Dear Anita,

Thank you for still being here with me.

I’m trying to dig really deep through the fog of emotions and be realistic and true. The shortcomings and flaws that I refer to are just minor then – getting mad occasionally at a conflict, not admitting or apologizing easily, hung up sometimes only to call back later. In my mind, I was exaggerating all these tiny flaws into a behemoth probably to dump my mistake onto her. Everyone is a bit off. I’m sure that that wasn’t the reason for a fallout. But all this pales in comparison to the love and care that she showered over me. Here is an additional piece – it is not just that she was great, but here are some other amazing things about the relationship that I will probably not end up finding anywhere else – she is smart, and intelligent, adventurous, outgoing as well as family-oriented, her family is very loving and her mom cared for me so much. It is a combination of such amazing things that I find it impossible to ever find someone like her. And as I’m aging, I’m afraid no one else is gonna find me attractive enough to come close to me. So, here I’m sharing my fear too. I’m afraid of being alone now, I’m afraid I will have to settle for less after she is gone. I’m afraid of not living a satisfied life. I’m afraid of not loving again. I’m afraid of not getting love again. I’m afraid to live. I am afraid. I’m not trying to host a pity party for myself, but the situation feels hopeless to me. I feel like I could have lived an amazing life with her. We had so many thing sin common. We both loved to take long roadtrips, watch the same kinds of TV shows, shared the same sense of humor, shared the love for our families. She was with me as my friend when I went through previous breakup and I was there when she went through hers. We stuck around each other for everything. We even lived in different cities for 6 months, and then ended up back together again. Some of our friends thought we looked great together and that we should get hitched. There were so many signs from the universe to be together, and I chose to ignore it all in pursuit of the unknown.

Sorry that is a lot of information. But I feel overwhelmed with emotions. My head hurts now!

Dear Anita,

I did write all those things, and they’re probably true to some degree. Yes she hung up a few times, but she would call right back. Yes, she did not admit fault in small trivial things, but she did when things really mattered. I wrote all that crap to dump my bad decision onto her. I’m about to reveal something that I did not do before. I’m ashamed of admitting it after so many posts, but the real reasons I pushed her away were –

1. I have been going through a traumatic transition in my life since over a year, and it is still not resolved. So, I spent all last year trying to figure out how to get out of it, and barely gave any thought to our relationship.

2. I wasn’t ready to settle down just yet. But as soon as she moved on, I realized what an incredibly bad decision on my part.

3. I wanted to be self made man before I brought on someone else in my life. I figured once I have everything else, I can bring on a person and be happy about it. But, all along these years, I failed to see that I had one amazing constant (her) in my life that stood beside me even during the difficult time in this past year. She held my hand through all this and wanted to be with me despite the fact that I was pretty much jobless and depressed for a year.

I’m sorry to bring these up now, but I couldn’t hold it in. She was in fact a great woman who could have been mine. The feeling that I’m getting right now is precisely this: “I gift-wrapped my soulmate and gave it to a stranger.” I feel like I committed the worst sin, I’m evil, loser, dumb and worthless person. I feel like a failure.

Thank you Eliana and Anita,

It is not just the pain of loss of love, but also of a best friend. It is easy to find a romance partner, but best friends are hard to come by. I lost two people at once. It is difficult to say the least!

Dear Eliana,

To be honest, we have had ‘the talk’ already. We have had that talk multiple times, and we both are aware that we both do not know how our friendship will turn out. But, my dilemma is still the same – Do I let go of such amazing friendship we developed over the years? I honestly do not know the answer. I wish I did. But I am okay not knowing where it goes because I’m done trying to control every aspect of my life. I will let it unfold on its own, and see if we stay in each other’s lives.

That being said, I have a learnt a lesson: be deliberate about who you love and in what way. In this case, the whole “friends with benefits” situation wouldn’t have hurt me if I was deliberate in fully committing to it, but I guess strong feelings towards her as a friend mixed with physical intimacy led to this disastrous combination. From now on, I will only move forward once I fully recognize my feelings. And I will try to do anything in life with full-heart.

I will surely miss her though. She had been my everything. Now, when she leaves, she will take that all away with her, and I will be left exposed to the harsh reality.

I will survive though. Maybe even thrive if and when I let someone else back in my life!

Dear Anita,

I hope I find the realistic calm soon. Thank you for all the support!

Anita,

Whatever you’re saying is true. But at the same time, it wouldn’t have come to this if I stepped up and asked her to be mine once and for all. I missed that chance and whatever followed is a complicated mix of emotions from both sides. We both are lost in some ways and hence making it more complicated. I’m sure down the line things might get bit clearer but as of now, the world means nothing to me. I’m numb, and the only vent I have is you and Eliana. It has been a wonderful experience so far with you both of you. I hope to have this thread going for sometime to not feel all alone!

Dear Eliana,

I sort of know what she’s going through. We just got off the phone now. She said to me that she will not be able to handle moving away from me, but tht she must. And then I said to her to not move and come back to me. But she goes, “I asked you so many times, and you did not realize, now it is too late. It hurts but I cannot step back.” So, in order to save her family’s dignity, she won’t step back, even though she wants to. If she were born to a different family, perhaps a more progressive family, she would have come back to me because she told me that the other guy will not be able to measure up to me in any way.

So, in a way, I do understand her pain too. She isn’t happy either. And that hurts even more because I never let her cry in the years that I have known her. I took away all her pain, but now she feels all alone without me, even though she has a guy in her life.

Funny, but she is seeking my advice on some of the problems she is encountering in her new relationship. We had a long phone call this morning where she is basically seeking my help in making her new relationship better. And I’m giving her suggestions in improving her new relationship and simultaneously putting myself through more misery and pain. Why am I doing this? I want her to be happy but I know that in giving her happiness, I’m giving myself more pain. I do not know what I’m doing!