Pen in Motion

I had a recent experience with a former suitor (not quite a boyfriend, but almost 2 months of dating) that has left me annoyed and a little hurt. And also contemplative.

Said person re-entered my life after about 7 months of silence. He supposedly just wanted to be friends because he was still wounded from his divorce. He wasn’t ready for a relationship, but he missed talking to and hanging out with me. And then an ex-girlfriend called, and suddenly his status changed. And we also couldn’t be friends anymore. Awesome.

I won’t go into the a lot of details of the first go-round with the suitor, but our relationship/thing ended because he was abducted by aliens and forced to give up his cell phone and laptop and not allowed to responded to any messages. That sounds more fun than the truth. And yet, I forgave him and agreed to be friends. I was okay with him not wanting to date because I didn’t trust him that much yet. But he flirted and it was nice. And then came 4 days of silence, and then I was done. Again.

There was also the sense of rejection that has left me smarting somewhat. I didn’t want to date him again, but it still stung that he didn’t want to date me. He was open to being in a relationship, but not with me.

And once again, I was disposable. That’s the part that bugs me the most – I was kept around until he didn’t want to deal with me anymore, and then I was discarded.

So – jerk, right? Yeah. Completely. But not just him. Me too.

It took most of the day of wallowing and ranting before I began to see the hypocrisy of my actions. Had I stopped looking/talking/etc to other guys while the suitor and I were being friends? Of course not. Why would I? He and I were only platonic friends. It’s not like I had a string of potential dates lined up at my door, but still – I wasn’t limiting myself because of him. And he was equally free to pursue someone.

So what’s the big deal? A man I didn’t have any romantic interest in didn’t want me. That’s it.

Now I did find out about him lying to me about something fairly significant during our relationship, but there’s nothing I can really do about it now.  I suppose I could “confront” him via text, but how would that help? Plus, I’m old enough to think before I act.

As I calmed down, I found myself remembering times when I had treated someone with the same “disposable” action. I didn’t do it to be malicious, but the action was still the same. We have all been this way, as much as we don’t want to admit it. We have all been the jerk suitor at some point in our life. We’ve all been hypocrites.

What now? I shake the dust from my feet and move on. I will remember two things from this experience: not to allow anyone to treat me as a disposable bottle, and also not to treat others as though they are discard-able. I have more value than that, and so does everyone else.

I saw the road you took –

just a simple, black asphalt path

with the old wooden rails

that looked like they could barely

hold their own weight,

let alone everything that was between us.

Nothing grand about that road

except it’s where we stood at that moment.

But then you left –

left me, left what used to be us.

We could have been great.

Or not.

Either way, now we’ll never know.

Leaves crunched

under your boots as you walked,

never looking back.

And then I lost sight of you

because I was staring at the trees –

lining the road like sentries,

green gems shining under the sun.

No wonder you chose

to go this way. Maybe I should too.