Nine months ago I was single.
I was in a good place spiritually, mentally and although I wasn’t going to gym as often as I had wanted to I was still going at least twice a week. I was in a good space. Eight months ago I was still single. Single but more ready to mingle than I had ever been. Seven months ago I met a guy. On paper we were perfect. He is a lead singer at an international church and I am a Sunday School teacher at my local church. We would chat most of the day and most of the night. A few Skype sessions here and there. We agreed on almost everything that was important to me. Basic principles which I thought were essential. 6 months ago 26 December 2016. We had our first date. Now, not only had I told this guy (Adam – let’s call him Adam for the sake of not repeating the word guy). Now, not only had I told Adam that I was new to the dating game but for purposes of full disclosure I had told him that I had never been on a first date, I had never had my first kiss and that the only intimacy that I had experienced with a guy that I liked was holding his hand as he walked me home from a night where we gave out soup to the homeless in our area. This first date was a big deal to me. It went perfectly. The most perfect of gentlemen. We did the first date thing, watched a movie and had lunch afterwards. He pulled out my chair, he walked me to my car and we kissed. 5 months ago I love you was a constant thing coming from your end. I wasn’t ready to say those words yet. 5 months ago I had to convince you. Long distance relationships are a bit of a challenge. You made it even more so when you would continuously remind me not to cheat. I would roll my eyes and brush it off. I mean seriously? Me? Cheat? Who would I have cheated on with? I’ve waited 25 years to call somebody my boyfriend, I wasn’t even tempted to talk to new men. 5 months ago The first few red flag went up. We were making out on the couch and we stopped because I wasn’t planning on having sex with you. Later on that day before I left you said to me that in reality you stopped because you were a good person. That if you really had wanted to we would have ended up having sex. You proceeded to question me about my weight. As if I wasn’t fat the first time that we met. I had also told you that I was not into weaves and that my skin acted up more often than not. You questioned all of that. You would hint for me to look at girls with makeup, snatched waists would turn your head as we walked in public and you let go of my hand when we saw someone that you knew while we were out. 4 months ago I needed a break. Your constant reminders of how I should behave were becoming a problem. I started to see you falling apart at the seams. Almost everything that you told me hadn’t come into fruition. The reality started to set in that I was really a feminist and that I spoke my mind on issues of race. Although you had said that there were things you were okay with your actions spoke a different story. As if I should just be the pretty girlfriend who kept quiet. 4 months ago We had been dating for 3 months and I felt like it was time that I at least posted your picture on Social Media. Mind you, we still weren’t friends on Facebook and you never responded to my tags when I saw something funny on Instagram. You had somehow convinced me that the best thing for our relationship would be not to be public. In some aspects I agreed. You couldn’t agree with me though when I told you that there was a difference between being a social media couple and acknowledging your relationship on social media. In any case, I let it go and never posted our lovely pictures. 3 months ago I asked you if you were excited for church. You sent me a voice note that your musical director had sent you. In the note he was super pumped to see you that night and couldn’t wait to catch up with you. It was sweet. What you may have forgotten was that in the same voice note he spoke about a girl from your church who was apparently eyeing you out and commenting about how cute you were. Red flag. How was it possible that you, Adam, spent soooooo much time with your church family and you had never once told them that you were in a relationship? So much so that they were trying to hook you up with girls at church. We fought. The words that you used centred around the fact that you knew many beautiful women who were just as awesome, just as smart and just as witty as I was but you had chosen me. That was the first time that you used the word beautiful and it wasn’t even in relation to me. To you I was just pretty, but other girls were beautiful. 3 months ago I took a break from you. 3 months ago We were back at it. I asked you to do the love languages test because perhaps if I loved you in a manner which you understood then you would understand that I wasn’t playing around. I had never envisaged dating a person only to break up with them soon afterwards. I was determined to make this work. 3 months ago I was waiting outside church with your brothers when I saw you wave at her. Now it may seem petty but I saw it. The light in her eyes that you had noticed her and the small smile that you usually reserved for me. I’ve been in the church long enough to know that if you are in any sort of leadership you automatically become holy grail when women look at you. As women we see the potential of a husband who will lead us. The look that she was giving you was not a look of a female who knew that you had a girlfriend standing 100 meters away. 2 months ago It had been over a month since the last time you said that you loved me. I said it to you today and you sent back a heart. 2 months ago I remembered today how you had insisted that we watch the movie “War Room” together. As if you knew you were an asshole and that would give me hope that perhaps if I prayed you would change. You mentioned that you didn’t care that I sent you scripture verses from my daily readings. Adam, you grouped me in a category with some other girl who sends you daily scripture whom you never spoke to. Me, your girlfriend. When I explained that the reason that I was sending you the scripture was so that I could hear what your thought were on it. Ha! Your response was that I was aware you were a Christian and that proving it by sending scripture wasn’t going to change things. Which reminded me of how in the beginning you had told me that you were into reading your bible but I had never seen you open it once in my presence. Continue to part 2 below...
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2 months ago I realised how much of a shitty situation this was. How had we gone from semi- awesomeness to this. This where I felt like I needed to earn any attention that you would eventually give to me. How did you expect me to survive from one moment of bliss to another moment of bliss when they were in fact so far apart? 1 month ago I came to visit you. People were painting. I was confused as to why and that’s when you told me that you were in fact moving out that week. How is it possible that your girlfriend is the last person you told about this. Especially when I had already made plans to visit you again the next week. 1 month ago The first time we actually cuddled. We had been dating for 5 months and we had never cuddled. How weird was that? I drove home that weekend and at the provincial line that separates Gauteng and North West I began crying. How had I wasted so much time trying to convince a grown ass man that I was worthy? 1 month ago I woke up in tears. Fuck it I said. I’m done with this. I didn’t even think that you deserved a face to face at this point. I went ahead and sent you a message. “I don’t want to be in this relationship anymore. It’s not me. It’s you. Your personality and the way in which you conduct yourself in this relationship makes me feel worthless. Which is actually such a problem because only in recent years have I realised how frikking awesome I am. I’m not trying to go back to that place I was before I turned 22. When I treat you with the lack of interest and decency that you continuously treat me with you have the nerve to call me out and ask me why I am acting differently. As if I haven’t seen how you changed from you being 100% to you being 25% in this relationship. As much as I love you I’m just over trying to field the landmine that is loving you. Constantly censoring myself to fit into these parameters that you’ve set by your actions and your words to me. Worried that I am to feminist. I’m too pro-black. I’m too natural haired. I want to hate you so much because I gave you everything and you couldn’t even find it in yourself to try and get over your hurdles from past experiences. Constantly policing yourself into thinking that if you do certain things then your friends or brother won’t think that you are man enough. If you didn’t think that I was worth it in the beginning then I don’t understand why you insisted on me loving you. I see everything even when you think I don’t notice. I turned a blind eye because I was committed to making this work. I had always hoped that I wouldn’t date multiple men in my life because I just wanted to love truly an deeply once. You lie to me, you aren’t reliable, you are so narcissistic that you make every argument about you and how I have wronged you. Even when the situation demands that I am rightfully upset, somehow you turn it around and I end up apologizing. Fuck man, you made me break every single one of my rules. How do I even begin to pick myself u from the shit that you left me in? How are you okay with treating another human as if they aren’t worth your time or efforts? I can’t do this anymore. And sure, I am not the easiest person to love. I am difficult and demanding. I love attention from people that I consider to be in my inner circle. The list is probably endless with all of my faults but I know for sure that I love honestly and I’m loyal to the end. I’m pretty sure now that you never even loved me. You just though that I had low self-esteem and would be easy to convince. And I was easy to convince about everything, because I am a romantic and I believed in all the stuff that came with it. You said all the right words and did all the rights things in the beginning so how could I even try to resist? One day you’ll find a lady whom you treat like a queen because she’s your perfect type of awesome and you will love her so much that the thought of losing her would break your heart. She’s also the one whom you are going or want to open up to. Who you want to grow with in every single possible way and it will be so magical that you won’t even remember my name and that I sent you this." 1 month ago. You called and told me that I was right. That you, Adam, are an awful person. That I should give you a second chance. As I mentioned how my friends significant others treated them you told me not to make comparison. I agree. Comparison is the thief of joy. In this situation though I was comparing a healthy relationship that had open communication to a farce of a relationship speared by one person’s selfishness not to be single. You actually told me that you thought that our relationship was perfectly fine. That you really weren’t expecting this. That you never realised I was unhappy. 3 weeks ago I said that I was okay with seeing you for breakfast. We sat in silence in the middle of Neighbourgoods market. 15 minutes of silence as I had my mint flavoured shake. We left. Jessica saw me cry in the car before we went into the event that we had planned for the day. 2 weeks ago You told me that you never intentionally set out to hurt me, never. That it hurts you that I am hurting and especially because it was caused by you. You missed me. You are hurt that I think that you are a bad person and that you are just hoping for the best outcome. The fact that you could have used this opportunity to declare your undying love and commitment to me was lost in this moment. You only chose to say the bare minimum that you knew you could get away with. 2 weeks ago We started talking. We had actual conversations. You actually spoke words of substance. Something that we hadn’t done in a long time. 1 week ago You had a really bad week. You said that you didn’t want to talk about it over the phone so I left it. You said we’d talk about it when we saw each other which I had no plans of doing. Saturday. As we had lunch I hoped that you would open up. That you would finally speak to me. That did not happen. This is when I realised that it would never happen. You constantly speak words that you know I want to hear. You make promises of a better you. As if I should wait in pain as you work through your life. As if I should be okay with the fact that I’m only good enough to date if nobody knows. Sunday. Sunday would have been 6 months. Today. I’m done. |
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January 2017
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