Hey folx, sorry to derail the social thread again with my personal pity party, but I could use some advice re: Breakup Stuff. Thanks to everyone for the kind words the other day, btw - I didn't really have the spoons to talk about it any further at the time, but I read and appreciated everything y'all wrote.
My lack of clarity on what happened is pretty much entirely my fault. After she dropped the bombshell on me, I was barely able to listen and retain what was being said for the rest of the conversation. She was more than willing to let me ask questions or say anything I felt like I needed to say, but I was too shellshocked and devastated at the time to do that. It was all I could do to maintain some shred of composure and end the conversation quickly before I broke down completely. She told me she wanted to be friends, but understood if I needed space or wanted to make a clean break, and invited me to reach out to her if and when I wanted to. I told her I would also like to stay friends, but that I would need some time to process things. That's where we left things off Friday afternoon when we last spoke.
I've been holding off on contacting her, even though I still miss her like crazy and desperately want to see or at least talk to her again, because I didn't think it would be helpful or productive to do so while I was still a complete mess. I really don't want to do the whole post-breakup guilt trip conversation thing - that's just a shitty thing to do to someone and she doesn't deserve that, and in my experience it often makes a mess of the whole "let's stay friends" thing. At the very least, on a purely selfish level, I know that *I* would feel really bad about it after having that conversation.
I think I'm ready to reach out to her, but I really don't trust my own judgment on the matter right now and I really don't want to screw up our friendship. I'm still far from completely 'over' this breakup, but I doubt I will be for weeks, if not months, and I definitely don't want to wait that long to talk to her. I'm not constantly preoccupied by it and sad all the time anymore, and I can get through an imaginary conversation with her without breaking down into uncontrollable sobbing, so that's a good sign
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
But really, I'm a good 90% less mopey than I was a few days ago. I started working on updating my OKC profile again and even started window shopping profiles of high % matches. And I've only compulsively checked my ex's profile to see if she's logged in yet since we broke up, like, once a day tops ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So, while I could definitely wait longer and feel closer to being completely okay, I think that I've waited long enough and that talking to her will help me finish getting over this more quickly.
I also think I have some clarity on what I need to know at this point. The main thing that's still making this difficult for me to process is how completely it caught me by surprise - I thought things were going really well. Obviously I was wrong about that, but I don't know if I was wrong to think things were ever going that well, or if we started to drift apart at some point and I didn't realize how bad things were until it was too late. Whatever the answer is, I'm sure I won't like hearing it, but I need to understand how and when my perceptions about the state of our relationship went so badly askew from reality. Also, while I'm sure this isn't what she meant for me to hear and it probably isn't a fair reading of what she actually said, what my brain took away from our breakup call was basically "everything about this relationship was good, and it's one I could be happy in - just not with you." Needless to say, that hasn't been a fun thought to sit with, and if she can help me understand more specifically where things went wrong between us, or at least help me put a more positive spin on things, that would be helpful.
I also want to talk to her about staying friends. I really, really want to. I care about her a lot, I trust her, she makes me feel safe and supported and willing to be open and vulnerable around her... I don't have many friends who live close by that I can say that about, and I really don't want to lose that. I think she was being sincere when she told me that she wanted to stay friends, too, but after so completely misgauging how she felt about me while we were together, I'm second-guessing myself about that, too. I can't help but worry that maybe she only said that to be nice, and would actually prefer a clean break. I feel like asking her to assuage my fear that she only said she wanted to be friends to be nice is sort of self-defeating, since she could just tell me what I obviously want to hear to be nice once again, but I don't know how to address this other than to be as honest and direct as I can about how important she still is to me and the insecurities I'm feeling about whether she meant what she said. Do you think that saying pretty much what I just wrote would be too guilt-trippy?
I'm also not sure whether I should ask to meet her in person or do this over the phone. I know I *want* to see her, and I really do think it would be easier/more helpful to have this conversation face to face, but I guess I just need a reality check to be sure it's not a terrible idea that I'm just rationalizing to myself... And that it sounds like I have a decent enough handle on what I want to talk to her about to have a productive conversation.
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Llama, I'm not one to lecture anyone, but man, please take care of yourself
@ everyone sharing happy news: glad to hear it frens! I'm sorry, I would say more substantive things but the sun's up and I haven't slept and I'm really drained from writing all that. I promise I'll be back to talking about things other than my own hurt feels soon. Definitely probably. Maybe.
). Panopticon is one of my favorite albums ever. Anyone listened to the new Aaron Turner's project? Sumac ?