When They Hurt You But You Still Should Have Been Better

Owning up to making mistakes is not easy to do, especially if one is used to following the rules and doing the right thing.

I think, however, that admitting your mistake and trying to make amends (if you can), is one of the first things you can do to heal your troubled soul.

I turned into someone I am not very proud of these past few days. While it is true that it takes two to tango, I would still like to blame myself for bringing this upon me, and for not stopping when my mind suddenly went into dangerous territory: infatuation.

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve been infatuated before, but certainly not to this degree. I suddenly found myself acting like someone I would have told to “grow a spine” (but in a nice way, of course). I was addicted to being affirmed.

Perhaps I was a) feeling lonely after suddenly having too much free time (I am on summer break from school), and b) trying to recreate the love story I always imagined I would have. B was completely unfair to him. He was a real human being. No matter how badly he treated me, I should have been the better and wiser person.

But I wasn’t. Like an addict going through stages of withdrawal, I exhausted all means to get a fix, once this blew all over me. I felt helpless without his admittedly scarce texts, and his phone calls devoid of any emotional affection. Still, I didn’t care. I wanted to feel that ‘high’ again, even though I knew this was detrimental to my psyche. Hell, even he knew my attachment to him was unhealthy.

He should have cut ties with me early on, but I guess he kept me around for the ego boost, and because I put up with his distant behavior.

This is something I would rather keep to myself to maintain my squeaky clean image of being a sensible, level-headed woman, but I have since realized that even the most intelligent people can become susceptible to acting irrationally. It is useless to try and cover this up; the best way is to own up to it, learn from it, move forward, and avoid making the same mistake again. That is
precisely what I am trying to do as I type this entry. If I could, I would reach out and apologize to him, but sometimes, we get no closure. Besides, I have no means of reaching out to him without seeming stalkerish, and I am not going down that road again. And anyway, no amount of apology can also undo or lessen his negative feelings (which are valid and I completely empathize with)
towards me.

So now I am trying to spin this incredibly embarrassing blunder into something that will help me grow as a person, by listing my realizations:

1. Admitting one’s mistake is difficult, but shows emotional maturity. I behaved immaturely, and this
is the first step towards becoming a more mature individual.

2. My self-worth should not heavily rely on someone else. I’m happy I was able to re-evaluate how I perceive myself, why I have developed this perception of myself, and how I can improve.

3. It is unfair to project your fantasies on the person you are seeing, and get heavily upset when he does not meet your expectations.

4. Do not ignore red flags just because he said the right things. Actions speak louder than words.

5. Before plunging into the chaotic chasm we like to call ‘romantic love’, we have to make sure we are whole, so the other person does not become a piece of the puzzle we desperately need (more often than not, the puzzle piece doesn’t fit).

I will still have my bad days and will grieve about this failed pseudo-relationship, but I will try my very best to emerge from this a stronger, better, wiser, and kinder human being.