It Has Come To My Attention That Not Everyone Is In Love With Me

Well, this is unfortunate news.

The very last time we properly spoke, I was trying to articulate to him without sounding insane or desperate or dramatic (or all of the above) that I needed him to talk to me about what was going on. I thought about him constantly. And, honestly, I wasn’t really listening to what he was saying in response because I could almost just sense that everything coming out of his mouth was fluff to shut me up and I watched his leg bounce against his chair instead—which is something I do regularly without realizing it, but I was wondering if he was doing it without realizing it too or if he was really nervous—and then he said, “well, I don’t really think about you anymore.”

This came as quite a shock to me because I usually operate under the assumption that everyone is in love with me. Hm, not everyone (hardly anyone), but I usually save my love for people once it’s very clear and cemented in our relationship that the other person is very much in love with me first. This goes for all kinds of relationships and I’m very, very careful about it. I’ve been practicing it for years. I invented the safety net that comes included when someone is more into you than you are into them. It’s my preferred power dynamic and I will not stand for any other way of being. Anything else feels like a waste of time to me.

I don’t think I really reacted to it when he said it. It’s rather hilarious how direct that sentiment is—everyone has probably experienced losing interest in someone for some inexplicable reason, but it’s the sort of thing that’s never said in romantic comedies. Nobody is telling Katherine Heigl they’ve stopped thinking about her. Tom Hanks isn’t going to the top of the Empire State Building, only for Meg Ryan to be like ehhhhhhh. I’m not saying I’m Tom Hanks, but I am saying I’m way better than Katherine Heigl.

I feel like if I were a stereotypical character in a romantic comedy, I’d be like the Cool Girl Protagonist’s neurotic roommate who’s in her pajamas in every scene and, like, shows up to the wedding at the end with a dog. Ughhhhh.

But, anyway, I haven’t stopped playing everything over and over in my head since it happened. Me telling him he needs to say what he’s feeling, his leg bouncing, “I don’t really think about you anymore.” I guess he did exactly what I told him to.

Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.