This is my realisation this week. 



Dear R
 
I am not sending you this letter in any physical sense, but I may resort to some remote influence to tell you some of the content and to cut the cord with you once and for all. I met you in October 2006 and though it was clear we were attracted to each other at the very least, that never developed as I thought I wanted it to. But now thinking about it, I’m not sure I really thought through how I wanted the relationship to happen and what was a possibility and what wasn’t. We spent two and a half years skating around that. There was an age difference and we were at different life stages and situations so I limited myself to what I thought I could have, or even deserved. All the time I spent trying to get a relationship with you off the ground, wondering why it didn’t happen, what was wrong with me, and convincing myself underneath that you were just laughing at me secretly. We haven’t seen each other since March 2009 and you were very cold and brusque the last time we met. We texted a few times the following year but since then all attempts to keep in touch by me, on and off over all those years – 7 of them - have been met with a stony silence. And I have spent a long time since then wondering why, what I have done, what is wrong with me, when I thought we had graduated to friends. And the answer is – nothing.
 
I apologise if I did anything to upset you, behaved in any way that you didn’t like. I do once remember you telling me that you couldn’t accept a birthday present I had given you. Did you feel it was inappropriate, or I was too generous? Was it an embarrassment because you saw me as having more than you and you couldn’t reciprocate? I would have loved to find out why. Yes, I had very strong feelings about you and I thought I was in love with you and it was clear you had some feelings for me of some sort at least. I liked being with you, I liked the way you made me feel (and how you looked). You seemed protective of me too and I liked that, in fact you seemed to have the full package. When I met you I had deliberately chosen not to attract male attention or seek it out owing to a disastrous event 7 years earlier and hadn’t done so until I met you. I was also in a relationship with someone I had split with and got back with 7 years earlier too following said disastrous event, and realised that though I liked him, loved him even in some way, I wasn’t in love with him anymore. So maybe I thought you would meet all the unmet needs that I had ignored or suppressed. You went out with Becky, Louise and Vikki amongst others, so what was wrong with me, I used to ask myself? The control I gave you over my life, feelings and attitude is laughable. I should not ever have entertained it.
 
What happened with you too was that I allowed fears and worries from the time I was 18 and was mucked about and stood up by someone to spill over into my time with you. I expected you to act the same way as he did, and at times, you did. You would stand me up on occasion. You were both the same age too so what else should I have expected?
 
I have now given up wondering what your reasons for cutting me off are, because though I would like to know, I can live without finding out. I am who I am, regardless of your thoughts about me. It would be cool if we were friends I suppose, because a lot has happened in both our lives and I would have liked to keep in touch and meet up now and again, as I do with other people – some of them are even exes – I love catching up and chatting.
 
Do you know, I now think all this was purely egotistical. I did a lot for you which you know, and though I don’t in the least feel you owe me, I maybe felt that keeping you in my life proved I was worth something. I am anyway, whether you choose to be a part of it or not. Maybe my self-image was wounded because you chose not to be in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I liked being with you and spending time with you and would be happy to do so in the future if that happened. I don’t feel that “self-love” means I have come to the realisation that I am better than you. It just means that I do not need you in my life to feel happy, worthwhile or what I already am.
 
This has gone on for too long. Not just you, but with the original guy from the age of 18 that I carried through into my time with you and which now has popped up from some introspective thinking I have been doing. It has made me question my motivation for wishing to be in a relationship with someone else now. It is time to leave it be. If you wish to contact me in the future, then that is up to you. I wish you well.