First Impressions Count: The email that ended it all

May 02, 2005

I should have trusted my first impression.

In September of 1997, I was 17 years old, working at a movie theater, a senior in high school. There was this guy online who was so completely obnoxious, but people were drawn to him anyway. He had this.. charismatic personality. He was unlike anyone I had ever met.

One day I went to my friend Angie's house, and he came by to meet us. Within 5 minutes of meeting him, he had me running from her house in tears.

And ever since then, almost 8 years later, the tears just never really stopped. I loved Matt, and for some reason I felt I had to give him every single part of me. He never really asked for it, but it would be a problem if I didn't give it. When people would tell me that he was an asshole, I would want to scream "NO! You just don't UNDERSTAND!"

I thought that since they didn't understand how passionate and cuddly and quirky and comfortable he was with me, they were wrong. I thought that since he loved me, he really and truly loved me, he couldn't be an asshole. He was just misunderstood.

But now.. now I understand. I do understand that he's an asshole, and he only looks out for himself. But what I don't comprehend is how he can end something like this. How he can be so cold and uncaring and non-apologetic. How he just doesn't give a shit.

I woke up today in a bad mood because I had a dream about him and the new girl. I knew it was going to be a long day. When I was doing a Family Feud at work, I just straight up decided to send him an email. What my mission for this email was to get him to say that he was sorry, that he was proud that I was being so good about this, that he didn't regret a second of being with me. That is not what I got. What I did get made me have a complete emotional breakdown at work, complete with my boss coming over and me telling her and my other coworker the complete story.

Here, so I can remember it, so if I ever think about contacting him, if I ever think that it's okay to start trusting him again, is our emails. I should have known that it was going to end this way, but I just didn't think he had it in him, at least when it came to me.

My letter to him:
I know you probably have so much stuff going on right now that you haven't really had time to think about me or why I haven't tried to talk to you in the past week (well, I guess that's pretty obvious), but you know me -- I can't let anyone have the last word.

I just don't want this to be how it was last time. I don't want to beat you down, I don't want to ask 100 questions, I just don't even want to know how it all happened. All I want you to know is that while I'm sad and maybe just a little confused, I know this had to happen, and I'm dealing with it. I'm happy for you, and I'm proud of you. I'm not going to interfere with what you have going on, because I know it's time to get my own thing going, too. I have so many awesome things happening in the next couple of months, and I've really been trying to not get bogged down in this situation, and instead think about everything I have going on for me.

I was thinking about what you said once about not disrespecting the relationship by being angry that it ended, and I'm really trying to go along with that. I'm trying to remember that even though it didn't end the way I wanted it to, that doesn't mean that we didn't have some incredibly wonderful times. That doesn't mean that it wasn't worth it. And it doesn't mean that I didn't learn a lot from you.

I'm just trying to be mature about it, really. And while 90% of the time that works, 10% of the time it just makes me sad to know that I've lost you.

Anyway, you don't have to answer this if you don't want to. It's your month, and I hope you're having an awesome time. If you want to talk or just say hi or something, you can IM me here. But don't worry.. I'm not planning on any big deep discussions or anything else. I understand what has to happen here, and I'm okay with that. Believe it or not, I've grown in the past 2 and a half years.

This is the last and only email I'll send you, I swear. I just wanted you to know.

His letter to me:

Not to be rude, but I'm not sure if you specifically had anything you
wanted me to say. I appreciate your effort to do this - she has just asked
me not to contact you because of the whole sex thing and she doesn't want
us being friends.. I mean, I'll respond to emails or whatever that you
want - and I'm happy for you - but I want to respect her as well. She is a
great girl. If you're sincerely trying to be happy for me - you should
be. She treats me very, very well.

There is just so many things wrong with that email, I can't even begin... but the thing that set me off, the thing that had me heaving with tears in my cubicle, was the fact that he told her he had sex with me. The fact that he felt so guilty, the fact that he didn't want to keep anything from her because he respects her that much, but yet he never apologized to me, never gave me the respect I gave him in complete and total droves... that makes me crazy.

And now.. I'm angry. When this all happened a week ago, I tried to take the mature route. I wanted to be happy for him. I felt that since I love him, I have to love the fact that he's happy, even if it's someone else who's making him feel that way, even if he's making me miserable, even if he isn't the same person I thought I knew.

That, my friends, is over. I am not happy for him. I HATE him. I physically and emotionally DESPISE him. I don't know how I could have given my entire heart and soul to this man who never really, truly gave a shit.

He apparently never loved me unconditionlly, but I didn't love him that way either. I had the condition that he love me back. That he give a shit about my emotions. That he didn't take advantage of how I would do anything for him. But he exploited that, he used it, he did everything he could to use it against me.

I want him to hurt. I want him to feel as emotionally beaten as I am, but I know that's not possible. The only revenege I can possibly take is living a good life without him. Just take it and run with it. Just be the best I can without him in my life. Living well is the best revenge, they say, and that is what I want. And even if he doesn't know about it.. even if I can't call him and tell him about the good things that happen in my life, he can wonder. He can wonder if I'm living my life without him, if I lost the weight, if I wrote the book, if I got my shit together. And maybe someday it'll occur to him what a shittastic asshole he once was. And maybe he'll hurt inside. And maybe he'll have an actual emotion about it. And that's worth it to me.

And.. what sucks.. is that I know he KNOWS. He knows EXACTLY what he did, he knows EXACTLY how I would feel about it, and he probably even knew EXACTLY how it was going to end. That alone makes him an asshole. That alone makes me want to scream bloody murder.

I don't plan on ever talking to him again. Yes, he was my best friend for a very long time. We shared things I'll probably never experience again. But people do this all the time and survive. They cut people out of their lives, they move on, and sometimes they miss them and shed a tear or two, but they don't obsess. Matt is not going to be in my life anymore, in any kind of capacity. Not when I get my shit together, not when I find love and feel that I can be friends with him without expecting anything else.

He's gone. And it's almost liberating to finally be able to hate him for everything we've been through.

So, it's been a week. I've talked about it to everyone who will listen. I've practically starved myself because I'm just not interested in eating. I've cried during work, I've spent hours on wondering why he hasn't tried to call me at all. I'm done. I can't talk about it anymore. I've had it. I am appalled by the way this ended, by the nonchalant way he can turn his back on me. I know someday this anger will fade, but right now, it helps. I never knew that love could so easily turn to hate, but now I know. I thought I knew him. I thought, after almost 8 years, that I knew him. And emails like that make me doubt that I ever really knew him at all.

He taught me so much about everything, and most of all, he taught me to never fall in love like that again. TO never trust somebody so completely with your emotions that you abandon yourself within him. He taught me that good people can turn into assholes, but most of all he taught me to always trust a first impression.