wanting to flirt or fool around.

The thing is, I was the problem. I was the dick because I had such low self esteem I’d have committed to a guy who was actually a bit of a shitty person. Who’s ego grew with his success. Someone who made me cringe when he snap chatted the famous people he rolled with (to be fair, I had to google who she was. Beautiful girl with a pretty voice, just hadn’t heard of her before).

I got the job at the skate shop, and even when hot guys flirted with me, some of them musicians I wished it was you and not them I was talking to. The old you.

The dates I went on after you moved, trying to fill some void. None of them were you. The old you.

I couldn’t listen to QOTSA ‘make it wit chu’ because it reminded me of you.

I don’t think you ever really liked me. I think you just liked the attention I gave you. Attention I never thought i’d give you. You were not somebody I was interested in in that way. But man did I fall hard after that first night we hung out again after all of those years.

You weren’t always great to me looking back. I see the red flags now. On your laptop chatting to your friends when I was over, basically ignoring me for hours.  Ringing me up early hours when you were drunk to talk shit having spoken to your brother about me (i’m assuming not in a complimentary manner). Getting me to give you a ride to the train station to go see your girlfriend.

It’s funny because my best friend at the time slated you. She even wrote a song about you being a ‘rat boy’.. yet now she kisses your ass.  Or at least she did after her and I parted ways. Maybe another way to hurt me? She was good at that. Or maybe because you were so ‘utterly cool’ with your new career and living in New York City.

Lame.

I even spoke to my parents about you when you were still here and I realised you still had a girlfriend.  My parents were so disappointed in me (rightfully so). I respect them so much for calling me out on it. Reminding me that i’m ‘better than that’ and that it’s so immoral.  I love that my parents didn’t condone that or encourage it. They were honest, and open and admitted that they were disappointed in me. My stepdad told me that I could never trust someone like you. That I should never want to date someone like that.

I was defensive, but knew they were right.

They’ve loved every single one of my boyfriends. They’re like family to them. They think I have great taste in guys. Decent guys. Kind Guys. Funny guys.   I know you didn’t want to meet my folks anyway, you practically ran out of my front door when I asked if you wanted to say ‘hi’. I’m glad you never did.

I can’t believe I contemplated hiding in your wardrobe when you thought your mum was home and you told me to. I will never be someone who hides in somebody’s wardrobe.

How was I ever that ridiculous?

I stopped going to college because I wanted to hang out with you. The day you said ‘dude, shouldn’t you be at college?’, I liked you even more. You didn’t say it in a way that you didn’t wanna hang with me, you said it was if you cared and wanted me to do well.

Why did you go from being so nice to being such a sleazy prick?

I’m still baffled.

I just want to make this clear, even though I know you’ll never read this, It’s not you that I was hung up on for so many years. It was the idea of you. The guy I thought you were. The one I laughed with. The one who was so sweet. When I accidentally knocked your macbook onto the floor and you checked to see if it still worked, and I sat with my fingers crossed and you uncrossed them and said ‘it’s fine’.

That dude.

The one who encouraged me to not slack at college. Who encouraged me to save hard and travel the world.  The one who said sweet things which at the time seemed sincere. The one who kept the flowers I hand picked him that day by the pond in his bag and sent me a photo from a New York subway of those dried up flowers.

There were other moments I lost self respect hanging with you. The time we were sat on your sofa and you were talking about something, and mentioned a night that you and two other guys were sat on that same sofa. Two of my ex boyfriends. I had no idea you were all friends at one point, let alone hung out. Those two never even got along. There I was sat on a sofa where three guys I’d dated/sort of dated had all sat. I felt gross. Which is odd, as i’m a pit of a prude and have only had a few boyfriends even to this day.

Oh man, I cared far too much about you. I was never a stage 5 clinger. I made sure of it. If anything I went out of my way to act nonchalant, but was embarrassingly waiting for you to text me.

We’re not enemies by any means. How does the saying go? ‘We’re strangers with memories’.

We haven’t spoken in a really long time now, which i’m grateful for because after you moved the tone in which you spoke to me was painfully different. So grim. So not hot. So sleazy.

I’m sure you’re happy, and probably married with kids, or still living that tour life, or living in the city, but I do wonder if you ever feel any remorse for how you’ve treated people. People that really cared about you.

I guess i’ll never know.  I’m always going to miss that guy. Even though I have awesome friends, and have dated awesome guys in the years since. There was some sort of spark, butterflies for me when I spent time with you. I’m guessing there wasn’t for you.

You said ‘i’ve always been attracted to you and it’s a curse. I always try to flirt and you never want to’.

Well dude, a curse? really? when I was single and happy to try the long distance thing? or fly out to visit you, but that invite never came post move. I wanted to go to the NYFA before I even got to know you but could never afford it.

Being attracted to me was a curse? Why?  Because you didn’t want me, but you wanted to lead me on of flirt. Not how I roll dude.

I also don’t like to flirt with other men when i’m in a relationship. Which I was at the time you knowingly said that to me. I’m pretty sure that you were too. Not Cool. Not hot. grim af.

So, i’m sure you’ve stepped on a few people other than me in life. I’m sure you are a good friend to some, maybe a good boyfriend (or husband? or Dad?) … you were just not nice to me and a few others.

I don’t want to hold a grudge, but an apology would have been really nice. Or some sort of acknowledgement of her poorly you spoke to me.

I feel better knowing you’re never going to read this. I like to write these to clear my own head and get some sort of closure i’ll never really get.

Take it easy.

Don’t be a dick.

It’s pretty simple.

Stace x