Saturday, 01.26.2013 - 11:53 am.
Regarding my last entry: this passed indeed. Quickly. Like, the next day. By now, my permanent residence application has been mailed to and received by immigration office; I have all of the documents I need to present before the scholarship agency to close my file; and I talked to my parents over the phone and they sound ok and my sister is looking for nice places for Andrew and me to stay. Next saturday, Andrew and I will be waking up together in my country. I'm a bit excited about that.
As a late birthday celebration, my friend/former boss Tamara invited me to go to a spa with her and another friend/former coworker, G. I met and worked with them in the research project that led to my thesis and we've remained friends. It's odd for me to have "girlfriends", as in, I'm going to the spa with my girlfriends and shit. It's not a way of life for me but every once in a while it's pretty awesome. She had guest passes so it was for free too. We swam in the pool, had a sandwich and fries and caught with up with each others' lives. And I got a necklace with earrings and cat stuff. A good evening all around.
One of these mornings, I was surprised to find an e-mail from JC. My first reaction was, "ugh, no, please, don't make me get back in touch with you". Once or twice a year he sends me a brief e-mail saying hi. Usually I reply politely and briefly, enough not to be rude and enough not to continue a chain of e-mails.
Recap: JC is a couple of years younger than me and we both studied psychology in the same university. We knew about each other but we didn't meet until he contacted me in the second half of 2009, I think over something he'd read written by me and wanted to say it was cool and had always felt like saying hi. We became good friends fast because we had the same random sense of humor and could bounce off each other's ideas easily.
He told me about his girlfriend. I felt sorry for her because he wanted to break up with her, after years of dating. It resonated with me, still reeling from my break-up with Joseph (who, less than a year after dumping me, was happily married and expecting a baby). I started to fall for JC but tried to keep my distance, as he was sorting out things with her. He didn't, however. He kept calling me and I kept biting. He broke up with her and we became too close. We were sort of together for a few weeks and although we unsuccesfully tried to have sex in a cabin, I was very happy with him.
We weren't officially dating and yet he dumped me a few days before christmas. I'd given him a bunch of small, personal presents and he gave me a card thanking me for our friendship. He said he needed to be alone and had to clear his mind about what had happened in the last few months. Although it broke me (on top of still feeling hurt to death by the Joseph thing), I understood, we'd jumped into this too soon. His "we may or may not be together in the future" meant "look, I just don't want anything with you, now or ever" and at least I knew that right away.
I dealt with it as best as I could, but what fucked me up was learning that he got back with his ex the next month or so. Then I felt he just played with me, like Art had done six months before. I wondered if he'd thought of leaving her as he started to get along with me, realizing he was bored and needed to fuck around. Either way, I turned out to be a rebound and I felt angry at him for putting me in that position. I take responsibility for my feelings being out of control, but I did try to stay away from him. He kept contacting me, I gave in, he got scared and returned to his gal. I was ashamed, for me and for his girlfriend. We didn't hook up while they were dating but I know it hurts the same when the guy you love dumps you and gets it on with someone else right away. I hated myself for being that someone else and I apologized to her in my head over and over (not like apologizing to her in person would make anything better).
I stopped talking to JC shortly after that. He disgusted me. It's been three years since that happened (late 2009, early 2010) and now that he wrote, I thought about all that. Joseph, Art and him were the guys of 2009 that made me feel like shit one after another, but only JC acknowledged he'd hurt me badly, gave me the chance to talk and he apologized. That meant a lot to me. Joseph and Art put some kind of viciousness into breaking my heart, whereas JC had just been a stupid child. And he made amends for that. Nothing would ever feel enough for me but that was as much he could do and it still was much more that I'd ever expected and gotten before.
I also reached that point where I knew he had no feelings for me and I was ok with that (it's the same with Art, but I still can't fathom Joseph stopped having feelings for me). So I read his e-mail a few days ago and realized he still cares about me. In december I'd heard he is applying for a scholarship to study abroad and when I heard that I thought "ugh, I hope he doesn't get it". When I read his e-mail I thought it'd be nice to be able to wish him well. And since neither of us are attracted to each other anymore, we could give the friendship another try.
It's been great. We are on speaking terms again and it's nice having back this relationship without the burden of passion. We may even meet now that I'm visiting home. He was surprised when I told him about my trip to introduce Andrew to my family and friends and my plans to stay in Chile. My only regret still is having hurt his then girlfriend; I was told she broke up with him some time after they got back together, when she confirmed he'd hooked up with me (she suspected it but he denied it; I like the guy but he got what he deserved). I'm still ashamed for what I did to her.
All in all, I'm kind of proud of me for overcoming this, for being able to bury the hatchet with JC. I thought the entire day whether to reply briefly and politely or give way to a more meaningful conversation. I asked questions like, if we become friends on Facebook again and I see he's back together yet again with his ex or is with someone else, will I feel bad? And I'd say, no. I think I'd be happy if they were still together. Or if he was with someone else. Whatever. That's the beauty of this: I don't care.
And speaking of Art, he got married yesterday, to the girl he overlapped me with. I'm really happy for her (we were middle and high school classmates) but I don't care for him. It was silly falling for him in the first place but he also worked at it. That makes this even more horrible: he was my friend and he was flirting with me because he was bored with his life. He made it sound serious, I took it seriously and then he got scared and found someone else to "joke" with until the joke was on him and they fell in love and had this LDR until now, until yesterday. Yeah, ok.