#self thought

(If you don’t like long stories that could be said in only a few sentences, skip this. It’s a winding road, so either get in the car and drive with me, or skip the party)

I’m a recently self accepted Queer person. I realized I was a homosexual a little over a year ago and it took a bit for me to be comfy with that. And then I decided I’d download the Her app. It was beginning of lockdown (although if you had asked me then I would have said it was mid lockdown, so I guess this qualifier doesn’t really matter), and I, as a socially out, but familial closeted person decided that talking to women on a dating app might give me a chance to spread my little gay wings.

It took about 20 minutes but a girl, let’s call her Hannah, messaged me. She was funny and actually held a conversation, and Hannah made it very very clear that she thought I was beautiful and that had COVID not been a thing, she would have asked me on a date.

I was shocked, delighted, and baffled. A woman? Liked me? I had never felt desirable before then. No one had ever actively pursued my attention before ~at least, in a respectful way~I was excited.

But here’s some things you’ve got to know. I am a college student. I am a college student who struggles with school. I am a college student who struggles with anxiety. I am a college student who’s main goal is to graduate with possible grades and this is her one try main focus. And most importantly I am a college student who is trying their best.

Sounds normal right?

I get busy, everyone does. Over the next week, Hannah and I seemed to be playing phone tag. One of us would respond, and then along while later the other would. Eventually we exchanged Snapchat’s.

Ok. More backstory...at the time I was taking summer classes, which is essentially a 3 month course jammed into a 4-6 week period. I was taking not only Physicsand Physics lab, but I was also taking Calculas. A class I had failed, in a normal term, twice already. My strengths are not in math or science but I had to take these to keep my graduation date from pushing back. For MANY reasons, it was one of the most anxiety ridden summers I’d ever had. But I handled myself. I’d gone to therapy a few years before, and I had some therapist sanctioned coping mechanisms, and some self taught ones. For example. Spoons. You have 20 spoons a day and you can spend them on whatever you like. Some tasks take more spoons than others, but you only get 20. So use them well. At the time, school was about 15 spoons. Staying closeted during a pandemic and social movements in a southern conservative home took up 4. Which left me about one spoon to spend. Most days this was spent laying on the floor with my puppies or attempting to keep in contact with my ride or die friends. Because that’s one of my self taught coping mechanisms, which may not be healthy or not. But when I reach my capacity, I shut out the world. I cannot respond to texts or calls or, anything. And at this point in my life, my friends understand that. If they don’t hear back from me, I don’t HAVE to worry about upsetting them( I mean I still worry but as I said. Anxiety). At the very least I can just text them spoons and they get it. I try to respond as fast as possible but sometimes things get pushed back a few days.

Anyway, back to the story. We had been snap chatting a bit, at least everyday, but it wasn’t the same. I began to notice that Hannah never seemed to talk about herself. I’d ask her questions about herself but I’d get very little information. And she’d quickly turn the convo back to me. And let me tell you. There is only so much of talking about my own life that I can do. I tried using convorsation starters or asking her opinions on things I had never experience but she had, and...still she gave little information and turned it back to me. It was frustrating, but I accepted it. Maybe she wasn’t as good a conversationalist as I first thought. And another thing I noticed was that she never seemed to be able to chat with me first. I was the one who had to initiate it first. One day I decided that I wasn’t going to message first. A few hours go by and I see on her story that she posted a meme about people not texting people. It seemed weird but I thought, no can’t be about me. The next week I tried it again. The meme was way more pointed and most could argue passive aggressive. I called her out on it, and told her if she wanted to talk to me, she didn’t have to wait for me to do it. She agreed said she’d do that. ~stage whispers~ she didn’t.

These passive aggressive story posts would continue for,gosh a half a year now. If I didn’t text her for a stretch there would be a post on her story about it. It got to a point where I wouldn’t open her stories or even Snapchat at all.

In December I got an internship, which is essentially a full time job and it’s expected I take night classes to accommodate this (it’s part of my major so it sounds crazy but I swear it’s normal). I was anxious and it’s been a huge learning curve. Throughout this time, I would off and on respond to her texts, I’d tell her how the internship was going all that jaz. But there would be days where my spoons we spent and most defiantly not on her. Her call out posts increased. My anxiety got real bad and her posts only made things worse. So eventually her messages sat in my inbox, unread, for 3 weeks. I contemplated never opening them. But I felt bad. I opened them and reexplained why I couldn’t answer in a timely mannor, apologized for the unintentional ghosting, and made it very clear that if she wished to continue texting me, that I couldn’t promis a prompt response. She said “don’t worry about it. I get it. Just remember to text me when you’ve got time!”

Last week J hit, and while Im still not comfy with what was going on in my job and life, I was mentally able to make a rare Snapchat story about getting to pick music at work.

I still didn’t have a lot of spoons to answer her, so her comment on my story sat untouched in my inbox till tonight.

Tonight I found the courage to leave a groupme of people I am no longer friends with. And I opened Snapchat to leave our Snapchat groupchat, when I began to think about Hannah. Because there on her story was another call out post. I had just left groupchat a of toxic people and yet here I was clinging to a girl who made me feel so bad about spending my spoons. Who could not, for whatever reason, have an adult behavior about her feelings and what she wanted and needed out of our “friendship”. I decided I’d remove and block her. I don’t need this in my life.

But her unopened messages were still there. I opened them. There on my screen was Hannah’s response to my week old Snapchat about picking music. The gist of the message? “Looks like your not to busy to post on Snapchat”

All my guilt and remorse flew out the window, and Hannah was immediately blocked from my life.

Why did I wait this long to boot her out? I think it’s because she was the first, and so far the only woman to show interest in me. And I was scared that by blocking her, I was giving up my proof of gayness. Her interest made me feel more valid in my identity.