#dear jo

Dear Jo: Feelings for a Friend

Dear Jo,

I have feelings for a guy who has been in a relationship with someone else for a long time. However, I hangout with him a lot and sometimes think deep down he may feel the same way about me. We would consider each other pretty close friends. Whenever I see this guy and his girlfriend together, their relationship doesn’t make sense. It’s almost like it’s stagnant. Should I tell this guy…

Dear Jo: Depth Over Distance

Dear Jo,

I am in a long distance relationship. My boyfriend and I have been dating for a long time (starting back in high school), and we are very happy. However, we go to colleges several hours away from each other. In fact, we are even in different time zones. We are not able to visit each other almost ever during the school year, and I know not seeing each other is a huge stress on our…

To Joseph, if you ever read this. I don’t think you’ll ever read this. I’m not sure you’ll even remember that I made a “sample blog” to show you what letters between cute little stuffed animals would be like during college. 

This is the night that I first played Lee Sin and in the jungle with Brandon and Co. This is the night you asked me to get coffee with you next week on Tuesday. This is the night you messaged me at 2:07AM after you showered when I thought I would get nothing more than a “Goodnight” in a group Skype chat. 

Do you remember?

I was in the middle of watching YouTube videos to lull me to sleep, even though I meant to get up and brush my teeth. I didn’t have the power to do that, so I figured tiring myself out more would be the better thing to do? I don’t know what the logic was.

The notification was so faint, I could barely notice it, but it lowered the volume of the video so I knew something came up. I was surprised you were even up that late— even more surprised that you’d give me an additional “Viola…? Goodnight…” You could’ve just slept without doing that. You were so tired, at least I think you were. It was scorching hot today and it was 2:00AM, why wouldn’t you be? I dozed off, accidentally pressed a few buttons on a lit-up screen, and then got out of bed to actually brush my teeth.

Then I couldn’t sleep.

Arrested Development was done, so I went to the “Romance” tab on Netflix. I don’t think I was feeling particularly empty or that I needed a romance movie to cheer me up or anything. I don’t now why I gravitated toward that. Maybe deep inside I needed it.

I watched Submarine, a 2010 UK film about a boy that might be younger than us that was trying to balance out his parents’ failing marriage and a first girlfriend. 

Then I thought about you. I thought about the list I wrote in my iPhone before I dropped it in the toilet. I wrote the list during our week-long break, the break when you were on vacation and I was at orientation. It went something like this:

Reasons for breaking up:

You seem to be bipolar when it comes to sensitivity. You think I’m overly sensitive and that I should toughen up, be more independent and not so attached and emotional, yet you become very hurt when I say or do similar things as you. 

You are mean and insensitive when I cry. The worst things someone crying could hear are: “I can’t deal with this”, “Get a hold of yourself”, “Stop being so sensitive”, “I don’t have anything to say” with a stare and silence. When someone is crying, they are at their most vulnerable, emotional state. Say the harder things later, but when someone is broken in the moment, I think it’s just wrong to go about it that way. I’m sure you know the feeling.

I feel patronized. When you are more knowledgable in an area or you know you are better, I don’t feel treated like an equal. It’s like I’m not capable or I’m disabled. If you are teaching me, I wish I could be taught with a more casual attitude.

Communication is missing. Because you are too afraid of bad outcomes, the bad comes anyway but then even more bad because there was no discussion in between. The same goes for me, but it applies more to you. Let me know what’s bothering you, what’s going on, and we can fix things instead of running into walls.

This list was to help me go through a potential break up. That way, I would have my own reasons to look back on and move on a little better. These wouldn’t be the only things that would remind me of you, but just pointers of why it didn’t work out. You ended up not breaking up with me when we both came back and I had broken my phone.

I think maybe the intimacy came in between us as a thick cushion. It was soft enough for us to feel good and not feel so hurt when we fell, but it was too thick to get to the core of our relationship and each other. I think we lost touch for our inner selves. We wanted to lose ourselves so badly in each other… but we didn’t quite come out of it sober to truly love each other. At least, that’s what I think. We needed to be more intimate emotionally. 

After the film tonight, I thought about all the reasons why I loved you and why I still like who you are. The boy in the film did remind me of you. “Socially awkward”, likes to be alone, tends to overcomplicates things sometimes, overanalyze things sometimes, worry too much, everything is preplanned with hypotheses and equations and the outcome should be simple, but they aren’t. I don’t know what draws me to these qualities. Is it because it seems like the opposite of me and opposites attract? Is it because I like the smart type, people who think a lot?

You also have a great smile (I’m looking through some Facebook photos to look back on it too LOL). It’s so lovely! It’s so warm and inviting, and it makes me want to be your friend, or truly thankful that I am your friend.

Your hand motions are so unique. The way your hands move when you speak, your body language— no one else does it like you do. It looks very professor-esque sometimes and other times it’s very delicate, as if you were tapping on feathers and bopping balloons.

I love how you care for your friends. The gifts you make, the things you say, and the thought you put into everything. It makes the thing very you and very special. If the person receiving your love really cares about you, they will no doubt feel so happy to know you.

Anyways…

I’m just rambling. I’ve had my ups and downs when thinking about you. I’m a little above neutral now, so that’s good. As much as our relationship hasn’t worked out with the arguments and hurt feelings, I think much of it is immaturity, handling our emotions, and communication. I think that comes with age and experience. I believe that we met at a wrong time, but I’m not getting my hopes up that we were meant for each other and we will run off into the sunset forever. It’s a nice thought, but it’s not what’s calling for now. 

I think talking to you (myself) makes me feel better. I’m talking to you without talking to you and I get to let my thoughts out in a healthy way. I had more things to say about your personality and things I can’t put a finger on that I love so much. 

I think I’m trying to say that I’m reconnecting with my early feelings for you. I’m finding the real reasons that I liked you, loved you, and analyzing why. And most of the time there isn’t a “why”.

It just “is”. 

I don’t know if I can say that I love you. I want to think that I don’t love you. I think with the breakup my body is trying to force the feelings of love out of me, but at the bottom of my heart I still do. The twinge of my heart when I see you online in League and we don’t play together, when I see you, when you text but it ends very quickly. I want to know you still love me, but I can’t wish for that because we’re not together anymore. I mean, I can wish for that. I can feel or do whatever I want, but I shouldn’t be surprised when you don’t. I shouldn’t expect it, is what I’m trying to say. 

I love you.

I miss you and I try to hard to forget you throughout the day and prevent that twinge by working out for an hour and a half and profusely sweating. I try to get lost in the music by practicing and listening to my audition excerpts over and over. I play League and Skype Brandon all the time, only talking about the game.

But then my heart keeps reminding me that I belong to one man.

I love you.

But I can’t say who.

I love you.

And I remember that old lady that came up to me when I was waiting for my mom to buy her cup of coffee that told me that many men will want me but I belong to only one man. Or was it that there was only one man for me? Something along those lines.

I love you.

Who believes in that crap anyway?

I love you.

I guess it means I still feel this obligation to not “cheat”, I feel like I still belong to someone. It’s not that I felt any urge to move on to a new relationship. It’s not like that at all. But I feel like a part of my heart has been broken off and merged into someone else’s and it’s moving around with him. Where can it be? Where can he be?

I love you.

I think I’m in the phase where I’ve accepted the breakup to the point where there is no return, at least anytime soon. Not within the year, not within the next two years, or more. But I still—

I love you.

—have a flower sprouting in me, from the gentleman who planted it in my heart.

I love you.

I think it’s time for me to sleep. It’s now 5:17AM and I’ve written quite a bit. Even if you read this, I’m not sure if you’ll read the whole thing. Would you even tell me you read this? Probably not? I don’t know. It’s up to you.

Goodnight.

I love you.