Shygirl & Her Big Heart

It’s been about seven months since I’ve written my last blog post (I’m so sorry, I don’t know how we got here). Oh yes I know how… I went through a “breakup”, dealt with major anxiety because of grad school, and ended up in a treatment program in order to better manage my depression and anxiety. Yes, I am still in grad school. No I do not have a new boyfriend and yes I have in fact still seen all of the episodes of Law and Order: SVU. In the upcoming weeks I will be writing blog posts about the topics I just brought up and now I would like to talk about something that has always weighed heavy on me since I can remember and that is how I feel about guys, my relationships, and my big heart.

Many of my posts have been about my relationships with guys because it seems as if I’m always either getting over a past relationship, trying to start a new relationship, or fed up because dating in your 20s sucks, just being honest! As of now, I have had three official relationships in which I called the person I was dating my “boyfriend” and I have had situationships that should have been real relationships, but they were never defined as such. I already wrote a super long post about my first boyfriend, so I don’t really have to go much into that other than he got married a couple of months ago and though I thought it was going to tear me a part, it actually wasn’t that bad and I think it’s because I had almost a 2 year period to process that he was actually going to get married and that I needed to finally let go of “what could’ve been.”

My second boyfriend and I are on good terms after going through a really difficult break up in that he was my best friend and I knew that we weren’t romantically compatible. After several months of trying to communicate as friends and going in and out of each other’s lives I finally had to take a break from him as a person after he randomly told me he was going to have a baby later on that year. Though I knew I didn’t want to be with him romantically, something about this felt like he betrayed me and I just couldn’t bear to have any sort of communication with him. Coincidently, his son was born on his birthday and I reached out to him after hearing about this from a mutual friend on social media. After engaging in small talk a few times, our friendship prior to us dating has gone back to normal. He is currently on deployment right now so we don’t talk frequently, but he always makes it a point to reach out when he can and I have nothing but love for him!

My friendship with my last boyfriend is relatively complicated because we did not really have a bad breakup and I thought that we would have eventually gotten back together, however he moved on a few months after our breakup. He is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever known and I truly have not met anyone like him. Most recently, I had an awkward run in with him at one of my best friend’s engagement party and that was a complete mess. I ended up seeing him at the party with his new girlfriend and I was extremely heartbroken. Many people don’t understand why I was so upset because I was the one who initiated the breakup and I think everyone can agree that it’s really hard not to feel some type of way seeing an ex with someone new. As of now we are cordial and we text each other on our birthdays and I’ll reach out occasionally on holidays. It definitely still hurts when I think about him and ultimately I try to be happy for him since he has found someone that is probably a better fit for him.

And finally we get to the situationships. I’ve had a few of these just because it’s easy for me to start liking someone when things are super new which is beneficial for me in the short term because I end up having the best time with these guys and detrimental in the long run because long term relationships don’t come from them, unfortunately. The last guy I had a “serious” situationship with was great. I don’t even know if situationships can be serious, but for the purpose of this post this one was, haha. I wrote a whole blog post about that situation and how it was super perfect until it wasn’t. I was completely devastated and though I didn’t unfollow or block him on social media, I am super thankful for the mute button because that became my best friend. Anytime I went on social media after we stopped talking I would get extremely anxious because it made me think of him because he has a pretty heavy social media presence. At the beginning of February I reached out to him after seeing many posts about letting the people you care about know you care after the tragic accident with Kobe and Gigi Bryant. To my surprise he was receptive to me reaching out and he told me that he wanted to reach out, but didn’t really know if he could or should. I definitely was upset with him because he hurt me and was always curious about how he was doing because he has mental health challenges of his own.

Last week I initiated contact with him because I do miss him and still really care about him. I was too scared that he was going to leave me on read so I sent him a link to a tweet about dealing with anxiety during this crazy time that the whole world is in right now. He responded with the “haha” reaction that iPhones have now. Though it wasn’t the response that I had wanted he technically didn’t leave me on read. I just let it be and stopped thinking about it. About a day or so later he contacted me asking how I was doing because of the quarantine. It was pretty much just small talk and I was pretty okay with that. We still interact on a daily basis through social media or text and it’s nothing consistent, just friendly. I do still really care about him because he’s probably the most honest and vulnerable person I’ve ever met. Though he can be super blunt at times and it comes off as being mean, he always says how he feels even if it might be hard to say. I’ve never met someone who is more passionate about mental health than me and though he has these challenges he doesn’t let them impede on his goals. Though he is super vulnerable and transparent there’s still a slight mystery about him that’s very intriguing. He gets on my last nerves with his idiosyncrasies and some of his pet peeves and I am still so proud of him for always genuinely being who he is.

So there you have it- a somewhat brief overview of the most impactful relationships that I have had so far. Many people get worried because I care about relationships and guys so much and I’ve just realized that this is just who I am. Regardless of it being platonic or romantic, I truly care deeply about all of my friends and the people I come in contact with because all of these experiences have taught me that I have a big heart and I can continue loving and caring about people despite heartbreak.