What If He Is Still Flirting With Me?

[lindsaybernsen 0]

I met a boy 2 years ago from my school. We were on the way to District UIL with our 2 mutual friends snuggling in the bus seat in front of us, and hoping to ignore this we began to discuss Marxism and the economy. I had actually met him a few days prior in the debate room and had edited his cases, but it was only for a few minutes and I hadnt even learned his name. This was our first real conversation and, nerd that I am, I was immediately enamored.

At the tournament I pulled him outside with the excuse that it was "such a nice day" and we talked for another hour and every word out of his mouth was brilliant and we couldnt stop smiling. A little later in the night I was talking with the mutual friends when he came over. We asked him to sit with us, but he looked at me with huge apologetic eyes and quickly ran off mumbling that he had to call the girl he had JUST started dating.

I didnt see him until he was in my classes the next year and he almost immediately became one of my best friends. In debate and history we talked non-stop, "spreading" (speed reading/talking) about technology, philosophy and ancient civilizations. We sat right next to each other and when the teacher tried to move us apart we both complained bitterly, plotting ways to still communicate. I finally met his girlfriend, but mostly I tried to avoid her.

Another boy asked me out, and he was sweet and funny so I agreed, though until that point I had been boyfriendless.

About halfway through the year, only about 2 weeks after I began dating someone else, we went to another debate tournament. At all the ones prior we had walked around together, enthralled in our easy conversation. This time was not different except that our mutual attraction was fairly apparent (though after that first tournament we never flirted, we just talked as often as we could). I got cold and he ran all the way across the school to get me HIS jacket, even though mine was closer. His best friend, who was there came up to me and decided he wanted to (this is a direct quote, *gag*) be the spark that kindled the fuel he knew was already there.

So, just like that, I was thrown into emotional turmoil... there was a boy I knew was more perfect than I would ever meet again who DID, in fact, like me very much, and then there was the boy who was awesome, but not perfect, that I was commited to. For his part, the boy I wanted had been on the verge of breaking up with the other girl for some weeks, since their relationship had been spiraling steadily downwards. I shouldnt have broken up with the boy I was dating, but I did, using the excuse that I it wasnt fair to him to have such a huge crush on someone else. I am a commitment person by nature, so this was a huge leap that scared me very much.

A month later I was dating Him and it was exactly the way it was supposed to be. He hugged me for the first time and the world settled into the state of being completely and profoundly RIGHT for the first time in my life.

His ex-girlfriend threw many temper-tantrums, and I felt horribly guilty about the boy I had hurt. I am not a drama person, but since that point my life has been full of it.

Eventually she didnt hate him any more, and I told him that not only was it OK for her to be his friend but that I wanted them to be friends because the cycle of vicious hate had been tearing him apart.

***************

He broke up with me in email (3 paragraphs- the last of which berated me for hating Student Council, which I supported his Presidency of, though I thought it was stupid). I died, and that is only a hair's breath from literal. I walked around for months mourning the loss of the part of myself he had become. Most of our mutual friends tried to ignore me because I didnt rant like she had, I was just unusually quiet.

He didnt say why, but when I asked later he cited family issues and inability to commit.

****************

It used to be a long-standing joke that I hate being in pictures and am not very photogenic though photography is one of his hobbies. He took a suprising amount of pictures of me at some of our events after the break-up and sent them to me saying, "look, you can look cute in pictures "

While we were at two different debate camps he "just happpened" to find a reason to browse the photo page of my camp's website for other pictures of me which he also commented on.

At summer school for extra credit he was in her(the ex-girlfriend) class (I had a different teacher), and I had to watch them flirt in the halls. Every time he saw me he looked away.

He denied her to me, over and over again.

******************

She was in Israel at the beginning of the year, but when she came back he walked her to all of their classes.

Again he denied a relationship, but a few weeks later he admitted that his mother had grounded him when she found out, mid-summer, that he was dating her again.

He was elected debate President, I was Vice again. Tournaments are/were almost every weekend and we ignored each other.

She decided that now, not the first time, but now, she wanted to be my friend. What she really wanted, I knew, was to keep tabs on me. After the first time, (though I didnt "steal" her boyfriend, I did end up dating him) I don't blame her.

I was angry, but not horribly so. Mostly I just reconsidered all the possible connotations (with the especially nasty, "he was using you as a break from her, and didnt really care," bothering me quite a bit.)

We finally had a post-breakup talk, almost a year later. He says he still has pictures of me. They were on his wall, but she saw them and went into a rage. So, he told me conspiritorily, they are now on his desk. Unlike the keepsakes he had from her which he shoved into his closet while he was dating me, he doesnt want to put the pictures away. He says its because they are good photos, and this is true. Artistically they are amazing. But, pictures are memories incarnate, and keeping them their is keeping the memory.

He wanted to be friends, I wanted to also, but I dont think I can. Things begin to lighten up a little- I dont snap and say bitter things and he neglects to use his usual sarcastic comebacks.

He buys me an extension of my domain name "indefinitely". It was a birthday present before but it wasnt set to expire for a month. He said it was another birthday gift.

I finally started dating someone else whom I really like. He is also in debate. Watching the two of the argue makes me feel out-of-place.

*****************

We went to the same tournament where his best friend set everything rolling. All I could think about the whole weekend was how I would have ignored that chemistry but once it was pulled into the open I had to discuss it.

I know it went through his mind too.

Throughout, he constantly calls me "the destroyer of electronics" (a reference to my inability to use our timers, the fact I dropped my cell in water, and the missing backspace key on my laptop) and uses a teasing tone and smiles.

He looks in my eyes when he is talking to me, a relatively "new" transistion. He finds me when he has comments to make. He sits in the seat behind me and my new boyfriend when we are on the bus.

I catch his eye too often, and he tries too hard to irritate me so that I will make a face at him.

 

I like the boy I am dating very much, but I was head over heels for the one who broke up with me. He has been arrogant and sarcastic to me until recently, but I keep clinging to the person that I knew. He hasnt been that person for a long time, but sometimes I forget, especially when he smiles.

I'm a romantic; I know it. But in real life you dont automatically forget someone because there is someone new, you just hope that the current relationship will override the old.

It would be easier if he would disappear, but he cant, and I wish he wouldnt keep confusing me. Even more, I wish I could stop letting him.

[heavensounds 0]

Ok, from what I've read A LOT has happened to you and the way you wrote that, maybe you should consider writing a book or something. Just be careful to write more logically linked, because this text is very confusing. I read almost everything you wrote and I will not comment on that, because it is far to complicated to give it a simple answer. However, I'd like to say to you, that maybe you are putting too much pressure upon yourself. Maybe try to ease things up a lil' - take it easy! We all have problems, everybody has them, but the difference is HOW WE INTERPRETE THESE PROBLEMS! There are a lot of problems out there, but you are the one that lets them trouble you! Try to think about it these way: The world is of course imperfect, but what if this imperfectness is acctually perfect in its own way - if you STOP TRYING TO CHANGE YOURSELF AND EVERYTHING AROUND YOU, then you'll realize, that everything is acctually perfect and that you are the one experiencing these problems - ARE THESE PROBLEMS STILL HERE IF YOU ARE GONE?? Just take it easy, concentrate on the present moment and do not live in the past or in the future!Greetz

[tuddy 0]

Personally, i think he likes the both of you, and felt guilty when his ex-gf at the time of you dating came back and pressured him back from you. He dosn't seem to be confident, therefore if you tried badering in him to taking you back, he'd probably crack and take you back, and the vicious circle keeps going from there.I suggest that also don't put some much into your love. If you put so much love into a person, and that one person is apart of you so much, then its going to fall so hard when that one person is taken from you. I'm glad you have someone you like, i suggest you define yourself a boundry of what is friendship and what is a bf/gf relationship between you and your ex-bf otherwise it's going to keep haunting you, and you'll fall for him again, maybe not now, but if your current relationship even looks bad! You'll know!