Risk

I always say I'm not a risk taker.

I'm not.

or maybe I am. I'll let you decide.



I wanted someone. I wanted them to be more to me, more in my life. I wanted to love them and be loved in return.  Not in the way I'm so skilled at: platonically. You see everyone wants to be my friend. Well not everyone, but the people who are friends with me enjoy being in relationship with me. I know they do. They tell me so. :-) I've had the same friends since middle school so I know I'm a good friend. I also know that when I've needed them, they've been there and I've been there when they needed me. I've got the friendship thing down.

But I wanted them to be my partner. Now this is rare. I don't generally like people, or rather I don't ever pursue anyone I do like. To be honest, I don't really even let myself like people too intensely because its never a good outcome. I don't have the best track record when it comes to people I actually like. All my past relationships started because someone liked me in a more than friendly way. I've never been in relationship with someone I truly liked on my end. I generally agree to date someone because they like me. Why? Well because people I like don't like me back, well at least not in a romantic way.  Sometimes I think I'm just not the kind of person that people like romantically. Friendship is my strong suit and usually I stick to it. I'm not a risk taker remember? I stay in my lane and my lane is friendship.  But not this time...

I wanted to be as close to this person as possible but they weren't dating. Or at least that's what I had been told. By them. They said "not happening with anyone!" And so I was as close to them as possible without crossing any lines. I demonstrated my love for them in extraordinary ways because friendship was all we could have. We were friends outwardly but in my heart, I loved them.

Deeply.

Pervasively.

In a way that made me nervous when they called and giddy when they texted.

Yea….it was like that.

And just so you know, I'm a flirt when I like someone. A big one. And I flirted big time. Now the cautious person in me never admitted that this flirting wasn't just for fun but let's just say I can't see how anyone could have seen it in any other light.  There are just things you don't say for fun no matter what I say my motivation is or was.

I also thought this was safe. All of this play…all of these blurred lines were safe. Why? Because no one was dating. No one was even open to dating, so what was the point of having an overt conversation about how I'd like to move in that direction? None in my opinion.

I'd have dropped everything, within reason, to do whatever they asked. Now I'm the same in all my relationships, platonic or romantic, and its motivated out of love, duty, and devotion. The percentages of each of those were different for this person as opposed to friends. This wasn't that.

And so…time passed. They grew in my heart and my mind. My main love language is giving gifts and so I did that. My AMEX got plenty of exercise ;-)

The best parts of me…I gave.
The vulnerable parts…I exposed.
The broken parts….I talked about.

Hindsight is 20/20. I now see what I did was risky. This was a risky move.  Loving someone who wasn't loving you in the same way? Risk-y. Never communicating clearly what I was feeling was also risky but then again, they weren't interested in relationships so why bring it up? I thought at the time that it was far riskier to say I wanted more when they'd clearly said they didn't want that with anyone than to remain silent. I'd be told straight up "not happening!" In the moment, nothing was risky….and then everything was.

So as time passed, unbeknownst to me, they started dating.
Dating in secret.
Dating someone who I thought was their friend.

I know for a fact that at some point I asked directing "Are you still single?" and got the response of "yes, why wouldn't I be?"

And I let my suspicions die with that response.

But that response…that was a lie.

And now I'm in a space I've never been in before. The space after someone you love has lied to you. Normally, I'd have ended this relationship but its much more complicated than that. This person is a part of my life. There is no escaping them even if I wanted to, and I don't want to, but I also don't want to watch. I don't want to see someone else having what I wanted with them. That's a special kind of torture I'm not open to. Sometimes, loving them hurts. Sometimes, its war.

You see, eventually they admitted to being in a relationship. A real one.
And to be honest, figuring out how I feel is a struggle.  On one hand, someone I love lied to me. They didn't believe I deserved the truth.  That's big for me because trust matters.

Trust fucking matters to me. And if you don't trust me, why are you in relationship with me at all?

Another huge factor in all my relationships is safety. I crave it. Emotional safety isn't something you find everywhere  or in every relationship and now I feel like I'm completely exposed and they've got all their clothes on. That's not fair. That's also not safe for me. You see all my weak spots and even if your intention today isn't to hurt or maim me emotionally, you now know how you could.

I'd like to point out that they never mentioned that their "not happening" in the dating/relationship department had changed. I was given zero notification of this change.

But you know what wells up the most for me the most often? The fact that I feel like I'm not good enough.

Now I realize that the heart wants what the heart wants, but what my heart wants never wants me back. I know that none of this was meant to hurt me. I know that my being kept in the dark wasn't intentionally malicious, but that doesn't change that fact that it hurts.

On good days I don't think about these questions I'm about to pose, but on some days they are at the forefront of my thoughts.

On some days its hard for me not to see this as….

"What can't I do for you that you want?"
"Why am I not good enough for you?"
"What am I lacking that makes you not want to be in a relationship with me?"'
"Why am I never good enough?"
"Who do I have to be to have reciprocity in romance?"
"Will anyone ever want to be more than friends with me?"
"Will the most intimate relationship I ever have be with the children I have by myself?"
"Why doesn't anyone want more with me?"
"Am I not worthy of romantic love?"
"Why don't other people see me as a possibility for a life partner?"
"What's wrong with me?"
"Why isn't my best ever good enough?"
"Will I ever have true companionship?"
"Why don't I "do it" for anyone?"
"Am I not worth the lifetime investment?"
"Why doesn't anyone's heart flutter for me?"
"Why am I not good enough?"

You see rejection is tough. Its even tougher when you're the person that never gets to pick. I've been picked but picking isn't something I ever get to do. And maybe…I'd like to be with someone I actually liked from jump.
Maybe I'd like not to have to be won over over time while in a relationship with a person to finding this person romantically appealing.
Maybe I'd like to see them that way from the start.
But alas, this is not my lot in life. I am the rarely picked and when picked, picked by someone I like platonically.
I'm not the picker.

You know how Jesus sometimes knows better for you than you know for yourself? He did that for me with this. Let me explain.

I'm an emotional creature. Very sensitive. Very emotional. Emotionally labile is a term I've heard used and it applies to me.
Everything in my life is affected by my emotions, and by everything I mean my schoolwork. I am after all a professional student so my life is schoolwork. When I was in undergrad, I had a particularly rough semester with my ex and my grades suffered. You see my day-to-day ability to function is tied to stability in my emotional landscape. My ex didn't provide that. He was often the cause of my unrest and thus has been nicknamed "the $25,000 mistake" by my first mentor. To this day she doesn't like my ex.

Like many of my undergrad friends, this person would have been much closer proximity wise to me had I attended medical school this fall. They'd have become a part of my eye space and that would have been a problem.
An emotional one.
A potentially struggling in medical school type problem.
Not because I can't do the work academically, but because I can't do the work emotionally.

Honestly, being single is the best situation for me to function in academically. Its safe.
It means that these papers will get written, these notes will be reviewed, and this dissertation will continue to get worked on.

Singleness = productivity because it also equals emotional stability. No one can get close enough to me to knock me off my academic game if I don't entertain romance. And thus I don't. But I was entertaining romance and if I had been an M1 this year…lets just say "I gotta look at her in her eyes and see she's had half of me" and seeing that wouldn't have let me see my textbooks. And that, my friends, is not a win.

Jesus literally fixed that situation for me. I couldn't and didn't see it in the moment but this hindsight is something. I'll probably actually become an OB/GYN because I didn't go to medical school and struggle this year.

You know how they say the struggle is real? The struggle would have been earth shattering because I would have needed to write my dissertation, publish a completely novel research project that goes against understood dogma, and do well in class. Those three things coupled with emotional devastation and the feelings of not being good enough that overtake my consciousness would have been the definition of a disaster.

You see I'm a jealous person.
I know it. I own it.
I'm also possessive.
I love being the closest friend people have. I love being a confidante and a shoulder to cry on.  I work really hard at it. I work really hard to be a person who is seen in this light.
 And knowing that someone else is closer to you than I am…that fucks with me. I definitely don't want to watch. Who wants to watch someone they want to be in relationship with be in a relationship with someone else? I don't.
I don't know if I'll ever feel like what I have to offer them is enough. It wasn't enough for them to want to be with me.
My best is always insufficient in romance.

Not only am I jealous and possessive but I'm also kind and gentle and nurturing and easily hurt.  I'm the kind of person that commits. I've only ended romantic relationships with people because they were cheating or because they were abusive and in both situations I gave them ample time to do better. I was in the abusive situation for over a year before I finally said enough was enough.
I believe in commitment. I believe loyalty is worth something.
So yes, I'm staying. I'm not going anywhere. But I have learned some things.

1. Say what you mean. The level of risk assumed when you say what you want upfront and are told no is less than if you keep silent and find out later that the answer is still no. You won't be as invested or hurt by the no.

2. Don't do anything for anyone that you would resent having done if the situation doesn't become what you want it to be. Thankfully, this lesson was simply reiterated as I learned it the last go round but it bears repeating! I'm very proud to say I didn't do this this time! 

3. Don't assume.

4. Don't believe everything someone says. "Not happening" can become an "oh actually its very much happening and not with you." People don't intend to lie or set out to, but they do, they have, and they might in the future.

On the other hand, I sincerely hope that what they've decided to do works for them. It wouldn't work for me but I'm not in it. We're still friends. We're always going to be friends. And as your friend, I want what's best for you. I want you to be happy.
I don't want you to get hurt…and because the person you picked isn't me, I can't guarantee that they won't hurt you.
But if they do….I'll still be here. My love, my devotion, and my sense of duty remain. The proportions have changed but they're all still accounted for.
I may not be the person you picked or the person anyone ever picks, but I'm still exactly who I was.
I love you.
I'll always be here.