It’s best to keep things simple. Keep your phrases short and your words shorter. Keep your eyes downcast, lest he sees something still there in your eyes, some gleam of affection, that will indicate to him that’s not really over. With him, it never will be.
Talk about the big things — talk about politics, talk about religion. Revealing the little ones might reveal to both of you that you still know the smallest most intricate details of each other’s thoughts and minds . And what good would that do but reveal to him that he’s far more than a blur in the distant past? That you think about him nightly, and every time you see someone with his afro-textured hair, and his crooked grin and his laugh. My goodness, that laugh. The one you now hear on train stations, on buses and in Ubers as if the act of travelling reminds you how much further away you are drifting from his joys, from his laugh.
When you very nearly date someone the feelings can be different if not more complicated than if you had actually been in a relationship with that person. You got all the confusion, you got all the mixed signals but you never got any of the good stuff that comes with a relationship. You never got the hand-holding, you never got the sex and you never got the commitment and in that way; you never get the closure.
Your brain goes around like a hamster’s wheel wondering what on earth went wrong and what could have gone right to create a parallel version of the future where you two are actually together. But this is all struggle, this is all pain. The act of thinking about it makes it harder to move on. So it’s best to keep it short. it’s best to keep things plain. Ask him how he’s finding the weather and then, so much more simply than you did before, walk away.
—
Previously Published on medium
You Might Also Like These From The Good Men Project
 |
 |
 |
 |
Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.
Register New Account
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: iStock
