I think I like someone. But, I think I just like the idea of her.
We never met. Never even seen her face on-cam via video, just purely pictures. We’ve known each other for six months now and we only conversed over chat in which she initiated because she wanted me to be part of something hers. Took me a long time to finally get out of where I was and finally knocked on her doors to say, Hey, I’m here. Ready to be part of the space you’ve built and will continue to build.
I used to kid around saying the reason I was there was because I was just trying to impress someone. I think only the two of us knew the someone I was trying to impress was her. Or maybe others know or had a hunch. To be clear, I didn’t even tell her that directly when I came knocking on her abode. Again, I was kidding around when I was asked by someone else but there’s truth in it. I know there’s truth in it and I just had to admit it.
You see, our chats weren’t even flirty nor romantic. They were all… platonic. Technical. Friendly. Random musings about the environment where we are mutuals. Sometimes, she’ll talk about her life, disclose things I am surprised I have the privilege to know about. I felt special. But I know, she was and is just being kind. I don’t have to put more meaning into it. Because that’s her charm. Her openness. She told me she’s comfortable with me and there I was, hoping I don’t make her uncomfortable real soon.
I know my limits on these things. I know she doesn’t like me that way (heck, she may not even like girls) but as daily interactions happen, I couldn’t get her out of my system. I kept on creating ideas of her in my mind. All fictional, I believe. All these products of my imaginations about her are clinging into me, hyperbolically, like air. I know one thing that could make this work (in translation: to exhale all this air).
So I confessed. In eight paragraphs, I told her I think I like the idea of her. Yes, eight paragraphs. You know how I write. Disclaimer, the paragraphs were made with just two to three sentences, majority.
Thanks to her sending me a recording of her singing Your Love by Alamid (while playing the guitar) — because I once again joked around for her to sing — I decided that it was the right time to say my thoughts. Because why on Earth, of all songs, would she be singing Your Love to me? (I really want that to end with an interrobang but I am trying to be finesse and calm here.) Honestly, I don’t even like that song. I was amazed by the coincidence of things. It’s the song I don’t like, not her singing.
And when she later on said she was playing her guitar in that recording, I told her to stop being pretty as she’s not even the kind of pretty that I like. I know it’s true. She’s not the kind of pretty that I like but here I am, writing about her (poems and this), thinking about her, and remembering her in some songs my ears randomly bump into. (That’s pretty in total sense, not just physical appearance.) Have I mentioned it seems everybody likes her? You’ll feel lucky if she gives you the attention. She has that pull.
She acts and talks (chats) so maturely. But God. She’s in her early 20s. (Why does she have to be in her 20s?) While already an adult, this more or less decade of age gap makes me feel more conflicted. In which I also told her, this reason makes me liking her somehow inappropriate in my thoughts. Apart from the fact that, why would I even like her when we haven’t even met? Technically, we are strangers in each other’s lives.
She wasn’t grossed out. She wasn’t weirded out. She sounded appreciative upon learning my thoughts (or feelings) about her. I guess she really has her way with words. Words that can bring you comfort somehow. She even said it’s a flex that I like her. (And that was the second time in my life I’ve received that comment.)
But lately, we’ve been talking less and less somehow. She’s probably busy. No. Not probably. She really said she is busy and she has a lot of things going on. And I’m feeling melancholic about it. I’m really a selfish person. I am saying polarizing statements.
I told her she doesn’t owe me anything. My feelings aren’t her responsibility. So why am I demanding something? Not that I literally told her that but my mind is going places. Like thinking badly on how she used to almost consistently talk to me before I came to her side. Once, I thought that maybe, because she already got me in there, it’s done. But no. She was still her usual self days after I came until she had to be busy. See. My brain is weird. My brain is evil. My brain is — fuck, sad. But it doesn’t have the license to think this way. So the better way to put it is that, my brain is fucked up.
And these past few days, I am trying to take a step back and distance myself not just from her but from everyone in the sphere we are in. We had a long talk about something where I felt that my honesty let her down. But maybe I was the only one thinking that way because she received my messages warmly. Apologetic. And that was our last substantial conversation so far. I haven’t received a reply from her yet when I told her she showed up in my dream, in a weird milieu. A chat I’ve been trying not to send because again, I was trying to put some distance. (But I told her in jest I was trying to make her miss me. Wow. Pathetic.)
I flipped back to the past and aired out my disappointments, which I have been burying for so long because I didn’t want to bother her anymore. I was hesitant to rap about them. But it all crawled back up because of this one instance that made me remember the days I felt no one was on my side despite me being right. When I was hoping she’ll be there, showing up for me instead of doing things on the sidelines. At least in my definition, because that’s how you support people. That’s how you affirm people. You don’t do things at the back-end because you don’t want to announce what you do for people. You show up because it is for them and not the other way around. And I needed her to be there. I just wanted her to be there. Maybe like how I was there for her.
But again, she doesn’t owe me anything — even if I can reason out why on that specific part, she should’ve been there.
Because we cannot force people to do things for us the way we want to. And in the total sense of this thing I have for her, we don’t force people to like us back.
I have a feeling I won’t receive a reply on that chat anymore. I’m afraid I made her uncomfortable (despite all her past warm replies in our last conversation and her explaining her being bad at replying. Why am I so obstinate?). I am overthinking this. Too much. And I think that’s what makes me sadder lately. When again, she doesn’t owe me anything, not even a speck of dust.
God. I really want to ask her, Are we OK?
And ask myself, Do I really want her out of my system?
The answer is, I should be thinking of her differently now that I have or I am currently processing this. Not like this. Not these imaginations. Not these ideas. Not these things undone and may never even happen.
I seldom write for myself now. I guess I needed to do it this time because as I insinuated, I think I am suffering from sadness these past few days, until now, which I shouldn’t be having. I don’t know if I really feel heavy or I am just telling my brain to dampen the mood.
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