First love

I woke up today remembering that today is the birthday of my first boyfriend. He was my first love, my high school sweetheart, my initial foray into the world of heartstopping excitement and also subsequent heartache.

To commemorate this day, I'll write a little bit about us.
We met in high school during our junior year when both of our good friends started dating.  Soon after, our two groups of friends started going out together, to the beach, shopping, eating, playing pool, etc.  I'm pretty sure he liked me first because he started to tag along everything I did/wanted to do.  He offered to drive, to pick me up and drop me off, and he also went along with me to meet a celebrity when we were at a restaurant one time.  Slowly, our group outings decreased to just four people: our two friends who were already dating, and us.  The more time we spent together, the more I realized how much I liked him: how easygoing he was, how quiet he was (and yet talkative when something really struck a chord with him), and also how funny he was.  At around the same time, we also started taking a class together-- an unlikely possibility because we were on such different academic tracks at the time.  We were both enrolled in art history (at 6:50am) every morning, and I have to confess that I looked forward to running into him in the parking lot each day so we can walk to class together.

Our story felt like a fairly tale when he asked me to the senior prom and when he admitted to me during the first slow-dance at prom that he liked me.  He said that even though he knew I was going to the other side of the country to attend college, he still liked me and just wanted me to know.  His self-disclosure was so simple, yet so romantic and utterly dramatic in my heart.  Eventually we started dating and that was it.  We were together throughout my first 2 years of college and we took every opportunity to fly back and forth to visit each other.  He was my Romeo and I thought I was his Juliet. It wasn't until the summer of my sophomore year when we started fighting constantly about who-knows-what.  We were both so busy with school that we had barely any time to really talk or focus on one another. He was emotionally distant on the phone and he accused me of being the same. Our fights felt the same. They were difficult to resolve because it felt unnatural to break up via phone and it also felt artificial to make up over the phone.

When I got home that summer, I felt like he was emotionally distance even sitting in front of me.  We continued to fight, he continued to feel far away from me, and then after one dramatic fight one night, he just completely stopped calling me.  And I didn't call him either out of my own sense of pride.  Well, wait. I did.  I called him because we had plans to go to the beach and I hoped that the long drive would give us some quality time together. Boy was that a bad idea. During that whole car ride, he nitpicked at my driving (yes, the plan was that I would drive us) until I eventually got so frustrated that I stopped at a grocery store and said forget it.  We switched places and turned the car around and sat in silence for the next hour in the car. Back in our city, he dropped me off at my house and we said nothing to each other.  For the next few days following, we also gave each other the silent treatment until he sent a text one day asking if he should still take my mom and I to the airport for our international trip.  At the time, texting was so new, so unfamiliar, and felt so distant from a phone call that I simply exploded.  I said no and I expressed my disbelief at his insincerity. I tried to call him but since he didn't pick up, I gave up and a few days later, we left the country and that was that.  We were done.

Despite being broken up, I spent the next 4 years of my life replaying the breakdown of our relationship not knowing why it ended the way it did.  I spent 4 years blaming myself, wondering how I could have been better, more mature, and if I could have done anything/everything different to make it work.  I did not understand our break-up but I felt that it was impossible to get the answers from him as well.  In many ways, he simply disappeared and I did not feel like it was OK to find him, search him, ask him.  So I didn't.  The times when I would come home to see family, I would run into his friends (our mutual friends I suppose) but they never shared even a drop of information about him.

A few years ago, out of my own impulsiveness, I was at home visiting and I decided to give him a call.  I surprisingly knew his house number and he was shocked to hear my voice and even more shocked when I said we need to talk.  We went to a coffee shop where, as awkward as it could be, I asked why. I asked why did we break up? What happened? And his answers were, well.... I don't even know if you would consider them to be answers to my questions.  He told me a bunch of things having to do with family drama, like his mom being diagnosed with cancer, his dad's apartment being caught on fire, and his academic crisis and job crisis that had happened simultaneously.  I didn't know how to respond to what he said.  First of all, I couldn't understand why these things were relevant to our breakup.  Secondly, if these things were happening during our relationship, why hadn't he told me? Why hadn't I known so that I could at least help in some ways?  Aren't relationships about helping each other in times of need? Supporting one another? At least informing one another?  I automatically shifted into comfort mode to see how he was doing and to see how he was feeling. We made plans to take a walk next week but of course, he never called, and when I emailed, his response was that he forgot.

Could it have been any more blatant that I was simply a burden to him?

A few years ago, his close friends (a buncha girls) came out to visit me because they wanted to leave home and explore this new city and state that I live in.  They told me that my ex had told them he fell out of love with me and that our breakup was mutual and amicable.  Following our break-up, he also told them to give me no information whatsoever about him.  He made them promise not to mention him at all when they were with me.  I didn't ask about his family issues at all because his friends seemed not to know about his family troubles.  They just said that he became very introverted afterward and that he rarely goes out anymore to hang out.

So, that's it.  That's all I know about the first love of my life.  He is the person that made me question every aspect about myself and to wonder if they were THE deficiencies and flaw that made me unlovable and deserving of abandonment (with no reason).  He continues to be a mystery and a puzzle to me, and if I were to see him after all these years, I no longer know what I would do. In the past, I fantasized nine million times how I would respond, how I would look under the circumstances, and how I would want to portray myself.  By now, when I think about him, all I feel is tired.  I feel exhausted from the years of wondering and all the years of not getting any responses from him.  I may have saw him and heard him speak a few years after our break-up, but I still don't understand what happened, especially in light of his friends' testimonies.

So, at least for old times' sake, I think of November 16 every year and know that it's his birthday and a day that I used to celebrate and be more excited for than anything else.  Happy Birthday.