I don’t think I will ever be able to distinguish if I am in a toxic relationship until I am out of it, but I’m getting better at reading the warning signs, and listening to my friends who shout, “He’s bad news,” and listening to them. I never knew how bad he was for me, because of how good I thought he was. It’s so easy to be blinded by your love for someone, that you use that as a smoke screen and never see the picture clearly.
Lesson number one; love's gaze is astute, foolishness is ignorant.
He picked me up from my house and we went to hang out at his house. It was understandable why that was a date, it was mid-pandemic, everything was shut down and it was in the middle of winter. This was our third date in my mind but it become a hangout in his. We were on the same page before then, we had two great first dates and things seemed to be going great. I’m trying not to gloss over the good part of this 'situationship' but honestly it all went downhill so fast that it’s so easy to down play the short-lived good parts. Our first date was a walk in the city at night, and he showed me all the best spots in town since I was new to the place and at the end he got me hot cocoa because I was so cold and he wanted me to stay and talk to him longer. He dropped me off at home and I literally melted into his hug. The second date was even better, and I found dreaming of what the future could look like with him. The third date, was the beginning of the end.
We watched his favorite movie because he hated all of mine and then he suddenly became distant mid-conversation after we watched his movie. There's an image ingrained in my head when I remember the moment. There was a moment of absolute bewilderment, and then staring off to space, and then countless moments of sadness because he wouldn't speak, and I blamed it all on me. I wondered what was wrong and I even went as far as plead for an answer but he wouldn’t budge and he insisted that he was fine and proceeded to hint that I should go home, so I left. I wasn’t sure what happened that night and I was too puzzled, too disoriented to even try and think about what had actually happened. He never texted me all day the following day, and I resisted the urge to double text. So, I pretended that I was fine when he hit me up later that night to ask me if I wanted to hang-out the next day. I let the silence slide, and got excited about seeing him the next day. We always sent each other doodles and that’s all we did as I waited for him to come pick me up from my house. He was sweet: told me I looked beautiful, and gave a Christmas gift which shocked me, but it made me forget why I was annoyed at him. The book was by my favorite author, so yeah, it made me feel special and I made excuses for his unannounced absences.
A couple of days afterwards, we went shopping and there was a promise made about him making me pancakes and having an indoor picnic, and just like clockwork, I smiled and I forgot all about his silent streak, until after our next hangout and he went on it again. This time for two days. Two days of constantly checking my phone, praying he’ll text me and then asking me if I wanted to go get Chinese food so we can eat as we watch a movie. And this was his new pattern; we’d hang out and he’d do things to make me feel very special then forget about me until the next time. I lived on his timeline, and with all the ignorance and foolishness I had gathered in the months I knew him, I made the excuses. “He’s not a texter," "he doesn’t like calling," "he’s never on his phone when we’re together so it makes sense," "he works long shifts.”
I let this go on for over three months, and he wouldn’t text or communicate for a week, and then come back on the grid with a cute little date and a gift for me. And I was falling hard, even with all the space, and all the silence. I ended up hanging to the highs so much and would force my mind to forget all the lows he’d put me through for the whole week. “Does he like me? Does he not like me?” I wondered until I forgot myself in the process. I never cared about how I felt. I never asked myself, do you actually like him? Do you actually want to be with this kind of guy? Because I knew the answer to that, but I never knew the answer to all the other questions that I lived in so I made figuring that out my business.
It wasn’t until we got food, and he was seated opposite me, that I got to see him clearly. He bought me my favorite dinner, lit candles, got my favorite drink and had a gift for me. I figured him out in that moment. He was lonely, and would never want to commit fully, I was just helping him pass time. He was claiming to be an open book but was still shutting me out. The were never answers to my questions, but I realized then the silence was an answer. The spaces in between was an answer.
"He doesn’t like you, and you don’t like him, you just hang on the idea of him being a good guy someday. It’s not love that you have for him, it’s hope and you can’t date hope."
Somehow, after figuring that out, I was able to walk away. I wasn't happy about it, but I was free, and I came out knowing my worth better than I did before I got in this sickening relationship.
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