This is a thread for whatever you have to say about love. As will be evident, I’m not an expert. You might think that as long as I’ve been around I’d have learned something about the topic, but no. Sorry. Nevertheless, I’ll start.
BTW, though there are measures of hope and dreams, there’s no actual sex in this story, you pervs. What I’m going to tell you is personal but I’m pretty old now and getting to a point of not caring so much what people think. I’m not revealing identities, but I suppose there’s always a chance, so, to M, if you read this and don’t like it, I’m sorry but here we are.
Anyway, M, a friend I’ve known about 8 years and someone I care a lot about, ditched me a few months ago. Ghosted is the technical term, I believe. I’m sure she had her reasons, but it hurts.
M is quite a bit younger than I am. We’d been neighbors for about a year. It was her idea that I move in here. I’m sure she cares about me but I’ve always been confused about how strongly she feels and where she wanted our relationship to go. Going back a year and a half or so, she’d mentioned getting a house together and wanted to know how I felt about marriage and kids. At the time, I didn’t know how seriously to take her and I hadn’t thought of that as a real possibility at this point in my life.
After some months frequently and directly exposed to her charms (extraordinarily generous, sweet, smart, funny, affectionate, hot), I talked to her about it again but if that window was ever really open, it had closed. I didn’t believe what she pretty colorfully told me this time, that she wasn’t interested in marriage now. I felt she’d do it if the right guy stepped up and she was just telling me I wasn’t the guy. That was at the start of the year.
Predictably, she started distancing herself from me after that. We still got together occasionally but it wasn’t the same. I was fairly busy most of the year trying to support a friend who was in the hospital and his family. And M is 100% go all the time so we didn’t see each other much even in passing. She joked she only knew if I was alive because of my blinds being open/closed.
Sometimes she’d leave me care-packages at my door with a nice little note. Food or chocolates and stuff. She’s big on good food. She picked up on my thinking she was avoiding me-- she said I was being silly. Mid-summer, we were supposed to go for a walk but she stood me up. Then a couple of weeks later, and this will be a funny story at some point (not soon) but I was going to drop some flowers at her door that I grew for her over the summer. They were dahlias, her favorite. Through the door, I heard her on the phone, saying she was engaged. Suddenly the flowers didn’t seem so appropriate so I didn’t leave them. I didn’t bring it up because it seemed like she didn’t want me to know.
A couple of months later, I found a grocery bag hanging on my doorknob. It contained my spare key and a random electronic device I’d loaned her. There was no note. I looked down the hall towards her place and saw the welcome mat was gone. She’d moved out.
There’s a lot more I’d say but I’m sure the details are kind of boring. I have a lot of questions. Some guesses. No real answers. I wish her well but I don’t know why it has to be this way. In musical terms, I’m still at this stage
And btw, if you don’t know, Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams is the name of an album by the band The Bodeans. A good album if you like sad, whiny songs. Example:
