Hi all
It's been a long time again since I've been on here. I was gonna begin by telling you all how I'm looking forward to the New Year ahead, how happy I am these days and how glad I am the past is in the past. But a week ago today, all that could have changed!
O landed a huge bombshell on me - that he wanted to give it another shot. WHY now of all times, I don't know! It certainly wasn't a good way to start a new year off.
Nehoo, before I get onto that, let me tell you about my beloved T. Things are going extremely well. I've now met the parents, who are amazing and I get on really well with them, which is great, as parent-meeting really isn't my forte! T also took me to his favourite place in his hometown, a bridge where he used to send me strange texts from once upon a time, and it was beautiful! And right there, on a huge hotel balcony overlooking the bridge, I told him I loved him. And he returned the gesture, muttering to me, "Damn you for getting in there first..."! It was such a refreshing change to O, who took over a year and three heartbreaks on my part to finally tell me that he loved me back! With T and I, we'd been through several days of "I more-than-like you"'s, and I realised, deep down, that T was absolutely perfect for me. My feelings grew and grew up until the point where I couldn't keep it in any longer! So after more days of "I more-than-like you" battles, I decided that the next time we started saying that to each other again that I would go ahead and tell him how I felt. Of course, with the thought hanging over my head of how O responded the first time I told him I loved him, and the pain I felt afterwards when he told me rather bluntly that he didn't feel the same way, I wasn't going to say anything to T before I was sure that there was a strong possibility that he would return my feelings.
T's becoming a sturdy rock and an even stronger friend to me these days. We get the same worries about work, and we can talk each other out of them quite nicely. My mum dropped some unexpected skeletons from her past on me at Christmas which I talked through with him, and it was nice to be able to tell him things which I wouldn't have dared tell anyone else in the past. He knows secrets no one else knows. He brings me cups of tea in bed and runs me baths. We have great fun together doing all sorts of new and daft things (Ceroc, anyone?), and when it comes to *ahem*, other stuff, he completely blows me away. As I said, the guy is perfect for me. And I hope to be just as good to him as he is being to me! I'm confident in myself, happy with my life and extremely proud to be his girlfriend.
So I do not want O sniffing around me, but unfortunately (perhaps it's said new-found confidence which attracted him), O decided to tell me that he was been potentially thinking of giving things another go.
I guess it all started with a falling out I had with O's housemate's girlfriend, M. She's been someone I've never really got along with. As I've mentioned in previous blogs, O and I are and have been really good friends for a while now since we split up back in July. M (I guess because she's a psychologist) loves to analyse and advise ANYONE. Unfortunately, she can't see her own problems and issues which lie right in front of her, and believe me, she has plenty!
Anyway, after a few drinks one night, she decided to take me to one side, asking for a little "chat". She's done this before, and I guessed instantly what was coming. She began talking about O and I, a story retold so many times now I'm sick of it! Only this time, she was different.
A few weeks ago I admitted to O that I was seeing someone new, my dear T (see my last blog entry). O said he'd really like to meet T one day. It's a long story; as I've mentioned before, T's been my friend for years and O knows of him, and as T used to send me lonely texts from the bridge whilst O and I were together, O was always slightly wary of him (but in O's usual laid back, couldn't-care-less way, never let it bother him). Either way, I was pretty surprised when O said he wanted to meet T! I took his word for it and said I would introduce them one day, as T's shown similar hobbies to O and vice versa, and I genuinely expect that if I sat them both down with a few cold ones, they would both be happy sociable creatures. People said it would never work, but I was prepared to trust both of them to keep the peace. Turns out I may be too trusting!
But then M tells me, quite sternly, to "not ever introduce T to O, O couldn't handle it". Which is surprising, based on what O told me himself! She then began unravelling O and I's new found friendship piece by piece, which began to upset me. This is going way back to December now, and I was feeling a bit apprehensive about T and I. We'd only been going out a month then, take away the two weeks that I was in Florida for and you have a very new and fresh relationship. Something was feeling a bit awkward; I couldn't shift the feeling at the time that no matter how perfect T was for me, he wasn't O! So with that playing on my mind, I got a bit upset, and with M going onandonandon at me, I decided to simply walk away. Cue paranoia from M! I have to admit, drink was a huge factor in it all, but I was fed up, and at the time it seemed the best answer.
I went and found O, and asked him to tell me the truth - did he really feel that way about T?! He disagreed with everything M had told me, and said that yes, genuinely, he did want to meet T. I was in a bit of a state now - I felt with M's unravelling and meddling that I was being accused of messing with O's head, that somehow they all thought that T and I had had something going on months before O and I split up and T and I got together, and I was apologising to O profusely. I kept trying to explain that I didn't feel that way about T back then, and I had no idea that we would end up together, which is the god honest truth (as you will understand from my early blog entries)! So O sorted me out, calmed me down, which was really nice of him, and kept M at bay. Eventually, she barged into where O and I were talking, and asked me why I was upset with her. So I told her that she had told me that I should never introduce T to O.
I was called a liar right there and then, and she stormed off. One of the things I truly pride myself on is that I'm very honest, and this of course just upset me more. Thanks a lot M, way to cause a rift between me and my friends again, one of the most painful things about O and I's split in the early days! M and I had never seen eye to eye; she's really changed her boyfriend P, and has already told O that she thought P and I were spending too much time together, the cheeky cow! I think she just wanted me out of the picture for good.
So that was the big fall out with M; P and O luckily backed me up; they both know that M can be a little crazy sometimes, and O was mad at her for making me so upset when the only people where how O and I are doing these days should matter is, well, O and I! We haven't spoken about it since; decided to let sleeping dogs lie, as she showed no signs of wanting to kiss and make up. I've even been disowned off the almighty Facebook by her!
So, rather glumly in the depths of December, I waited for O and P to sort out M, as my plan was to go down to theirs for New Year's Eve. A strange move, I know - why not spend it with T? Firstly, I didn't want to spend this year with a boyfriend, and secondly, I wanted things to be cool with O and I again, so I didn't feel so guilty and that I had to explain myself around him all the time. And thirdly, because O and P's house parties are amazing!
It turned out that time's a great healer, so come New Year's Eve (after going home to Cornwall and visiting T's home town en-route, and the same in reverse) I tootle off down to O and P's. And I think that was my last sober moment of 2008! Cue many drunken shenanigans with O, and all our old friends, and a fun night was had. M spoke to me, so civility had finally been reached! Thank god! I also had a very drunken conversation with T at the stroke of midnight, where I promised him all sorts of naughtiness! But for old times' sake I decided to fall asleep at 2am; the party carried on until 8am. I know this, because at 8am, O came and woke me up, chattering like a monkey about all sorts of bollocks! There had been a few *ahem* "poisons" around the house that night and he'd participated in their use. It used to annoy me when we were together - I've never done anything like that, but O had no problem with it. He banned himself for doing things like that around me, but I guess now that we weren't together, he'd taken up his old hobby again. I guess it goes hand in hand with the DJ and club scene, a relationship he's unlikely to quit or falter on. Who knows?
The next day, after bringing in (or should that be bringing up?) the first day of the New Year with my head down the toilet (I must be getting old - that never used to happen the day after a heavy night drinking!) O and I cleaned up the house together, watched some South Park or something equally as non-brain-consuming, and I drove back home.
What a great New Year, I thought! I made myself a few resolutions, wrote them down, and started working on them straight away, from buying a new book and a new CD every month, to stop biting my nails (for the third year running..) Come the following Saturday, I'm sitting with my breakfast cereal in one hand and my laptop in the other, and up flashes a message from O...
"Hey fpbec, are you alone/free to talk?"
And I froze. This was not normal O. So I probed a little deeper.
He wanted me to come and see him, and talk face to face, trying to convince me that he'd changed and if I was willing to give it another shot, even though he knew I was with T, then he'd make it worth my while. He told me that he'd been doing months of thinking, that he was sure this was what he wanted, and that he wished he'd realised it sooner. He told me that he wished he'd woken up next to me at New Year's. He said that if I was willing to hear him out, we could end up talking for an hour and I would get angry at him, or we'd talk all through the night.
I was rather taken aback, although I had the faintest inkling that it was coming - he had been getting progressively rude about T when I'd mentioned him in the past few weeks. I just never thought heart-of-stone O's feelings would ever catch up with him. And I was fuming from the thought that everything M had scolded me about, and our resulting fallout, which would have affected P, was actually justified. Would I have to bite the bullet and apologise to her now?
After wanting to hit O around the head with a blunt object (O said I could pick my favourite), mulling over my thoughts and generally being angry as I was scared that this could be the end of our new found friendship, I came to a conclusion on my feelings.
At first I thought O was the elusive "One". But I don't believe in that, end of. I realised that the only feelings I had for O in terms of going back to him were because we were together for such a long time. And what made me realise the most that I'd moved on was the fact that I simply could not be bothered to travel all the way down to his (a good hour or so away) to hear him out. Nothing was going to come of it. T treats me so well compared to how O used to treat me, and I simply wasn't going to risk losing what I had with T and the thought of really wanting to see where things go with him over O, someone who constantly broke my heart. O's behaviour towards me was only a "maybe". A "maybe" is not worth the risk! Even if I did want to go back with O, or if fate ever crossed our paths again, now certainly was not the time. I love my new city, I love my new life and I love T! Maybe one day, things will go full-circle, but I don't want to know that now. All I want for O to do is find a beautiful girlfriend, where he feels the same way about her as I once felt about him. That girl, I do not believe, is me.
So, with some gentle persuading, I convinced O to move onto the phone instead of seeing each other in person, and decided to talk it out with him to the effect that we were still friends afterwards. In terms of what O said he'd lost by letting me go, I told him he was looking back at the past with rose tinted glasses. I told him how perfect T was for me, and rather awkwardly, I told O that I loved T. I told O that it was a case of too little, too late. I was happy now; he was happy (or so I had thought anyway!) and I had certainly moved on! And thankfully, after promising him that I wouldn't introduce T to him as soon as I'd originally planned, he began to see sense. He told me he felt a lot better after talking to me, that he had been viewing things with rose-tinted spectacles, and within a few days, he was back to normal, taking the piss out of me and generally not giving a care for whatever came his way. What can I say, I guess leopards never change their spots... O said he'd changed, and the first thing I notice about him a few days afterwards is how easily he got back to normal. But saying that, he made some pretty crucial new year's resolutions, some based on how he used to treat me, and he's sticking to them so far, but I'm gonna keep my distance for now, just in case. I think he'll be absolutely fine.
I'm not going to tell T what happened. He's got great respect for O and I's friendship, and I don't want to lose that. But if I have any more trouble from O, I'm going to have to tell him.
I saw T the same evening I had the talk with O, and trying not to let what O said affect me, I snuggled down into T's arms and looked into his beautiful big brown eyes. And I knew I'd made the right decision.
Take care folks!
FPB
