The More and Less Emotional Part Two

When I first started dating him, he was so eager. I told a friend, not that he would, but that I wouldn’t have been shocked if he asked to meet my parents when they visited a month later.

Now, I’ve told him I don’t want to be friends, but in the same conversation, I told him I’m not as dedicated as him—that I wouldn’t be diligent about it. I haven’t been. A moth to a flame, I find him at work. I joke. I let myself be seen by him. I consider him when I look at myself.

Our friend had a game night last weekend. Game nights are usually emotional for me, and this one was no different. For the same reasons. For more.

Because I like him too much, I secured myself next to him in the beginning of the night. At one point, he turned to me and told me about what he ate for dinner with cadence like we were still together. It hurt so much. When he turned back to the game I did everything I could not to cry. I don’t think anyone noticed.

In the last round, he commanded a question about women’s thoughts during sex. What was I supposed to say? The first thought that popped into my head? Pain? Or “When will this be over?” or one of a million other anxieties my brain considers? Or the sheer overthought concentration I try to throw myself into so that I don’t think about anything beyond the moment? It was the best of it with him, and still I can’t shed it all.

So, I wrote “boredom.” I had to approach him afterward to say I didn’t mean it. He shook my hand for too long—as he always has.

Afterward, as I was locking the door to my apartment, he called me. He was asking to confirm gossip I had gone out of my way to tell him the week before, that I had wanted and was excited to tell him a week before, that he had just shared with an ex-coworker. I said, “Please don’t do this to me.” In different shares, because he broke his promise that he wouldn’t tell anyone, because the person he told has said to me in the past “Don’t share anything with me that you don’t want other people to know,” and also because I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone to begin with. Now, I’m caught for my betrayal as are you.

Mostly, I was sad he broke his promise. It was like midnight crowning in Cinderella. The ball was just a sham all along. I know it’s too harsh, but it’s how crushed I felt.

He didn’t like hearing I was disappointed. I should let it go, but we’ve kicked it back and forth at work over two days in three conversations.

My roommates knock on each other’s doors and never mine. They text each other and never me. They make decisions and only tell me when I ask. I feel abandoned, still, and distant.

I have tried to tell them twice and now it’s just there. And even if I didn’t say it, part of me feels like they should know me well enough after all these years, after hearing all my annoyances with other roommates, after hearing all the ways I’ve been hurt by other friends, that they should know me better. So, further, the chasm exists because they don’t.

I told them I need communication and I want to be involved, and nothing has changed. I think they think I hid in my room because I want to be alone. Meanwhile, as they laughed with each other tonight I cried.

At game night, the reason it is always emotional is because two girls who I have written about before, always use me as a scapegoat. It is a tired playbook. More so, it is less because they always enact the same plan, but because everyone always believes them. What is so wrong with me? What do you dislike so much?

The night before we had been out to a club, where my roommates were supposed to join us. They did, but they broke the rules (brought a boy) and didn’t dance with us.

Before Zebulon, the two girls and I had pre-gamed at another friend’s apartment. They asked me for advice in regard to another coworker. They laughed about how when they do something they know bothers another person, if the other person won’t confront them about it, they move on as if it didn’t happen. They laughed like they hadn’t done that to me. I didn’t say anything because it wouldn’t have helped the coworker they were asking me about. I didn’t say anything before because they would have laughed it off even if I had said something.

I tried to explain what I interpreted would be her reactions depending on the scenario, the conflicts and the contexts that claim the obstacle course. The one I have more issues with would sit and consider, and then respond one way or another by saying she doesn’t see it that way. At game night, as part of a game, she confessed she “Would rather die than:” “have a real adult conversation about feelings.”

A lot of nights I feel like there’s nothing I can do but hide in my room and hope I start to feel better.

Also, I think I’ve had strep the last two days. Either that, or some other viral infection. My dad has me on penicillin and I’m working through it.