The greatest adventure of my life finally came to an end today (rant, long, sorry).

Hi. I’m just a guest, and I haven’t posted here before, so you don’t know me. I guess it seems silly to post this kind of thing on an internet message board full of complete strangers, but I have to spill my guts somewhere or other, I need to clear my head, and I’m not thinking too clearly, so please forgive me.

As I said, the greatest adventure of my life came to an end today, and I’m pretty darn depressed about it.

Just for the record, I’m not some whining seventeen-year-old. I’m 26. I’ve been through some shit, good and bad.

Basically, about three and a half years ago I met this woman online. We hit it off like nothing you’ve ever seen right from the word go. We did in fact live in the same city, so we met in person pretty much straight away. I know these things aren’t supposed to happen, but the very second I saw her, I fell in love, heels over head (as the saying should go), madly, passionately. I wasn’t desperate, I wasn’t particularly looking for someone, it just happened, like that. Kaboom. Amazingly enough, she kind of liked me too. A lot, in fact. So we started a relationship. Yeah, sounds great so far.

In fact, we had a connection I’ve never had before with anyone. We both loved architecture, art, and as it turned out, we both came to love Bergman movies. We had pretty similar backgrounds (pretty shitty ones, as it happens). We could see beauty and ugliness in the excact same things. She was also the most beautiful and sexy person I’ve ever met, just looking at her made all silly. Just the smell of her turned my legs into jello and made my body go all whacko in various ways. She had the world’s prettiest face, the world’s sexiest body, and the world’s most beautiful soul. I couldn’t believe, and probably didn’t believe, what was happening. I guess you don’t realize these things until after they are gone.

For about six months we lived in the same city, and then she went off to another city some eight hours away to study photography (yeah, she’s a photographer, and an artist, and a pretty darn great one at that, too). Somehow, it didn’t change a thing, if anything, things turned even better. I had just finished my bachelor’s degree at that point, at was screwing around, not too seriously, with graduate school. I had a student loan and heaps of free time, and was expected to do most of my work on my own in any case. So, I spent most of the following year with her. It was paradise. I got to divide my time between home (to get my alone-time) and with her in a wonderful city, pretty much as I pleased. We were still madly in love, and seemed to grow ever closer, more into each other, every day we spent together. The sex was incredible, too. We learned cooking (which we had both been pretty much lousy at before). We came up with names for our future cats (kids still seemed a bit of a stretch). My favourites were Kitty Wu and Katje Borgesius. That’s right, I’ve studied litterature.

After a year, she decided to take a break from her studies and come back to work for a year. I was planning to get serious about graduate school. She got a pretty safe oral agreement about a job, and we found an apartment and moved in together.

And lived happily ever after, right? No. Needless to say, that’s when the shit started to hit the fan.

A month after we moved in together, her deal about the job fell through, and she had a hard time finding another one she wanted. At the same time, I had badly overestimated my brains and my ability to be a serious philosophy student, and my attempt to write a master’s thesis rapidly declined into sheer mockery. Needless to say, paying the rent was always a very close shave. At one point her grandfather died, and it hit her hard, much harder then I was aware of. She became depressed. I became more depressed. We suddenly found ourselves without direction in life, uninspired and pretty much always broke. I started spending way too much time surfing the net instead of working, and sleeping late. She started taking very long visits to her family. We started blaming each other for our troubles instead of supporting each other when we needed it the most. Somehow, bit by bit, so slowly that it was hard to see just how it was happening, everything fell apart. You know the story. The screaming, the fighting, the throwing of coffee mugs (thankfully, we weren’t very good at aiming).

After a year, she made the right decision and got back to her studies. She applied for a prestige art academy, and, even though she though it somewhat of a long shot, she was accepted with flying colors. Now it was spring. This development seemed to lift her spirits again, and suddenly, the relationship caught a second wind for a little while. Once again we were suddenly screwing with real passion and seemed to be back in love. My heart took flight. Those few weeks were perhaps the happiest of my life. I had lost something, and I though I was getting it back.

No so fast, buster. Of course, she moved away to attend school again. We decided that it was probably a good idea to have some time apart, just to clean house, so to speak, but we both seemed pretty optimistic about the long term. However, her school was giving her an immense workload (or, in any case, that was her excuse) and she no longer had the time or desire to have me come visiting. I decided to give my master’s thesis another shot (I’m still working on the bloody thing). We didn’t see each other for months, but stayed in touch through telephone, e-mail and instant messages. I helped her out with the theoretical part of her schoolwork. I was supposed to come visit her, but she kept postponing it. Always too much to do. At this point I was getting anxious again. The intimacy was disappearing from our conversations. Sure, there was the erotic edge to it now and then (or perhaps it was mostly in my imagination), but something seemed amiss.

Just now, this Christmas, she came back to visit. I had been missing her beyond belief. Well, you can guess how it went. Basically, she came straight out and told me that the relationship wasn’t going to go anywhere, that too much time had passed and that she no longer felt the same way. She still wanted to keep me as a friend, but basically, it was all over.

All signs of love seemed to be gone from her. From her face, from her gestures, from her way of speaking, everything.

Basically, she doesn’t love me anymore. I’m pretty sure she’s probably seeing someone else, too, even though she say so. So that’s it, it’s over, I know it’s final, and I’m still as cracy about her as I’ve ever been. She’s my one true love, there’s no doubt about that. However, I’m just not hers.

Life sucks.

That is all. Thanks for listening.

You’re welcome. Thanks for a tale well told. Hopefully the writing of it has helped you.

Sad and well done. I’m sorry you and she didn’t work out. Very sorry. Be sad for now and know things will get better for you. Really.

Welcome, Peak Banana.

Having her break from you is heart-breaking, but it is worse never to have had that ecstasy…

I am so sorry. She was your first true love and it hurts like hell.

I went through something similar except it fell apart after 9 years. I was devastated. But after 2 years of misery and lonliness, I met someone else, and this new love was 10X more intense and I never imagined that could happen. You’re still young, and you only lost 3 years. You WILL get through this.

In fact, the ex (the 9-year guy) called me out of the blue recently and I felt so liberated after I realized that I had zero feelings for him anymore. The pain does eventually go away.

Peak Banana welcome. Sorry it had to be under such circumstances that we became acquainted. And sorry for the country music quotation, but it just seemed perfect for the situation.

It sounds trite to say it will get better. It may always hurt a bit. But you learned a lot. Use that knowledge to make yourself better.

Others will be along that can say it a lot better than I can. Know you’re among friends here.

Thanks a million to all of you. Your replies help a lot. Writing it out like that actually helped, too. I guess it seems like a coherent story when I think about it like that, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Perhaps that’s worth something.

I don’t really blame her for anything. She has a brand new life where she is now, her schoolwork seems really exciting, and I’m still here, stuck in the same rut that I was in the same time she saw me. I guess maybe she lost faith in me. I will get out of it, though, it’s just taking a bit longer than I thought.

The worst part is this fanthom-girlfriend pain. During these past months of absence, I’ve been indulding myself in these ridiculous fantasies about how it would be when everything would be OK again, that I now have to realize will never become reality. I have to come to terms with the fact that for about the past year, most of the relationship took place in my mind, in a way, with the exeption of that great final spring. I’ve gotten into this stupid habit of talking to her even when she isn’t there, imagining things that I would say when I’d see her again, and it’s all turned to dust.

As I said, she still wants to keep me as a friend, but I don’t think I can bear that, at least not now. She’s fine where she is, and she has made it pretty clear in no uncertain terms that she doesn’t want me there. Reducing this at this point to some rather impersonal online relationship where we chat about mundane things and I explain Marx to her, just seems completely unbearable to me, as I still feel as strongly about her as ever.

Tonight I went out drinking with a couple of my friends and shared stories of miserable failure. It only helps a little while, of course, but at least it’s something.

Again, thank you all.

Oh, by the way, sorry about all those spelling mistakes and sloppy grammar. I’m not a native English speaker, I’ve been drinking a wee bit, and I’m used to having an edit button that works.

I wouldn’t worry about that, Peak Banana. You’re more literate than most of the posters here anyway.

Peak Banana, I don’t know if Garth Brooks is who I’d have chosen to quote, (Note to Rico: NOT that there’s anything wrong with Garth, just that I’m not familiar enough to quote him) but the sentiment is right on.

Being in love is a fabulous thing. Watching the love go away is about as hard as pain gets. But in the end, you’re going to be glad you had the experience, because I suspect not having ever been in love is a lot worse than having lost it.

Been there.

Relived it when I read the thread.

It sucks.

A great man once said, Sometimes, there just isn’t a love connection.
he also said he’d be back in two and two.

Wow… the best part is that you’re only 26. Things will get better before you know it!

Be glad you don’t have children (I don’t think you have children, right?)…

This helps me believe very much that sometimes the best in a mate is someone opposite yourself and more importantly that the best kind of love is love that is learned.