In words.. I can't apologize enough.
I was an absolute asshole in the past. I treated people like they were expandable, and I used people. I used to tell myself that I was just flicking through a deck of cards until I found my ace. I actually still believe that I WAS doing that with women.
I was going from relationship to relationship, and if I found things I didn't like, I didn't bother to try to fix it. Little things were ok, but if there were any big things, I would never have stayed. I would have just shrugged and said, "That's not the girl for me." and moved on to the next one. This caused my longest relationship to be 3 months.
Sure there was that girl that was on and off for 11 years, but I don't even count that anymore. That wasn't a relationship. I'm not even sure that that was love. I think that it was just an 11 year infatuation.
An ex of mine put this up on her blog almost 3 years ago. It was about me, or at least, the old me.
"u were always a charmer, and just when i thought i was immune to your charming words and corny ways, a part of me liked it. which makes feel me terrible as to our situation does nothing to improve the lust and emotional pleasure that we once indulged in"
I hadn't talked to her properly for a while before that, as we were still raw from our break up. But there I was, infatuated again. I have always had an issue with closure. I would get into a relationship, and then in the end, break up, and then later on, remember all the good times about the relationship. After studying psychology, it's become evident to me that that happens to most people that leave their relationships, so it's considered normal, but no less painful.
It happened with every single girl I have ever dated, except for one. This post is about that one. My one. The longest one. Hopefully the last one. Hopefully, THE one.
I was quite proud of myself for being in that relationship in the past for 3 months. That was because before that, my longest relationship had been about a month, so the bar wasn't very high. But now I realize how little time 3 months is. It's not enough time. Not enough time to get to know someone. Not enough time to be with someone.
Which is why I'm apologizing to every girl I have ever dated, or wronged. I apologize for not giving you enough time. I apologize for not taking the time. and most of all, I deeply apologize for having wasted your time. You all deserve better than the boy that I was.
I am going to send the link to this post to every girl I've dated, and every girl I've wronged. I am incredibly sorry about everything. I'm not sending this to rub your face in the next part of my post. In fact, I'm sending you this because I want you to know that I am apologizing to you directly. This may sound a bit generalized, but if you see a message from me in your inbox, and it has the link to this post in it, that is because you specifically were on my mind while I was writing this.
The other thing I wanted to say was that I'm changing, or.. I HAVE changed.
I am currently dating a girl who in the past, I would never have thought that I would have dated. She has a child, she is facing serious charges on the basis of something that she is a victim in, but that the main culprit was her ex, and when we started dating, she was an alcoholic.
In the past, these would have been immense red flags for me not to approach. But something happened, which I didn't expect to happen. I thought that I had already done this when I left high school, but I was wrong. What happened was that I grew up. I thought that that happened at the end of high school because I changed. I was no longer the shy kid that didn't talk to many people.
I took charge, I made friends, I learned to manipulate people and become the center of attention. I thought that that was me growing up, but it took me a while to realize that I hadn't grown up, I had just turned into a massive dick. I spent 2 years of my life basically in solitude when I moved up to brisbane. I suffered deep depression, and it hurt. I had no friends, I had no girlfriend. I would play online games, and it was an escape for me. I was one of the best players out of the entire MMORPG, and I felt like I was king. I was immensely popular on that game. Everyone wanted to be my friend, and I even forgot a lot of people that wanted to be around me. It was very difficult for me to keep up.
This is exactly what depression is though. You don't want to be part of your real life, so you try to escape it. Whether it be with drugs, alcohol, or in my case, online gaming. The worst part is, it becomes an addiction, because the moment that you turn that screen off, you're alone again. It's just you, struggling to be yourself. I think that the worst thing about it was that I had no one to properly talk to face to face about it, and that I couldn't let it out physically, because for a long time, I have been physically incapable of crying. I don't know why. I've never really liked the idea of going to a doctor and saying "I can't cry. What's wrong with me besides severe depression?"
I cringe thinking about that.
What I didn't realize though was that that time changed me as a person. It forced me to grow up. It taught me things that I thought I already had, but evidently I lacked. It taught me infinite patience. I used to have a short temper, and it would be set off by things that irritated me. Now though, it takes a lot for me to actually get angry.
It taught me the true value of money. Being addicted to that online game caused me to spend $8,000 on it. Yes, that's correct. $8,000. Enough to buy myself a car. I learned from that mistake.
I taught me that people weren't always who they seemed to be. There was a lot of time for self reflection, and although it's obvious that people lie, I thought that I was smarter than most people, and as such, I was better at it than everyone else. But observing myself, and others as they lied to me directly even though I already knew the truth, it showed me the true capabilities of people around me.
But I think that most importantly, it taught me the value of personal contact. It taught me to value affection and company. Being in front of someone else was a rarity for me, and as such I began to lack some barriers that I had built up over the years. I had begun to be attached to movies and shows, I'd laugh a lot louder at funny scenes, I'd get annoyed when characters would do annoying things, and my heart would beat very fast through exciting scenes such as something wrong happening in a telenovela or an awesome fight scene or something.
Now knowing more about psychology, it was pretty evident that I had developed a detachment from society.
All of this though, taught me what I needed to know to become a better person. It changed me to be ready to go into the world as a kinder person. I didn't want to be an asshole that people would abandon anymore. I wanted to be the happy person in a group. I wanted to be someone that people could always depend on. (I was always someone to depend on though, unless you were dating me and depended on me not to break up..) I wanted to not be who I used to be. Lo and behold, I was who I wanted to be, and I am that person now.
I developed the patience, and the strength, to find out that girl's story. Why was she being charged? What was the story? What's happening deeper? I found out from several different sources that it really was not her fault. She is such an empathetic person that she wants to at least put some of the blame onto herself even though none of it is hers. She is a wonderful person, and everything that people saw on the surface was absolutely nothing like who she really was.
We've been together for a year now. I'll admit that we have had speed bumps along the way, but we're both determined to make this last. Her longest relationship was 4 years long, which is incredibly larger than my previous longest, but day by day, my longest relationship is increasing. The 1 year mark is here, and I want to make this relationship last.
I am not that guy that I used to be, and I never want to be again. I want children. I want a wife that will love me with all her heart. I want to be in that place where I am truly happy. I am now well on that way.
For those of you that didn't get bored by my long speech, this is still about you. I want you to know that the "bad guy" is not getting the happy ending. The bad guy got his punishment. He spent 2 years, locked away in his room, not feeling very good about himself. There was extremely severe depression, and if you ever thought to yourself "I hope he dies" well you might be satisfied to know that many suicidal thoughts crossed "his" mind.
A good way that I saw it was that I had broken a lot of hearts, and those hearts had been sewed up, but that I left a scar on each of them. I didn't realize though that for each heart I broke, mine broke also. I didn't realize it because my heart was numb. It was numb until I had depression and I began to feel everything again, and my heart had so many scars on it, that there was hardly a pure piece of heart left that wasn't damaged. But that heart kept beating. It pumped harder, and it grew into something better than it used to be. It changed me into the person that I am today, and I am grateful to you for that. You helped me to change. All I wish I could do was remove the scar from your heart.
This goes out to you.
My exes.
My lovers.
My loathers.
This goes out to you. The one that I hurt. Hoping that you can one day forgive me for the way that I've hurt you. I've made my mistakes, and I have paid a high price. I can only hope that that is enough for you to feel justice.
