silent people

Years ago, I sat across from Kim in her office and recounted to her a, now horribly embarrassing, IM-style conversation I'd had the night before.

"I told him I loved him," I said, with a tone that was part 'See I am capable of love' and part 'I think I just crapped my pants'.

...

Imagine the sound of crickets.

...

Through countless conversations to follow, Kim would try to explain to me that A.) Telling the man in question that I loved him...was stupid and B.)It was stupid because I didn't really love him. What I did was obsessively crush on him. And I don't think I ever told her she was right.

I don't have many stories of love or relationships. This one, also, is a story of neither.

I thought I had loved him at the time. Maybe. Maybe I knew I really didn't. But I wanted to. Either way... When we were friends I remember him telling me of how he wanted to be a school teacher and settle down. He was all about settling. And I was all about trying to mold him into not being all about settling. Wouldn't he want to go to some inner city and teach kids? Or a foreign country? Wouldn't he want to see the world first?

No. Basically.

I told him that I'd fallen in love with him and then came the great 'silent era' when we were no longer friends because things had just gotten way too dramatic. I'd wondered why I couldn't get through to him until one day...I started wondering...why did I want to? And still sometimes I wonder.

But when I saw him last year, we sat at a bar and I remember my friends boasting that I was actually writing for publication. My name was being printed in papers and he seemed genuinely happy for me. And he'd taken up with friends I didn't know and seemed to be genuinely happy himself and I was happy for him. And then I went home - and hoped I'd never see him again.

I didn't want to jump back into that whole mess of emotion and practically scripted drama. I didn't want to wonder. I just wanted to forget.

Perusing Myspace tonight - as I do when I'm feeling particularly ADD and in need of a click-fix - I noticed a blog post of his that he'd gotten engaged. I see-sawed around sending him a congratulatory note before I decided not to. When it comes to some people - we should just stay silent...people.

He & I would have been one big joke. He's a settler. I am not. He's an idealist. I am not. He was not what I wanted him to be. I am glad I was not what he was looking for.

Still...I wanted to love him. And I suppose when we take stock in life - that's gotta count for something.