Yesterday I posted this to r/Diary, but as it turns out it might be more suited for this sub.

Day one.

We had a fight a few days ago. After that, I just felt lost. I hadn’t realised the effect she had had on me until i seemed to have lost it all. “Lost it all”. Sounds so dramatic. Fact is we had only been talking for two weeks after we met through Tinder of all places. But from the start everything felt amazing. Easy conversation. Beautiful girl. Intelligent, funny, ambitious, independent but above all, she just got me. And I her.

Usually in these types of situations i suck. I rush, go too fast, scare her off. Not this time, i thought. This time we are going to do things properly. The way I was told it’s supposed to go. She wanted it though. Fast, rushed. If it were up to her, we’d been in a relationship right now. I wanted that too, but that was not the way it was supposed to go, apparently, so I held off. She had no doubts. None at all. We were going to be together, sooner rather than later. I loved that idea but i didn’t show it, no matter how much I wanted to.

That proved to be my fatal flaw. I kept saying how much I wanted to be with her, but she never saw it. Nor did she fully believe me. We fought about that, about me not showing enough interest in her. She felt like I had meant none of what i had said. It was an ugly fight. Things, hurtful things, were said but not meant. Hard to convey emotion through a phonescreen with a keyboard on it. We went our seperate ways, after an awful last exchange of words that were meant to sting.

The two days that followed were as if covered by a gray veil. Even the things that would normally clear my head and distract me, now clouded my mind with regret. With everything I did, something was missing. Like a part of that joy and happiness was taken from me. A part that wanted to be shared but was unable to be shared. At that moment I knew exactly what I had lost.

The morning after the fight, I had apologised for the things I said, and she had done the same. I had asked whether we could be either friends or try again. She said she needed time. So i gave that to her.

Yesterday, the second evening after we had fought, she sent me a message: “can I call you today?”. Ofcourse. Ofcourse she could. I thanked an entity I did not believe in and waited for her to call. I went first and told her how I had felt the two days prior. How everything felt numb and void and how I was now ready to commit fully to only her. She was not sure, her trust was broken. The doubts I had so foolishly cast upon myself were gone, but instead of being a roadblock now gone, they were a curse. Where she had at first felt certainty and security, now only doubt and mistrust remained.

But that was something you could fix, right? People don’t just snap in and out of love like it’s nothing. I could pour in all the effort and time I could find to fix this. To win her back. She wanted to be friends first. I could do friends. “But what if I meet someone? Or what if you do?” She asked. That would be okay. I was going to take anything I could get.

Today we talked. It was just as good as it was before the fight. We joked, laughed and had a heart to heart about what we said and did and didn’t mean. Everything was fine. “I’ve been talking to someone”, she suddenly sent. No. No no no no no oh God please no. Not now. Not me. Not this again. I asked her to tell me everything. Perhaps it was not as bad as I thought it was.

I interrupted her halfway throught her story. I lied. I didn’t want to know. Not this. I broke down. I even cried for God’s sake. With every new message she sent dark tentacles wrapped themselves around my heart tighter and tighter. She had talked to him earlier, but the conversation had died once I had come along. He had sent her a message the day after our fight, and he became her confidant on all things “me”. They had planned to meet up after Corona had ended. I almost resorted to begging, though I knew that was not going to help. Throughout our second goodbye of the week, she remained very supportive. And why wouldn’t she be, she was amazing. She wants to remain friends, but in light of self-preservation I am taking a step back. For now.

So here I am, reporting the days after. Maybe this is the only entry, maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. All I know is that i fell in love, three days too late.

TL;DR: Met a girl. Everything was great. Until it was not and I realised too late what I had and now I feel like shit.