Chapter 2: Being apart Pt. I (June)

The days I’m going to describe now are the most strange I’ve ever lived. I was so confused, yet still so linked to this girl… She always seemed so fragile and lost. I felt she really liked me and wanted to be with me but stress, anxiety and fears were taking her apart. Or weren’t them? I didn't know anymore what to think and started to lose my sanity too. I take the blame for all the mistakes I made from now on: I became completely entangled in her madness, unable to separate myself from her. If I'm describing this much is for you to understand how confusing, chaotic and senseless was everything... I hope it can help somebody to avoid getting into this kind of people.

When we met she was really happy and we started again speaking like before, joking and being really close one to another. I perceived something though: her thoughts were running wild, she seemed unable to decide anything and changed from one thing to another in just minutes. For example: she said she wanted to eat but would do that later at home and when I suggested to go together she said ‘No, you go to your house’. 10-20 minutes later she told me she was hungry and wanted to go to eat somewhere together. Later, I paid the bill and she said ‘I’ll give you the money in the apartment’. 10-20 minutes later ‘Not necessary, I’ll withdraw it from the ATM’.

She told me she had missed me sending songs to her, looked at me like before and sometimes she would reach out with her hand to caress me but stopped in the middle. She even joked about me looking at her breasts (I was actually absent-minded). She seemed comfortable with me so I eventually tried to kiss her. Her breath was getting fast, she hugged me, but she wouldn’t kiss me or she did but like forcing not to. She said ‘I can’t do this’. I got bothered and asked her: ‘Why did you accept to see me then?’ She started to be uneasy and told me she wanted to go. I told her I could walk her home but she said: “No, I want to go back to Germany”. And then she started to cry. People were looking at us and I was thinking ‘what’s going on here?’

I sat with her and, calmly, told her to tell me everything that was on her mind. Her monologue let me stunned: “This city is really dark, I cannot make friends here. I felt so alone I had to look for friends I made at the beginning with the other Germans. I went out with them and disappeared because I felt uneasy and went home, the next day they wrote to me to tell me I was weird. I feel like I’m not being myself, like I have a mask all the time. I thought I could be on my own but I can’t do this. I don’t have no one here and no one in Germany. I don’t know what to do with my life, I feel so lost. Then I have these thoughts on my mind… I cannot stop them… I feel miserable here, cannot stand this anymore. These past days I didn’t even go out of the apartment, all time watching Netflix, lying in bed. I almost called you (she indeed did but denied it to me only to later confirm it). You’re the only one I can trust here but you have expectations with me (again this story, she was the one to start asking me to behave in a more couple way. I didn’t know how to make her see that, it always seemed a mission impossible to say something against her thoughts) and I can’t act the same with you. I think I have schizophrenia or something and need to be in a medical center when back in Germany, 6 months or something like this. They’re going to drug me but maybe I need it. And the thoughts…you cannot imagine…I can’t stop them, I don’t want to feel like this anymore… And I have the right to do it. I can do it when I want it. It’s my life and if I want to go I can (I was getting really nervous but tried not to show to her. Instead of trying to calm her down I just let her speak). When she finished she held my hand and started saying she missed my room, my bed, etc. I told her to come with me, just to sleep together hugging each other, but didn’t want to. She said she was really tired. I walked her home and we said goodbye with ‘a quasi-kiss’.

From this day on I wasn’t only stressed about ‘us’ but about her. I was really concerned about what she had told me. I started to be intense myself, just to check on her. I would tell her to watch that new TV program and do a review for me, or suggest different plans in the city: going to the park, have a walk, etc. I didn’t want her to stay at home. The next day I asked her to meet and she said she had plans and that ‘maybe you were right and I shouldn’t have said yes to meet. I’m sorry’. I was getting confused again and told her to think that again because yes, I liked her, but I was concerned about her. She said she would never make up an excuse to me and that she really had plans and that I shouldn’t concern about her because she’s worthless. That day she changed her mind two or three times (yes-no-yes) to finally see her friend.

Next day I asked her again to meet and she said she was tired but I told her not to stay at home and go out for a walk. She accepted and when we met she seemed really happy. We sat in a park surrounded by dogs and she would speak about her background life, her head in my shoulder, caressing my arm, etc. I remember that moment, it’s really vivid in my memories, because I was thinking: ‘What the heck is going on here?’ She told me to go have dinner in her apartment then changed again several times to finally me buying food somewhere and taking it to her apartment. These mind changes were really confusing to me. When we were waiting for my food to come, just calm and silent, she snapped out of the blue: “I’m losing my life vision. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I want to go back to my country, people act so different here. I need a person with my same life vision next to me and that’s not you. You’re always with your books and stories. I need someone more nature centered, ecologic, like me”. I remembered I turned my head and looked at her like looking at a strange. Why? I mean, why all this suddenly? I hadn’t said anything, told her anything, we were just waiting for the food. I tried to reply to her: ‘What are you saying? I like nature, you know that. And the books? I love reading but that’s not all my life. This is senseless’. Well she continued with this and didn’t stop until we were in her apartment. She wanted to be mean. She kept saying things like I ate really slowly and lots of hurtful things. I was getting angry because I couldn’t understand a thing. At the same time, I was so sad inside of me I even wanted to cry: Why? I was being there for her, really concerned about her mind and well-being, and she was just trying to get me mad. I stayed silent and she said “Oh, now you’re angry. I can see it”. I said I wasn’t and that I wasn’t going to react to anything, washed the dishes and got ready to go but then she said “Do you want to see my room? I made some changes”. This was incredible and unbelievable. But I said yes, because I didn’t want her to think I was mad and because, yeah, I was being stupid. When we entered she sat in her bed and smiled at me. She was again a different person, I swear. She was asking me to come next to her, I sat and we caressed each other. My mind was about to explode from confusion. We kissed and had some foreplay. Suddenly she seemed to realize something and told me I had to go. When we said goodbye she seemed unconvinced, it was like ‘you need to go’ but ‘I don’t want you to go’.

Next day we chatted a little and when I finished work I told her to go out for a walk. “Not today. I’m sorry. We don’t need to see each other daily”. She was right but if I was being ‘intense’ these days was because I was still concerned and I could tell she wasn’t okay. Her behavior was impossible to define. I didn’t want her to stay alone at home. I replied “Oh come on, don’t stay in, let’s have a walk!” She laughed and changed her mind again. “Just wait, I need to have a shower”. It seemed to me like she just wanted me to insist and then she would say yes. It was really weird. When we met she pointed at a bench and said to go there and sit. “Listen, she said, you don’t take me serious. I’ve told you I don’t see myself with you in the future, I want someone with the same vision as me and that’s not you. Besides, I want my space, we don’t need to see each other daily. Tomorrow we cannot meet because I have something to do. You don’t need to stay here, you’re wasting your time, I’m not going to hurt myself”. She was being really cold telling me this and my whole world broke inside. I realized I was indeed wasting my time. I felt so stupid, I just had tried to be there for her, to listen to her problems. I couldn’t understand a thing. I told her I just wanted her not to feel alone because I couldn’t imagine what she was going through. She suddenly changed her behavior and said with a different lovely voice “I’m sorry…” and hugged me. I swear this happened like this. Then she said she was cold and wanted me to hold her.

We went into a bar to keep with the conversation and there she opened to me. She said we met in the wrong moment but otherwise we would have continued together (this was completely opposite to her conversation in the bench). She was a different person, she held hands with me. She told me she was thinking about suicide since she was 11-12 years old. She told me she had planned her death but later rejected it because she said maybe it would appear in the newspaper and affect the place where she was working. So, instead, she would thought of a different way. I was trying not to seem surprised but the way she was telling me this, casual, was giving me goosebumps. I told her to come closer and asked her if she had ever looked for professional help. She was feeling really comfortable and I could see she was really happy now. She almost kissed me once but stopped midway. She said she had gone to a counselor some years ago and I suggested her going when back in Germany to which she nodded. However, she said she didn’t want to go back as no one was waiting for her there. She felt alone and said she didn’t have any friends there. In fact, I realized she had lost almost all of them (at least the closest ones).

She was so comfortable that I couldn’t help thinking it was because of me. I swear, I’m not lying, I saw her face and she looked at me like before when we were together. She seemed so happy to be close to me. When this happened I forgot everything else. I was so blind, so stupid ‘in love’ (if that’s the word, I don’t know anymore how to define this) that just by knowing there was at least a nice side of her to me I felt happy. I told her I was sure that when people discovered this ‘dark side’ would run away and she told me indeed it was like that. Everything was going so smooth and she seemed so comfortable that at the end I told her “Hey, it’s late to take an Uber home and we’re just 5 min from your house – I was really tired-. Let’s go there? Just to sleep”. She snapped again but this time I was frightened. She started speaking alone and almost shouting. “****, I’m so stupid I shouldn’t have told him to meet the first time! ****, ****!” No!! I’ve told you no and you cannot come, don’t try to make me feel bad because you need to take an Uber home! You’re not coming anymore to my apartment! I can be really mean, you don’t want me to! Just for you to know, what happened yesterday wasn’t romantic it was just a reaction from my body because I’m a human! What time is it? Okay I’m going!” People were looking at us. She stood up and went to the counter. She was really overreacting, I mean, she just needed to tell me “No” if she didn’t want me to stay but all her previous body language, conversation, etc. had told me the opposite. The worst happened when we left the bar. I swear my mind was about to explode. She was acting like nothing had happened, joking and telling me to teach her how to dance bachata. I’ve never, never, never in my life felt so confused. I didn’t understand a thing. When we arrived to her apartment we kissed and she let herself be kissed then, even answered back. She told me to write to her when I got home, a thing she used to say when we were together but never those days. When I left her I was so appalled that I decided I couldn’t continue like that. For my well-being.

Next day she wrote to me. I hadn’t let her know I was at home. It was a random message. That afternoon I sent her a message where I said I had really strong feelings for her and I was sorry to tell her we shouldn’t meet each other anymore. I was getting hurt by her behavior and she was getting hurt by me trying constantly to go back to ‘good’ old times. I wrote I could notice two different persons, one mean and one nice to me. I just talked about the nice one, saying she seemed like she was forcing herself not to be with me, almost kissing me or even doing it sometimes. I said she seemed not determinant and impossible to decide so I was going to do it for her: the day before was the last time we would meet. I wrote some beautiful things and asked her to please respect my decision and leave me alone.

She didn’t react and I could feel like (I feel really mean by saying this) I lifted a weight off my shoulders. Well, four days later she came back. She wrote to me and said “You cannot do this, you cannot send me this message and disappear”. I didn’t answer and she wrote an e-mail to me. “Your e-mail gets me angry. Why are you doing this? Please don’t do this to me. You’re really important to me, this is also being difficult for me. Think about me. Please let’s not end like this, I don’t want you to remember that. Let’s meet again.” “If this is a goodbye then goodbye Mr. Sloth (she used to call me this when together), you’re every day in my thoughts, I’m going to miss you…” This last sentence she wrote it in French. I didn’t know what to do. What was going on? I was feeling really confused. Why telling me she wouldn’t see us together in the future, then saying we would have continued together in a different situation, then shouted at me, then acted normal, then when I disappear (apparently what she wanted me to do) she came back asking me to meet? My mind hurt. And the worst of all, and I even think this nowadays: she never realized the mess she had created.

I wasted the last bit of sanity by answering her back. I know I shouldn’t have done this but there’re so many things I shouldn’t have done by then… My friends and family were telling me to please stop. All of them noticed I was more anxious and like out of myself. “She’s not okay, she’s toxic, you’re not seeing it but you’re just walking into a landmine”. I answered her in a more serious tone saying she wasn’t acting rational. I said she had started with everything when she said to stop seeing each other and now wanted to meet. I told her if she was really feeling so miserable here to please go back to her country and stay with her grandmother there. And please to look for professional help. I told her again to respect my decision or otherwise (I know I was really hard here but I was frightened and didn’t know what to do anymore) I would take other measures. She seemed really anxious in her message and I was afraid she would come to my work or something.

Well she misunderstood everything and started blaming me for calling her crazy, a thing I never did. “This proves me again that opening to people is worthless because they’re going to use it against you when necessary. I didn’t expect this from you, this is a goodbye forever”. When she was angry and she wrote to me it seemed like she was adressing to us as being still 'together'. I didn’t understand nothing but I couldn’t separate myself from that. We exchanged some messages where I tried to clarify things to her being nice and trying to make her see she didn’t understood things well (at the same time we were speaking mostly in English, as she doesn’t control French very well and I don’t know any German). I could tell I was completely mixed in her stories and I was losing my sanity. I didn’t know anymore why everything had started in the first place. And this is only going downhill from here.

To stop with the misunderstanding I wrote to her another message and said “Look I know the best thing is to meet and talk about this but I cannot do it because of my feelings towards you. I just want you to know you’ll forever be in my thoughts and I wish things would have happened differently. I wish minds weren’t so difficult because I was ready to give you everything…” I told her I was going to write about this story and had even a playlist about it (This is not just because of her, I tend to write about my life and also look for music for different mind states).

With her answer I was again trapped in confusion. She said I was really important to her, she liked me and she really cared about me. She just wanted to apologize for her behavior because she knew it was wrong. She told me she really wished we would meet again at least before her flight (I didn’t understand this, again asking me to meet) but if it wasn’t possible she wanted to tell me that I would always be with her as she would have a tattoo that would remember her of me. This killed me inside. Either she was lying and she hadn’t stopped lying all this time or she was playing with me. How could she be telling me all these nice things but we weren’t together? You won’t make a tattoo of someone you’ve just spent several months with and you’ve been saying to “I don’t see myself with you in the future, you don’t have the same vision as me”. It’s just incompatible, plain and simple. I was starting to get really angry because I started to think she was laughing at my face. All that time me caring about her and she was just playing all along. I swear I started to feel growing inside what later would become ‘another me’: my own mind became divided. I didn’t know what to think of her anymore.
I sent her the playlists (she asked me for them and even the story) and days later she wrote just to tell me “I really enjoy this music and I’m so looking forward to read the story”. This killed me again inside and fueled my confusion and rage. Why would she continue being so nice with me?

Days later I couldn’t bear it anymore. I wrote a message where I said she had been selfish all that time and never realized she had been playing with me all along: saying to stop seeing each other, then accepting to meet, then treating me so bad, then when I disappear asking me to meet… I wrote to forget about meeting because I didn’t want to see her anymore. I said I couldn’t believe anything she said anymore because they were just nice words to keep me happy while she was probably doing other things behind. I told her this story was really crazy and I couldn’t continue like this anymore. I need to admit I was really mean, telling her “If you’re surprised by this message after the last one I need to tell you you’re just tasting your own medicine: this is how you treat me”. I never insulted her though but the description of all that happened was really harsh. I finished saying I had made a big mistake by giving so much importance to a person like her in my life and that she didn’t deserve me by her side at all. She spent the whole night calling me, sending me messages and saying she was fed up of being insulted and me blaming her. I ignored everything. After this, peace came. But it’s still not the end though…