(sorry in advance, this turned out to be epicly long. You may need to pop the kettle on and put your feet up, it'll take a while to trawl through my ramblings!)
Why do guys say this? Especially when they clearly have no intentions on following it through!?
[Disclaimer: I'm tired and for some reason have turned into an irrationally whiny person who needs to off load a few things... Please hold back on the flaming; I just need a rant or a hug - rant seemed the easiest option!]
Long story short, I am the recently dumped. It wasn't a long term relationship, there are no DCs involved, it's really not that complicated. We met at school, briefly went out but it led to nothing more than friendship. After school I did the uni thing, then came back to the hometown and found a job. He did the forces thing, went up north-ish and as of a year and a bit ago was posted abroad (after becoming engaged. She later called it off - just a month after he moved overseas.)
Last July, after the whole Facebook craze brought us back into occasional contact, something twist-of-fate-ish happened; we started talking on MSN (yup; proper modern-age romance!) one Friday night and didn't end the conversation until Saturday morning. I still have no idea how we managed to fill 15 hours, but it was pretty obvious that something had clicked.
MSN turned into texts, turned into phone calls, turned into my booking plane tickets to go out and see him in the September. A real relationship had developed. I spent 4 days out there, he came back to the UK for a month (he stayed 2 weeks with me, then 2 weeks on a training course) I went back out there for NY. It wasn't ideal, but we had known that from the start. The wonder of Skype meant we were speaking almost every day. He sent me flowers at work, took me to the West End for a show and then to a fancy hotel, we got each other almost matching Xmas pressies. Everything was fairytale and wonderful. We were talking about going on holiday together at the end of April. I was secretly planning weddings and babies (but not in as creepy a way as that sounds - we had once or twice joked about 'when we're married' etc.)
Rather recklessly, I had fallen in love. Stupidly I told him this. Twice. That was when he started to go a bit quiet. He came back to the UK at the end of January, but what was originally meant to be a week with me turned into 'Oh, I can't get there until Thursday', so I changed my leave; no point being off for no reason.
So he arrived, eventually, spent 8 hours in my house, during which time we had sex twice. He was attentive and jokey, but a little quiet - he blamed it on a heavy night out the previous day and a long drive that morning. Then, after turning down dinner, he comes out with it - he wants to break up, he's thought about it and he doesn't think the long distance thing will work, wants to stop whilst we're still on good terms with one another. Maybe in 2 years, when he comes back to the UK things will be different. He was so nice and reasonable about the whole thing. Then he says the crucial thing 'I'll give you some space. Let me know when you don't hate me anymore, I really do want to stay friends.' To which I mumbled that I would never hate him (still true...) and that I'd get in touch.
The whole thing hurt... a lot... I sort of numbly accepted it at the time, spent 3 days crying and not eating, but eventually got to where I am now; understanding why he did it, but thinking he went about it in the shittiest of ways. Ridiculously, I still think about him. Like, every day. And I can't really talk to anyone about it because I don't want to be THAT girl who can't let go.
Anyhoo; we've 'spoken' briefly twice since then - one quick MSN conversation which was more my way of 'proving' to him that I was ok and ready to move on, and one tiny interchange of facebook comments, and that's been it. There's been nothing since the end of Feb.
Now, today was my birthday (26th). I had a wonderful day with my family and couldn't be more grateful for them, and for everything I have. And yet I've got back home and all I can think is that I'm upset/annoyed that he didn't bother sending a quick text or even dropping a wall post on facebook just to register the fact. That's what a friend would do, right?
So yeah... Why did he bother with saying 'let's be friends' and then almost total silence?
The real question probably ought to be why was I naive enough to believe we could return to friendship given how I felt about the whole thing? I've built so much up in my head simply out of the notion that we could be friends and then just maybe, in 2 years, he'll come back, take a post in the south, and we could start again, for real this time.
I know I need to move on, to forget all about him, and that I'm acting like a lovesick teenager who just got her heart broken! I just don't yet know how to be realistic about all this, especially as it's highlighted the fact that I am incredibly lonely, and hate living on my own/being single/etc.
Umm... the point of this thread... other than to release all the above from my mind, and to take up valuable pixels on your screens, was perhaps to seek a little reassurance that I can break out of this insufferable & angst-filled longing, and to see if anyone else had a romantic tragedy they needed to unload on sympathetic/empathetic ears... Let's all come together in a great unloading of romantic woe, in order to unburden ourselves, ready for that moment of clarity when we realise we're actually ok, and we don't need that arrogant git (or lady-git!)