maximzub wrote: ↑Fri Mar 05, 2021 12:22 am
Yesterday and the day before I was so excited about possibly having a second chance with Anna. And of course, impulsive me blew it. What I forgot to mention about yesterday was that I was giving hints as to who I liked, so by the end of the night, about 10 members of the cast and crew knew it was "the short-haired girl playing clarinet in the live pit". Three friends were teasing me, and one of them jokingly called her my girlfriend again. (Remember that I had been saying that as a joke until she told me to stop.) While I denied it, I was laughing as I always do when I'm nervous, even while talking about serious topics. Anna overheard the whole ordeal, and since she didn't show any signs of being upset, I didn't notice that she was. I still would like to believe that she genuinely accepted my compliment on her clarinet playing.
Anyway, with none of the problems in mind, I planned to ask her tonight if she was still uncomfortable talking to me. If yes, I would have offered more space on her terms. If not, I would have asked whether I can be completely honest with her. Sounds like a plan, right? Well, something shattered my plans hours before I was to carry them out.
It seems like Anna recently created her fourth Instagram account. It showed up in my recommended, and I was curious as to what it was about. From it, I found that she's amazing at drawing and painting (it's a drawings account, obviously). Impulsive me thought it would be harmless to follow that account. It wasn't even a minute later that I refreshed the page, and it didn't show up. She blocked me.
Immediately my mind flashed back to the rumors she had told me about. People had called me a stalker before, and once she recognized that my advances were starting to become too much, she had asked around and found out that my behaviors were common. That's when she pulled away from me for the first time. Back then I had resolved it with an apology, and she gave me signs that she still wanted to be friends. Then she heard about the girlfriend joke, and told me she was uncomfortable and wanted to distance herself from me. So started the week of completely ignoring each other, followed by the (almost) week of limited interactions. Now we were back where the problems had started.
I whipped up an apology right away:
MZ: "Ok, now I went too far. I'm sorry for following your new Instagram account so soon after you created it. I'm unintentionally giving you more reasons to believe I'm a stalker, and I'm just feeling really guilty for it. I miss being friends with you, and I'd like to believe you do too. So in the future, I will be completely honest in order to make sure this is not a one-way relationship. I trust you to guide me towards not doing anything more that crosses your boundaries. Will you please forgive me? I understand if you need some time to do so."
I already knew in the back of my mind that constant apologizing wasn't going to work out, so I was in complete panic mode. I still managed to hold myself back from staying on Instagram waiting for a response. I cranked out a school assignment and then went back to check after a good amount of time had passed. What I saw was the most heartbreaking message of my life. Yes, even more heartbreaking than other girls rejecting me, because they were always blunt. Anna is just not that type of person to be blunt, which makes it hurt worse. But I see where she's coming from.
AL: "i forgive you but i still do not feel comfortable. I over heard one of your conversations last night. Someone was calling me your girlfriend again and it made me very uncomfortable. I heard you refuse it as well, but you didn’t sound serious. you were laughing and that just gives them more reason to believe you’re lying. If this keeps going on I don’t know how I will react. I don’t want to push you away because i know everyone deserves a chance, but I also don’t know if i really do want to be friends with you. We don’t have much in common and it just makes me more uncomfortable when things like this happen. I’m sorry as well."
AL: "I will say it again to reinforce it, but i do not think of you romantically in anyway. I’m sure there is someone out there for you, but it’s just not me. I’m not looking for a relationship, and I clearly am not very certain about wanting to be friends with you so there is no reason to assume i like you."
This provided me with new information. I wrote up a response, but with no intention to send it in its original form. In it I reiterated some of her points and explained my side of things.
- I feel uncomfortable about my friends teasing me and I want them to stop.
- I don't want this to continue to happen for the sake of her emotional health.
- I don't see why we don't have much in common. We wouldn't have been friends if not for our common interests.
- I didn't expect her to see me romantically yet.
- I wish I had been honest earlier to save her from all the stress of having to hear about my feelings from someone else. I had made that mistake too many times, and making it with a friend hurt the worst.
- The fact that she is not looking to be in any relationship is eye-opening, but honestly a good choice. I highly believe it's because of her Christian faith.
And then I deleted the whole thing because it shifts the blame to her without admitting that I was wrong. So instead, I wrote this:
MZ: "Thank you for taking the time to respond. I know you're busy. I'm sorry for all the trouble that I caused you. I'm very immature; I don't know how to behave socially. I talk way too much, I don't think much before I say things, and then I regret them. When I'm nervous, I laugh even when the topic is very serious. I never had any intentions to hurt you. You were always nice to me, and I started having feelings for you as more than a friend after a while. I understand that you don't have the same feelings for me. It reassures me when you say there is someone out there for me, but I need to work on how I act a lot.
I'd just like to leave you with one more thing: That what you wrote was beautifully worded, and it means the world to me that you were willing to take the time to make your feelings known."
Why, Charlie Brown, you really have to delve! That's exactly what I did. Of course I was met with a warm response:
AL: "I’m glad you understand, and i hope we can still be nice to each other in the future. I am bad at confrontation and speaking honestly about my feelings a lot, but i want you to know i am being honest with you. I hope you can find some friends who have more in common with you! As always the invitation to come to my church is open, and i’m sure there are tons of people there who would love to be friends with you."
Invitation to her church? Isn't that just an invitation to continue stalking her? No way. I'm not going to any church, much less hers. I still embrace freedom of religion with an open mind, but I do not believe in any religion myself.
Anyway, musical practice was as normal. We made eye contact a few times from a distance but did not wave, smile, or talk. I'll have to get used to things that way.
A lot of things are obvious from here. The one thing that isn't is where we stand. Even she isn't sure of that, as she says. I don't know whether to acknowledge her or not at school tomorrow. I will not just to be on the safe side.
Crumbso, Zaz, Ubik, Greg, any of you guys, you were right. So goodbye Total Randomness Thread. I may come back only if things ever improve between me and Anna. I don't need to discuss the sad details here anymore.