First Love - Monday, November 11, 2024

‘First love is so special,' she says. ‘You'll never forget it.’ — My Dark Vanessa By Kate Elizabeth Russell, pg. 136.

Listening: Sorry by Halsey

In my last entry, I mentioned the brief romantic relationship I had — I said it was a story for another time. I was right, of course, but I feel I must vent about it. Now, recounting the whole affair would take too long; I just want to say a few things.

I feel a lot of guilt over what I did, how I acted, what I said and didn't say. While I still think a lot of what happened was my fault, I also believe the relationship was rather doomed from the start: After all we just two mentally-ill kids who met online, and I never wanted the obligation and responsibility of a relationship — much less an online relationship — then. Still I could have have been gentler; I could have been honest; I could have been kind.

We started out as friends. Over the weeks into months, we became best friends. I genuinely loved them, loved them intensely — like I've never loved anyone before. How could I not? They knew more about me — about the things that really mattered — than my own family did. It may have been an online friendship, but it was a friendship.

I suspected they had a crush on me, based on the TikToks they sent me. We said I love you to each other everyday, but it was meant (as I assumed) platonically. Yet I also daydreamed about a relationship with them — but there is a difference between daydreaming and actually wanting it. I didn't want the responsibility, the obligation, the ties and rigidity, of a relationship. Yet when the proposal came… I didn't have it in me to say no. Yes, I was cowardly. I could say I did it because I didn't want to lose them a a friend, but that would only be an excuse: The truth is I didn't — and still don't — know how to be honest.

After we began dating officially, nothing about our relationship really changed. Yet a week in, I began to regret getting into it. I should've ended it once I realized I didn't want to date — but I didn't, and that was the mistake.

In the end, I broke up with them. I deleted my TikTok, deleted my other superfluous apps; I had already deleted my Tumblr; months later I would delete my Snapchat — but we had already stopped talking then. I admit: the biggest source of my guilt, my regret: I ghosted them, another cowardly action. I unfriended them on everything and that was it. Why did I do it? I just wanted it to be over. I had already come to terms with my loss; I felt in order to move on and heal I needed to cut it off completely.

After I ghosted them, I occasionally checked on their Tumblr, to see if they hated me, if they said anything. I can't remember anymore if they did. I never liked checking on it; I felt like a creep, a stalker. It was unfair too: I could check on them if I wanted too, but they couldn't: they no longer had access to me. I was lost to them.

Gradually I stopped checking on them; I moved on. But occasionally I remember them, remember that I loved them intensely, that they were the best of my days then. Then guilt comes: for everything. Even our first argument was my fault: I couldn't empathize, couldn't see they liked me even then.

In the end, all I want to say is I'm sorry — for being so cruel, so shortsighted, for not loving you as you deserve. But I don't know where they are anymore. They are lost to me as I am to them. I don't even know if their Tumblr is still up; I don't even want to look for it, afraid of what I might see yet not sure what I'm afraid of.

First love is so special… You'll never forget it. Sometimes I wish I could — but maybe this is my punishment: to remember; perhaps this is my atonement: to pass the story on.