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a tenth. a first. and a goodbye.}
Sunday, December 2, 2018 | 9:19 PM | 2Comment




To my beloved Internet,

It has been long. Much too long. How I've missed you.

I have started and stopped several entries before this one. I never posted them because they didn't feel quite right. And just as well, I've been so swamped with my fiction writing this year (a revision on one of my novels that resulted in axing 50k words from it, work on another novel I started in '16, and finishing a whole novella!) that I felt like I couldn't dedicate enough time to writing a nice update for you all.

Also, at some point, there was so much happening that I didn't feel like I could adequately write about it all. But, as always, there is the ever-famous bulletpoint entry. So let me sum it up for you:


  • In March of this year, I entered my 25th year around the sun. Many confusing, exciting things have happened in my 25th year, but I've enjoyed 25. 25 is nice, and so far, much nicer than being 24.
  • In May of this year, this blog turned 10 years old. An entire decade of being your ridiculous, overly-sensitive, one-and-only Hopeless Romantic.
  • I continued working at my job, and I continued loving it, as well as being able to experience wonderful opportunities for my resume, as well as wonderful life experiences.
  • I started going to the movies by myself, and it turned into one of my favorite new hobbies. Turns out I'm a bit of a movie junkie, and I enjoy watching them the most when I'm alone, but with a group of other movie junkies who watch movies the same way I do--silently. Ahh, sweet silence.
  • I started seeing someone, who then became my very first boyfriend.


Huh. Sooo...where to begin?

Kidding. I know you guys are DYING to hear me dish on this guy who became my first ever boyfriend. Me. Hopeless Romantic, in the year of 2018, AND A FIRST BOYFRIEND. 

FINALLY.










Now, before you all celebrate, let me stop you right there: it's not Brennan. And it didn't end well.

But, well, seeing as he was my first boyfriend, and most people have their first boyfriend/girlfriend in like...middle school, sometimes high school? Yeah. Usually that does not work out so well. And in this case, it didn't.

But let me start at the beginning. Let's call him Jon.

Now, after the whole Brennan ordeal of late last year, I ended up confronting him. I told him up front that I had felt taken advantage of, and used, and that it didn't fly with me. I told him I take my own feelings very seriously, and that I need someone who takes me seriously as well. I told him that I'll be his friend, but if he can't handle being JUST straight-forward, platonic friends, then he needed to stay away from me.

He ended up responding with this whole rant about how sorry he was for treating me that way, and how he didn't even know what he wanted or what he was doing with his life, and honestly it was pretty sad. It was through this that I realized how hard this breakup of his had been on him, way more than he had initially made it seem.

Frankly, after all of that, it put me off of Brennan for good, and I left him alone. Aside from him sending me Merry Christmas and Happy New Year texts, we mostly stopped speaking--which, after the way he had treated me, I was glad for. Immediately following, I signed up for Bumble, wanting to move on ASAP.

Nothing came of Bumble for several weeks afterward. For a little bit, I was talking to this guy from there who Super Liked me, who ended up coming on WAY TOO STRONG and made me super uncomfortable 95% of the time. 

Nothing came of it for months, and I was feeling so weary of the whole dating scene that I was planning on deleting the app.

But when I sat down to delete my account in June, I decided I might take one last swipe-through, just in case. 

So I was swiping. Swiping, and swiping, and swiping. Losing my faith in humanity and swiping. Feeling my soul die and swiping.

Then finally, miracle of miracles, I find a guy's profile that interests me. Just to see, I swipe right. We immediately match.

The guy? Jon.

I send the opening message, telling him he's handsome and making a comment about something he'd written on his profile. He immediately messages back, super friendly, we talk for a bit. He asks me out to a movie for the next weekend, I say yes. Success.










Now, when we meet in person for the first time, it's a little weird. He's kind of quiet, he's obviously very nervous. I was nervous too, but after seeing him, he was much more nervous than I was. I try my best to be friendly to make him feel at ease, and we go in for the movie.

His laughter during the movie is high-pitched and it alarms me, but it's kind of hilarious. The unashamed, loud way that he laughs is disarming, and shows me that he doesn't care what others think. It warms me to him.

After the movie, I ask if he would like to get coffee at my favorite cafe by the movie theater that plays k-pop videos. He says yes.

He pays for my coffee, and we get to know each other a bit. He seems to have trouble looking directly at me, but he still seems nervous, so I give him the benefit of the doubt. (I found out later that he spent our entire first date absolutely terrified. Poor guy.) He lived in Japan for much of his adolescent years, but he says he likes it in America better. He complains about the trains in Japan, and it endears me to him. He lived a whole life growing up that I could never even imagine, and I want to know more.









So I say yes to date two, brunch at a hole-in-the-wall place downtown. He's a bit warmer this time, more comfortable. We talk about all our favorite movies, and our favorite music. I notice the tattoo on his forearm: the solar system. I love space. And now I like him even more.

Date three: Watching Harry Potter movies at his place. I was hesitant about going over to his apartment--I had never been to a man's apartment before. But I said yes, trying to take a step outside of my comfort zone.

He sensed that I was uncomfortable, and as we watched Chamber of Secrets, he only holds my hand. Fingers laced. I'm on cloud nine.






After date 5--a day trip to the mall, where he bought some things for me as a gift--when we watched a Japanese reality show on Netflix, he asked me to be his girlfriend. I cried, and I said yes. And when we left his place a couple of hours later so that he could drive me home, there was a double rainbow across the sky.

It felt like a sign. A wonderful gift just for me, from the universe.

That day made me so happy. It was wonderful, now knowing that these things could happen to me. I thought I was defective. I thought something was wrong with me. I thought I was the only one who would never experience that kind of happiness.

I now know that it's possible.






Unfortunately, after that, things steadily went downhill.

We still did fun things. We went to movies, talked on the phone, went out to eat, sat in his car for hours just talking and watching funny videos on each other's phones. Those parts were great. Those were the things I had always wanted, and never thought I deserved. 

I'll cherish those firsts for a long time. Maybe forever.

But sometimes he would ignore my boundaries--my personal boundaries as well as my relationship boundaries. At first I thought it was a mistake, and made excuses for him. I would restate them again and again, reminding him. He would say 'okay' and nod like he understood, and then he would bulldoze past them all over again. This happened so many times that it felt like I was losing my mind.

It happened so many times that when he told me that he loved me, it didn't feel like he meant it.

He said 'I love you' to me after 1 month of being official, after changing our relationship statuses on Facebook.

He said it right after I told him, repeatedly, that I wasn't ready for sex, and tried to force me to do it anyway.

I didn't say it back, Internet. Because the moment he said this to me, after the way he had treated me before in that confusing, unsettling moment, I knew I didn't love him.

Because I could never love someone who wouldn't treat me with the utmost respect. I thought he respected me--he opened doors for me, held hands with me in public, drove me home, and he told me he respected me. I thought that was enough. 

But other times he would shove his tongue down my throat like he was getting paid $200 a minute to do it. Other times, when I told him I was having a bad depression or anxiety day, he would ignore my need for space. And he would whine and guilt trip me when I said I wasn't ready to sleep with him. And when he wasn't whining and guilting me, he was groping me. 

At first it just began to annoy me. Then it began to anger and sicken me. We even began fighting about it. One of the last times I called him out on it, I got really angry. I thought we had settled this discussion the time before, and I was tired of feeling unheard. He swore up and down that he wouldn't do it again, and that he was sorry, and that he'd do better. He blamed his stress on it, and that he didn't mean to upset me. Little did he know, that final time we fought over it, I decided it would be the last time.

A lack of respect is not love.

We spent so much time angsting over this in the end that he barely know who I was.

Maybe Jon truly did love me, or who he wanted me to be. Maybe he still does. Or maybe he just said it so I'd sleep with him.

Either way, my mental health was suffering. The moment I realized I wasn't happy anymore, I wanted out. I needed to end it.






The worst part was that he was away on a trip and wouldn't be back for weeks. And I'm not some asshole who breaks up with someone over the phone. So for weeks, I stewed in misery, waiting for him to return from his trip so I could break it off.

I felt terrible about it. I knew that it would be awful for him to be dumped right after returning from a trip. But I also knew it would be worse, nay, cowardly to dump him over phone call or text while he was gone. It would've been downright cruel. So I did what I had to do.

He had told me once that one of his exes had dumped him over text, out of the blue, without even saying why. So I did the opposite of that.

When he returned from his trip, we went out. In person, sitting outside at a cafe, I told him exactly why I was breaking up with him. And I cried more than I thought I would, though admittedly I have gotten over it pretty fast, 3 months later.

Aside from the boundaries issue (which is unacceptable) and the not listening thing (he was the WORST LISTENER.), what it truly came down to was incompatibility.

He needs someone who wants to screw like bunnies all the time, and who doesn't mind someone who's a bit clingy.

I need someone who listens to me, and who respects me, first of all. But most of all, I want someone that I love.

Because when it came down to it, Jon was not right for me in several ways. I liked how attentive he was in the beginning, how sweet and thoughtful he was. But it changed so quickly, and he showed this other side of him, which I couldn't stand so much that he became unattractive to me. He became so unattractive to me that I knew I could never, under any circumstances, fall in love with him.

I need someone that I love.

And I know what love feels like because I have loved someone before.








With Ricky Bobby, I saw all of his flaws. I knew who he was, and what all of his weaknesses were. None of them mattered. Because down to my very soul, I loved him

I loved him. And as I said three years ago, I may always love him.

I swore I would never blog about him again. But on this tenth year of this blog, I can't help but bring it all back to the knucklehead that made me start this whole thing in the first place.

For years, I've wondered. Wondered if I'll even love someone else.

Thanks to Jon, I know I can.

For a little while, I thought I was on my way to loving Jon. Perhaps I was close. Before that whole incompatibility thing reared its ugly head.

And because of him, despite how it ended, I know now that someone can love me. That I'm not just this unloveable sad sack of a human, the one who cried herself to sleep in high school, thinking no one could ever love her.

I know I can be loved. I know now.









How long have you known me, Internet?

Have you been with me for all TEN years? In that case, wow. Thanks for sticking around.

Has it been a shorter time than that? Even then, wow. Thanks for being an anonymous friend in this lonely wide world.

For ten years, this blog was my sanctuary. It's been the place where I air my deepest thoughts, as loudly and as boldly as I want. I spent my formative years pouring my soul into the words on this diary, where strangers could either read them and identify, or read and be entertained.

I owe so much to this little space right here. This little corner of the Internet has meant the world.

But I'm sure that many of you, if there are much of you left, have noticed my increased absence in recent years. I would be surprised if anyone was reading this right now, in fact.

It's not that I've lost the drive to write. It's that I've channeled all of my energy and all of my soul into my fictional works. The more I gave to my characters, the less concerned I was about my love life, and the less self-absorbed I was.

And the more I've poured into my stories, the less energy I had for dissecting my own life and spreading it into words on the Internet, for the whole world to see.

My stories have grown into books. Books, plural. That I want to publish one day. And most of all, this year, I have been seeking a literary agent to represent my work. To find a publishing house so that those words might become real books one day.

This blog has been so much of my heart for so long.

And that's why I'm turning it into what I love most in this world: a book.









Of course, it won't be a memoir. I'll rearrange some things, pick better changed names, make some things more interesting (i.e.: FICTIONAL.). And of course, give it a happy ending, as my favorite kind of fiction deserves.

As for this blog, and for you all, I wish I could give you a happy ending.

I wish I could've come back with a bombastic, final blog entry in the form of AND THEN I FELL MADLY IN LOVE WITH JON AND HE PROPOSED TO ME AND WE GOT MARRIED AND BOUGHT A HOUSE AND NOW WE'RE HAPPILY EVER AFTER THE END.

God, I wish I could've. More than anything.

But the sad fact of real life is that it's not as interesting as books. Things don't normally get happy endings. If they get endings at all, a lot of times they're anticlimactic and full of loose ends. Sometimes the endings are sad and tragic.

I think if I had eventually abandoned this blog, just up and left it without another word, that would've been the tragic ending.

So I thought: if I give this an ending, let it be like most of life: anticlimactic, same as always, and maybe a little boring. (Aside from me finally filling you in on that first boyfriend thing, months later.)

Because God forbid, Internet, that I end this epic love story with you with a tragedy.

To those left out there who have read my words, read my life, and have stuck with me, this is where we say our goodbyes. I've always been terrible at goodbyes.

This ride has been wonderful. And I wouldn't have wanted to spend it anywhere else. I may not have found love in Jon, or in anyone after Ricky Bobby (so far), but I sure found it in myself, and in you.







When I finish this book loosely based upon this hopeless romance life of mine, I'll likely delete this blog from the face of the websphere. I hope that enough of you see this final entry before I do, but don't worry, that may be awhile. (But just in case, if you wish to download an archive of my entries, or copy-and-paste or screenshot them, or what have you, I would do it ASAP.)

If 'The Life of a Hopeless Romantic' (title pending) appears on the YA shelves of a bookstore one day, I hope that some of you might recognize me there and pick me up to live on your bookshelves, so that you won't forget me.

Because I certainly won't forget any of you.

I love you. Adieu. The end.

And, for one last time: Happy Holidays, and happy New Year. Take care of yourselves, Internet. May your lives be full of love. And show love to one another, even if it's hard to find for yourself.

xoxoxoxoxoxo

Forever,
Your Hopeless Romantic


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how do emotions work, anyway? (scary epiphanies are scary.)}
Friday, January 30, 2015 | 12:21 AM | 0Comment

And why do they come back to haunt you at the most inconvenient times?

Internet, I need to be blatantly, even bleakly honest with you. In a way that I haven't in a while.

But first, let me tell you about this book that I just finished reading called Lola and the Boy Next Door. (WARNING!!! Many many many spoilers ahead for this book, and if you haven't read it and want to read it and don't want it to be totally and completely spoiled for you, stop reading now!!)

This book is about a few things, but MAINLY it's about a girl named Lola and the guy she has a long, complicated history with, Cricket. I read this book in a few weeks, and the entire time I read it, there were a lot of things I was feeling.

You know when you read a book, and this book just gets you? Like, it brings up all of the things you needed to hear at that exact moment in time, and it takes your feelings, puts a knife in them, and twists it over and over again? That was this book for me. I loved this book, but it was excruciating for me.

You see, in the book, Cricket is the boy that Lola loves. And he lives next door sometimes, but other times, he moves around. A lot. And the biggest part of their past that's brought up in the book is the last time Cricket moves away, and right before that when Lola falls in love with him, hard. When she was 15 years old.

Sounding familiar so far? Well, at the beginning of the book is when Cricket's family moves back from somewhere far away, after she fell in love with him, an entire two years later. When she's 17.

What? What's that you say? No, nobody wrote a book about my life. This is EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED IN THE BOOK. I swear to God you guys, opening this book and reading it was like stepping into my own past.

So. You see why this book was hard for me to read?

And in addition to this: during the holidays, and New Years, for the first time in almost 3 years, I was thinking about Ricky Bobby. A lot.

You guys...this is so incredibly hard for me to admit. So humiliating for me to admit, in fact, that I almost didn't. I've been agonizing over whether to even write this entry. Still debating over whether or not to post it. (I probably will. I'll still be humiliated, though.)

Part of me is hoping that it's partly due to the holidays and such...I tend to get very nostalgic during this time of year. I was nostalgic and sad during Christmas 2013 too, but over entirely different people and for totally different reasons. So I was kinda hoping that it would just go away on its own.

Then I picked up this book with my giftcard I got for Christmas and started it. And got the reality ass-kicking of a lifetime.

To spoil how it ends (sorry), she and Cricket get their happy ending. And throughout their happy ending, all I could think about was how Ricky Bobby and I never had the chance for a happy ending.

This book brought up a whole mess of scary questions for me.

Lola took her chances and went for what she wanted. Why couldn't I have gone after what I wanted? Why was I not honest enough with myself to realize what I wanted in the first place? Cricket knew what he wanted, too. Did Ricky Bobby want me? And perhaps, by running away and breaking off contact with him because I was so scared of being hurt, did I hurt him? Was he going to tell me that he wanted me eventually, but I never gave him a chance? Did my own fear ruin my chances of having a first love?

The whole time I read this book, these questions consumed me. They chewed me up and spit me back out. To the point where I felt like the pressure was building up and up and up and I was going to explode.

In addition to all this, things with Brennan have come to an abrupt halt on my end. After a while of thought, I realized I definitely wasn't interested in him that way at all, and that he was really into me and I wasn't being fair. (Or that he's still into me. He still acts like he is, so...I don't know.) I'm trying to avoid the 'let's just be friends' talk with him for now, especially since we've had it before already and I don't enjoy confrontation. But I know that keeping quiet about it isn't good either.

But this entire thing has frustrated me all over again. Is the dating world supposed to be this hard? Some people make it look so easy. Dipping in and out of relationships with ease. Some being able to have nice, actual serious relationships. And here I am, me, who's never had anything work out enough to even have one single boyfriend. Is it me? Is it my fault?

So under all of this stress in my mind, I don't think I was in my right mind. And I did something.

I sent a friend request to Ricky Bobby on Facebook.

Honestly...I'm embarrassed. This is just like 5 years ago. Why am I constantly repeating myself? Going in circles?

I think I thought maybe that if I added him on Facebook, it would help calm the loud questions in my head, give me peace of mind. So I sent him a request, and he accepted the request, and for about a week afterwards, I felt better. I let it be, and I had some peace.

Until one night I made the mistake of letting curiosity get to me. And I went to look at his page.

Yep, I snooped. Like I was freaking 17 years old again. I think everyone does this on social networking sites, and I actually do this with other people too. But this time...felt different. It was like, from the beginning, I was purposely looking for something. Maybe that's why it felt wrong. (By the way...he's like...hairy. The face scruff has turned to almost a full blown beard now, and his hair on his head is super long. He's just...hairy.)

Maybe consciously, I didn't know what I was looking for. Scrolled through pics of him at his job, party pics, with almost zero emotion. But then abruptly, after I was scrolling for a while, my heart stopped and my breath caught. I'd found it.

Him and his ex. Lots and lots of pictures of him and his ex.

Pictures of them hugging, pictures of them with their faces squished together, pictures of him with his arm around her shoulders. Lots and lots of pictures.

And within all of those pictures, I found something else. Something scary. Terrifying.

I felt jealous.

I felt a jealousy so deep, so intense that my heart was pounding loud in my ears and my face was red and my hands were shaking. At the same time, I was trying to calm myself down. This reaction was crazy, I knew it. And I felt completely irrational.

And staring at those pictures, I could think of only one thing: 'That could've been me.' 

Where was this coming from suddenly? Was it just ghosts of old emotions, coming back to trick me? Or worse, were they current emotions, back strong and real and there? 

 So, as frustrated as I was, the day after this happened, I had a long talk with my mom. And told her everything. About the book I was reading bringing up everything again, about me thinking about him again, about the ex pictures. Everything. And mind you, me and my mom talk about everything. I tell her everything that's on my mind, and during the holidays, I'd brought up Ricky Bobby to her at least 2 different times. But this time it was different.

"I think...I think I felt jealous over his ex." I told her after explaining the request getting accepted and all the pictures to her. "I don't want to be jealous, but it was uncontrollable." I told her that I kept thinking that his ex could've been me. "I couldn't help it, it just came over me and I don't know why."

And then my mom said something that was kind of devastating. "It's because you still have feelings for him."

I sat there, mouth agape. Because she said exactly what I'd been afraid of this entire time. And then I closed my eyes, put my hands over my eyes and started crying. "But it doesn't make any sense," I said. "I haven't seen him in over 4 years."

She said softly, "Emotions aren't supposed to make sense. Sometimes they don't."

I kept crying into my hands. "I feel like I'm crazy."

All she said was, "I know."

Yeah.

Internet............to be totally honest with you, my headspace has scared me lately. And my emotions have scared me lately. My head knows this is impossible, knows that 4 years is entirely too late to think this way, and that he's likely never thought of me once in the past couple of years. My head knows that reacting this way to a book is completely irrational and insane. My head knows that people change a lot in the space of 4 years; hell, I've changed so much that some people might find me unrecognizable compared to how I was/how I looked 4 years ago. My head knows that logically I don't even know him anymore.

But the emotional side of me keeps telling me, over and over, that what I felt for Ricky Bobby was special. And rare. And the more I get older, the harder it will be for me to find it. Maybe I might never find it again.

And increasingly, I'm angry at myself. I'm angry at myself for never letting myself fully realize how I really felt about him. I'm angry at myself for being afraid of taking a freaking chance, for once in my life, and going for something even though it could've ended in utter failure.

Say the Noodles & Co scenario happened now, would I have taken the risk? Absolutely. I would have called Johnny, asked to hang out with him and Ricky Bobby soon, and taken the initiative. I would have finally, finally, told him how I felt about him. I have more confidence and self esteem now than I did then, so it makes sense. But I wish I would have back then anyway, even if he had rejected me again. At least I would have had closure.

Because that's what I think this is. I never had proper closure with Ricky Bobby.

And all this time, I was willfully pushing him to the back of my mind and distracting myself with other things instead of truly dealing with things and truly moving on. Instead of running away. When I still had time, and before it was too late. Before he got back together with the girl he almost dated in Pennsylvania before he moved back, and started a long distance relationship with her.

From what I can tell, they dated from the start of 2012 and broke up late 2013. If he dated anyone since then, I don't know. But I remember thinking how ironic it was that he almost dated someone there before he moved back here, thinking that that could've been me. And then looking at all their couple pictures now, and thinking the same thing.

What kills me the most is thinking that maybe probably the biggest difference between me and her was that she was braver. More confident. Went after what she wanted, just like Lola.

And me? Frozen by fear. Just like with everything else in my life. Letting fear and pride get in the way of what I truly wanted.

So Internet...reaching this epiphany of mine of the past couple of weeks has been truly painful.

Before any of you worry, I won't be acting on this. I definitely won't. Not like I could anyway. Even though he lives in my state still, he still lives hours away, so I won't be running into him. Johnny and I aren't friends anymore. And I have a feeling that Ricky Bobby accepted my friend request out of pity, or because he accepts every friend request, so I won't be talking to him on there either. But at least my curiosity has been cured, so there's that.

Realistically, the only thing left to do now is to try and learn from all of this. I don't know if I'll ever feel about someone else the way I did about Ricky Bobby. But when I do, I hope I'll have the courage to act. Because acting is better than running away from it, which is infinitely worse.

These questions about him and I, and all of the what ifs, will probably haunt me forever. But that's my fault, and I have to deal with it. And I will. I just need time.

So for now, my foray into the dating world may be on halt again. After all, first I need to figure out what to do about Brennan.

Part of me thinks that maybe letting things fade into casual friendship might be the best thing--you know, instead of confrontation that could lead to a big blowout and never talking again. So that may be what I'll do. But if he does ask, then I'll tell him the truth and hope for the best.

And meanwhile, I'll be grudgingly preparing myself for the upcoming Single Awareness Day season. Ugh.

But I'll be all right, Internet. Just give me some time. Don't worry, okay? But for future reference, don't be like me. Be a Lola.

xo Hopeless Romantic 

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Well, it's that time again, isn't it?}
Tuesday, July 10, 2012 | 3:11 PM | 2Comment

Oh, Internet. Can I be straight with you?

It's that time again.

No, not my period, I finished that a few days ago, but thanks for asking. (Period jokes. Funny? Not funny? Gross? Probably the last one.)

Nope. It's that time again when I blog to whine about being single.

I KNOW, I KNOW. Those of you that have been reading my blog for a while are probably so sick of this, and for that I give you my sympathies. Trust me, I'm getting tired of it too. But when you've essentially had a non-stop romantic dry spell for a consecutive 19 years it's hard not to complain at least a little bit.

A few days ago, I had an emotional day. To be fair, I was on the tail end of my period, and my emotions tend to get haywire and the last days of it, so it was to be expected. But still, I felt pretty lousy. I basically went to bed the night before crying and then woke up and started crying some more.

I just kept thinking about how all this time, hell, throughout all of my teenage years until now, I've never ever had a boyfriend. Ever.

Boyfriend? What is that? Is it a sport?? Is it something I can play on a gaming console???

But seriously though. It's like.....I keep looking at all these people around me that have at the very least--at the very least--had one relationship. Everyone. Every single person that I know. Literally. All in different shapes and sizes, different personalities, lifestyles, religions, what have you. They've all been in at least one relationship. And then there's me.

It's not even like I mope around 24/7 always weeping at my singleness and wailing to the heavens "WHY ME?!?" I'd like to think that to people that don't know me very well, I seem to handle it very well, almost like I don't even care. And really, half the time, I don't. Half the time I just think, 'Well yeah, I haven't had a boyfriend, but I'll get one eventually, so who cares? I don't need one right now anyway.'

But then also half of the time, I think about it, I mean really think about it, and just think: 'What did I do to deserve this?'

And it's not that I'm desperate or anything, because if I was truly desperate, I would have just gone for anybody by now. If I were desperate, I would just throw myself at any guy that shows me the slightest bit of attention, whether they were good for me or not.

Hell no, I don't do that. I would never do that. Why? Because I have standards, and I respect myself more than that.

And I'd also like to think that when the time comes for my first relationship, I'll be very cautious about getting into it, because I know how easily I can get hurt. I know it doesn't seem like it from the other side of the computer screen, but I'm really very sensitive. I always have been. I'm better than I used to be, my skin has gotten a lot thicker, but as a kid, if someone even looked at me the wrong way, I would almost start to cry.

I think that's why I really have never initiated any sort of relationship with someone, or have even blatantly shown my interest in someone (besides Phil, that is), because when I'm rejected, I take it very personally. I know that's not the healthy attitude to have with dating, and it can drive a person crazy, but I can't help myself. For me to even muster up the courage to approach someone that way takes so much effort, so much that sometimes I can't even make myself do it, and when that's thrown back in my face, it hurts like hell.

Maybe if I'd ever tried to start anything with anyone, I might have had a boyfriend by now. But something like that is just too risky, too scary to even think about.

And speaking of interest...interest. What does that mean? I don't know anymore.

It's been three years now since I've last had a crush on somebody. Three stinkin' years. I don't even remember what it feels like anymore.

I admit, Drew came close. I thought I was starting to develop some sort of feelings for him, starting, but as soon as he passively rejected me after the ONE date I went on with him, that all went in a fat flaming rocket straight to hell. And even though Phil was the last guy I had a 'crush' on, I'm still hesitant to call it that.

My crush on Phil was never the nervous-to-be-around-him, weak-everytime-I-look-at-him, I-can't-remember-how-to-breathe-properly-when-he-smiles-at-me crush. It was just a "Oh hey, you're kinda cute. Oh you think I'm cute, too? Well then I think I probably like you." kind of thing. Not in the least bit serious, and I'm prone to having serious crushes, so I don't know how that even happened. Plus Phil, as I've learned in the past 3 years since, isn't prone to having anything serious, so I guess I dodged that bullet while I was ahead.

So, yeah. Crushes. What are those? Unless you count celebrity crushes, which most people don't, then I haven't had one of those in a long time. And no one's had one on me, that I know of.


It just..........I can't even explain how it feels. It's one giant falcon kick to the stomach, you know? It doesn't feel good at all, not one little bit, and the pain kind of leaves you breathless. 


It's like....this is how it feels not to be wanted. And I mean really, truly, wanted. For who you are. And I've felt that way for a few people my whole life, but no one's felt that way for me. I don't think there's anything worse in this entire world.


How to remedy this? I honestly have no idea. 


There's online dating, but ever since Drew, that seems to have made things worse. I've since discovered that it's really not for me, and I haven't met anyone on there to convince me otherwise. 


There's also continuing on with life, try to ignore it, and accomplish things in the meantime, only I've been doing that for a long time, and the feeling gets worse with time. And I keep thinking about all the things people around me have experienced that I haven't (in terms of romance). First hand holding. First kiss. First prom date. Sometimes even first love. And it conjures up this unbearable bitterness inside of me.


It's cheesy, I know. But all I want is someone that thinks I'm attractive, and tells me. Someone to call me annoying, cringe-worthy pet names. Someone to hug me just because. Someone to talk to and to ask how I'm doing, because they want to. Someone to kiss me and mean it. Someone to want me. Someone to call me theirs. And someone that I can do all of that for in return. That's all I want. Is that too fucking much to ask for?


I'm only 19, and I know none of that is important right now. I know I don't need a boyfriend, or a relationship. But I want one. For God's sake, JUST ONE. That's all I want right now.

I know it inevitably ends in heartbreak, and I'm still scared of being hurt, but honestly my bitterness right now is overwhelming any of those fears. And I feel like this feeling is worse than heartbreak, because at least with heartbreak I would have known what it feels like to be wanted at some point. I just hate that I haven't experienced this not even once in my whole life, and I'm so sick of feeling this way.

And even if I had a crush right now, and it was unrequited (as always), at least I would know what it feels like to want someone. I don't even have that.

This sounds so dramatic, I'm sorry. But this feeling has just been building up and building up and up and up and at this point I don't know when it'll end.

I haven't even logged onto my OKCupid account lately because even though I'm not desperate, I'm sure as hell getting there. It would be dangerous to even log in while feeling this way, because I might forget my standards altogether and say yes to the first guy that propositions me. (Kidding, I wouldn't. But I would consider it for longer than I care to admit.) I'll stay away from it until I calm down. Or maybe get some therapy.

So, what to do about it? Nothing. As always.

Since I'm so emotional right now I think I'll go write. I always have written better when I'm emotional.

xo Hopeless Romantic 

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Summer Fun and Weddings}
Sunday, July 17, 2011 | 9:26 PM | 0Comment

Internet! It's been a while, hmm?

Since the last time I updated, I've been living my summer to the fullest as possible. (Well, the fullest for me, at least.) I've made it a point to try new things this summer, even if they were really small new things. Things that I've done so far include:

  • Going to a renaissance fair for the first time. Most. Amazing. Place. Ever. I even ate a giant turkey leg (who goes to one and doesn't eat a giant turkey leg?!) I'm going back again before summer ends, for sure.
  • Got feather extensions. At first I was worried about how they would look, but I love them! I want to get more put in soon.
  • Going to the park at least 3 times a week to read. No reason I can't seeing as I live right by one, it's just a short walk over. One of life's most looked over pleasures, I think.
  • Filled out and submitted a job application. My first ever. For Barnes & Noble, too! I didn't get a call back (and didn't expect one either, to be honest, considering I have no experience with work AT ALL) but I'm proud of myself for even gathering the guts to do it at all.
  • First responsibility as a legal adult: letting in a water heater inspector even though my parents weren't home at the time. He was kind of old, so I wasn't threatened or nervous. When I let him know I was 18 and it was okay for him to come in, he just looked at me skeptically like he didn't believe me (can't say I blame him, darn my height!) but in the end it was all fine. Hooray for adult responsibility! (I probably won't be saying that in 3 years.)
  • Started watching less TV. Our bills stacked up and we got the cable turned off for about 2 and a half weeks, and for the first time since I got a TV in my room when I was 11, I had to find stuff to do other than watching TV all the time. At first I got on this movie watching kick, but when I watched through every single one of my DVD's in 4 days flat I started finding other things to do. At first I thought it was torture, but then I realized how much time I waste in front of the television everyday. We have our cable turned on again, but that whole experience really made me want to stop taking privileges for granted. It's also made me want to accomplish other things during the day instead of just channel surfing and turning on the TV for background noise.
  • Started drinking more water. You know, the 8 glasses a day thing? That. Ever since I was a kid, I never really drank stuff often. Not for any particular reason, I just drank when I was really really thirsty, but never with meals, and whenever I'd start a drink it would take me forever to finish it. It wasn't a conscious thing, just a habit I guess. But I've worked on drinking water, water only, and tons of it. I sound like a commercial, I know, but I really have been feeling better lately. Not only does it make me feel refreshed, but my skin has been clearing up lately too. Water, people. That stuff is GOOD.
  • Started eating better in general. Not that I've been on a diet or anything, but I've just been eating healthier. More fruits, more yogurt, more vegetables. I've been eating salads at least 4 times a week, and I've been eating less ridiculous sized portions with everything else. It helps me feel healthier, and I feel more satisfied than when I just eat junk.
And aside from all those things, I've also taken a cold shower (broken water heater for two weeks, take it from me and never take an ice cold shower, it's much worse than it sounds.), made homemade ice cream in a plastic bag (which I hadn't done since elementary school!), read through 4 books, and watched through an entire Korean drama in 3 days (that's nothing new at all obviously, but I just thought I'd put that here too).

One other thing I've done this summer was go to an old classmate's wedding. She isn't in my grade, she graduated 2010. She's 19, and I went to her wedding.

Internet, I'm telling you. It was so surreal. I've known this girl since the summer after I was in the 5th grade. Pretty long. And I went to her wedding.

Her and her (now) husband have been together for 4 years. I'd always see them in the school hallways together, in fact, I can never remember them apart, ever.
Of course, as you can imagine, I was a bit skeptical when I first heard about the wedding. I mean, how many 19 year olds do you see getting married and having their marriage last?

But it wasn't until I saw her walk down the aisle in that wedding dress that it really hit me that she loved this man enough to want to spend the rest of her life with him.

Best Friend Rose and I cried like babies during that ceremony. I never cry at weddings, never. But hell, from the moment she walked out in her dress, we started crying.

There was one moment during that wedding, one image from the ceremony that will probably be imprinted in my memory for a very long time: after lighting a unity candle together, this woman was singing a beautiful song for them, and they just stood together by the candle, facing each other and holding hands; gazing at each other with this look of pure joy that immediately made me burst into a new round of tears. Because if I could ever claim to have ever witnessed what young love looks like, real pure young love, that was it. The sight of it raised goosebumps on my skin, and it's something that I hope I never ever forget.

It's crazy to think that I'm starting to get old enough now for people I know around my age starting to get married. Some are having kids too, but that's a whole other story.

Well, in other news, I'm over Drew. Completely.

Thank you guys for your comments and emails regarding everything, I really appreciated them, even though I didn't get to reply to all of them. I really was thisclose to confronting him about it, to asking him straight up, 'Look, did you like me or not? And if you did, why did you lose interest so fast?' But after thinking about it, I'd probably rather just look at what his actions told me instead.

Also, after getting impatient with him before, asking him any kind of serious question at all at this point would most likely scare him off for good (not that I'd really mind either way, considering we're not talking anymore, but I don't need him telling his friends about the psycho he almost liked/dated.) Plus, Drew doesn't seem to like confrontation very much. Wouldn't want him to pee his pants in fright, now would we?

(Yes we would.)

Anyhow, I've already moved on, and it doesn't bother me so much anymore. That was that, and it's over now. It feels good to bounce back from something like this so quickly. Maybe it was because I didn't quite like him just yet, even though I was sure I was starting to. Maybe resolution #8 wasn't so useless after all.

And as disappointing this whole deal turned out to be, I did learn from it. If anything, I can thank Drew for my first date, and for letting me remember what it's like to be excited about a boy again. I had begun to forget, it had been so long. Even if it didn't turn into anything, at least I had the experience at all.

I'm ready to accomplish more this summer, Internet. Are you ready for this?

xo Hopeless Romantic

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To Luis}
Sunday, June 12, 2011 | 2:15 PM | 0Comment

"Out of a random chance, I found your site. Now, here's my question:

What is a hopeless romantic? (hint hint on my signature)

The true hopeless romantic would always rather give than receive. Because they know then and only then, will there be true love."

Hi, Luis! I'm sorry I'm answering this so late. I did see this question in my mail a little while ago, but it's taken me a considerable amount of time to figure out how exactly I'd answer. I hope it's okay that I post this on here, by the way.

All right. Well. After I read your question, I sighed, because that is one doozy of a question. Because it's kind of simple, but at the same time, it's not.

I agree 100% with your signature's definition of 'hopeless romantic', absolutely. And I think that pretty much sums up the general definition.

However, although you probably didn't exactly intend it that way, this question also made me wonder why I call myself Hopeless Romantic in the first place, and why I consider myself a hopeless romantic.

Here's the thing. I made this blog basically at the very very end of my 8th grade year. I was distraught, heartbroken, over my crush (Ricky Bobby)--whom I believed, at the time, had finally started to feel the same--that had moved away. I needed a release, some way of knowing that I wasn't alone, that I wasn't the one only who'd felt so cold and utterly rejected.
I most likely didn't know the full meaning of the term 'hopeless romantic' at the time, to be honest with you. All I knew was that up to that point, out of all the boys I liked, no one ever liked me back, and Hopeless Romantic sounded dramatic. I kid you not. I was basically still at that point where I thought that since I had never had a boyfriend and I was almost in high school, I would NEVER have a boyfriend, and I'd be alone FOREVER and adopt 295738 cats. Or chihuahuas. Or maybe I'd buy every goldfish in town and make my house into a goldfish aquarium and every morning as I fed them all I'd make fish faces at them to say good morning.
THE POINT BEING. I was heartbroken and lonely and boyfriendless. Sounded legit to me.

The irony is, I feel more like a 'hopeless romantic' now. Even after having a few boys 'like me', for a lack of a better word. Even after I've been in online school and I've gotten to know me, the true me. In fact, I think that's why I feel that way.

I think I'd call myself a Hopeless Romantic because I've always believed in the ideal of love.
I'd always been that little girl that played dress up in pretend princess dresses and wedding gowns, and even as I got older, I saw romances in movies and on TV and I always believed that love was this unexplainable, all-consuming magic. That it just happens, and suddenly you're not the same person, that the plain, raggedy Cinderella turns into a sort of royalty. That once you fell in love with someone, it was forever, and their adoration would be unchanging and unwavering forever.
But then I grew up.

And more recently than ever, I've started to realize that true love isn't this unreachable magical, mythical thing and then BOOM--just happens. It's not just a noun, it's a verb. It's raw and life-altering, sometimes not in the good way. It's sometimes very painful. It takes work, and I mean, tons of work, to make it last sometimes. And it's scary. Because once you give someone your everything, once they know every little detail about you (and vice versa), so much that they know the exact way you think, the way you breathe, the way you blink, they also have the power to absolutely destroy you.

I've seen a good amount of happy couples in love. Do I believe that successful long-term relationships founded on love exist? Absolutely. But I certainly don't believe that they're so easy to find, just around the corner for everybody. I also think they're rare to find. My grandparents, for example, were married for 56 years before my grandfather died October 2009. They'd been high school sweethearts. I've seen evidence right in front of me that two people, if they truly and deeply love each other, can stay together, despite everything.
But I've also seen some couples fall out of love, even after a seemingly long time. The ones that appear as if every time they're together, it's like peeling off a bandaid slowly. Ones that can hardly stand the sight of each other anymore, but it's almost as if they have no option but to stay with each other. Because they hardly know any other way to live. They have no choice.

Realizing this has made me realize that the fairytale love I waited for when I was younger, the kind I dreamed of, doesn't exist. It can't. Not in the real world, not in true life. And seeing it shatter to pieces in front of me fills me with a kind of despair. And it's very hard for me to accept.
I think it's so hard for me because it's another part of growing up, which I know is inevitable for everybody, but it's still hard none the less.

I still dream of that love sometimes, which is why I still consider myself a hopeless romantic. But the difference is now I know that that's all they are, dreams. Not reality.

This was probably a much longer answer than you anticipated, Luis. But I had a lot to say, as usual. Haha. Thanks for sending it in, by the way.

xo Hopeless Romantic

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Fear of Falling in Love or Being in Love. (Secret #5)}
Monday, May 2, 2011 | 5:26 PM | 3Comment

Also known as Philophobia.

I have a confession, Internet. There's been something weighing heavy on my mind lately.

It used to be something that only came to bother me every once in a while. It would come, and I'd wave it off, and all was well again. But now that I'm starting to get older, it's bothering me a lot more. I've tried to shake it off, but it's like this huge, ominous, encroaching feeling creeping up on me, and I'm starting to think that I can't help it.

I think I'm starting to develop some kind of negative complex with love.

Now, I know what you're thinking (or maybe I don't, but oh well). 'Hopeless Romantic? Having a negative complex with love? YEAH. OKAY.'

That's what I'd think, too. Heck, this whole blog is dedicated to my misadventures with likes and loves and what have you. My freakin' pen name is 'Hopeless Romantic', for crying out loud.

But it's something I've noticed more and more lately. I'll watch a romance movie, and I'll cringe during the sappy parts that are supposed to make me cry (which I never used to do). I can barely stand to listen to love ballads (which I lived for). I can feel myself starting to resent males in general (not good).

And if those weren't indicative enough, here's the doozy: Everytime I start to picture what my first relationship could be like, where I used to think about great things happening, and feeling excited for them, now I think of them and I'm completely repulsed.
I'll think about my possible first kiss, how nervous I could be when it happens, how awful it could be, and I suddenly don't want one. Ever. I don't even want to try.

Or I'll think about bringing my first boyfriend to come meet my family, and I'm horrified. I love my family, don't get me wrong, but suddenly seeing it from that perspective, it seems too scary and embarrassing and I don't even want to think about it.

And then I'll think about how I'll constantly have to worry about little annoying girl things, like keeping my legs shaven, and how I'll have to exfoliate like every freaking day because if he wants to kiss me he'll be close enough to see like every single one of my pores and it sounds RIDICULOUS, I know, but my skin isn't completely clear or perfect and it's one of my biggest insecurities. And having someone that close to me, close enough to see my pores, close enough to see that teeny little hair on my upper lip that I just happened to miss with my tweezers, close enough that they can see the lines in my irises, it freaks me the hell out.

I had a dream last night, and I remember every single moment of it. It's resonated with me the entire day. In the dream, I was out shopping with Best Friend Rose. It was just her and I, and we were downtown somewhere, somewhere with tons of shops and tall buildings and stuff. Maybe a large city. We decided to stop in this larger department store, but then Rose had to go to the bathroom, so she told me to wait while she ran out to the bathroom, somewhere. So I was standing there with my hands full of shopping bags, right? And I'm just gazing around, looking at stuff, when I see this tall blonde guy standing about 15 feet away, just staring at me. Not in a 'woooo who's that hot shawty over thurr' way, more like the 'I'm a serial killer and I just found my next victim' kind of way. Like, he just stares at me blankly. And I start to get nervous, because here is where I finally noticed that I'm suddenly alone in store, all alone, and this psycho is staring at me all creepily.

And then he starts to walk towards me. Apparently BFR is pretty much forgotten at this point (sorry Rosie) and I immediately start to make my way toward the doors. I push them open, walking fast, and after I'm about ten feet away from the store, I hear him push through the doors too. Great. Psycho is following me, and I'm all alone on the sidewalks. Because somehow, despite being in some big city, the streets and sidewalks are basically empty, except for a bunch of parked cars. No witnesses.

I start to walk even faster. And I risk one look over my shoulder to see if I'm losing him. I'm not. In fact, he's only about 15 feet away. And all of a sudden, I come to this realization that he's my ex boyfriend. In dream land he is, I suppose. I distinctly remember him having longish blonde hair, and being very, very attractive. But it didn't discount the fact that he was glaring at me like his eyes were going to pierce through me. So I break into a run, dropping my shopping bags altogether.

"Get away," I yell at him, kind of feebly.

He replies, "I just want to talk," in the way that the killer in a movie says to their victims, 'I'm not going to hurt you,' before they kill them.

I feel like I'm not getting away from him fast enough, and I try to run fast, but I can't. Even while knowing that this is my ex boyfriend, and not a stranger serial rapist killer, I'm still terrified to death of him. It literally feels like I'm running for my life.

Suddenly he says, in an ominous change of tone, "You can't get away from me, Sarah."

I try to run faster again, and can't. It's like I'm running in sand. "Leave me alone," I scream. "Get away from me!"

"You can try to run, but it won't work. I'll find you. I'll always find you." He says calmly. "You belong to me, Sarah. You'll always belong to me."

I scream again, something unintelligible. Suddenly, I spot a Forever 21 with tons of cars parked in front, tons of people inside. I tear toward the door, throw it open, and careen inside. I go straight to the front desk. "I'm being stalked," I say to the girl on the other side. "Is there some place I can hide?"

She immediately points to the employee door at the far end of the store, and I quickly make my way to it. I jump inside, and as I turn around to close the door behind me, I see Crazy Ex-Boyfriend run into the store, searching for me. I shut the door. The employee area is empty and quiet, and when I listen closely, I can hear everything going on inside the store.

It suddenly sounds as if the store has gone empty, and I only hear the Crazy Sauce ask the employees if they saw a girl like me(all the while still calling me his girlfriend. Hah!). All of them knowing, of course, that I was hiding from him, they all play dumb and say no. I swear for a few seconds that I hear his heavy footsteps come closer and closer to the other side of the door, but he never opens it.

Instead, I suddenly hear my mom, my dad, and Rosie come in, all sounding panicked, probably looking for me. As soon as they see Crazy Man, they call him by name in surprise. They ask him if he's seen me (because apparently they don't know about his insane tendencies of stalking?). He answers, faking worry and concern, that he'd been trying to talk to me, but that I kept running away. He tells them that he has no idea where I am, and they all respond worriedly.

For some reason I stay in the small room until I hear that all of them have left the store, and I come out finally. I look around paranoid, and then I look at the employees. "He's gone, right?" I ask to confirm. They nod slowly at me, and they're looking at me strangely, like they think that maybe I just made the whole stalking thing up.

And then suddenly I see Ex-Boyfriend walk past the store windows again, looking like he was still searching around for me. His face is pinched with worry. And then somehow the dream flips perspectives, and I see the dream through his eyes. And I understand everything perfectly, differently.

Now I was the ex-boyfriend, worried like hell for the girl he still loves, the girl who always pushes him away.

When I woke up from that dream, I was extremely unsettled. Not only because it was one heckuva dream, but because that is one of my fears.

I'm scared that someday I will fall in love with someone who loves me back, and I'll lose control. Scared that I'll get too attached too fast, and one day I'll wake up, terrified, realizing what I've gotten myself into, and I'll push them far away from me. I'm scared that they'll use me and crush my soul in their fist. I'm scared that I'll love them, and that they're actually just merely 'interested'. I'm scared that it will be love, true love, amazing love, and then an accident will happen and they'll be taken from me forever.

I think I'm so scared of love because it ends. It always seems to end. Something always happens. Someone cheats, or someone loses interest completely, or someone dies before the other. And the thought of going through that pain scares me so honestly that it makes me want to cry.

I don't want to be one of those people that never does anything because of their fear.
But lately I can honestly say that the thought of any of those happening is enough to make me question if I ever want to go through something like that. It doesn't sound worth it. And I've had no reason to personally believe that it is.

It's funny, because in Middle School, I would have killed to have a boyfriend. It was almost everything to me. But now, after I've gotten older and realized the painful repercussions of love, I cringe whenever I think of having one. I used to be afraid of being alone forever, but now I'm honestly starting to think I might be better off alone.

It sounds ridiculous and melodramatic, but maybe it's the best thing. Jane Austen never got married, and she turned out okay. Great, even. Maybe that's how it will be for me.

I'll see if this passes. Maybe this is just a weird mood I've been in with my stress lately. I suppose we'll see.

xo Hopeless Romantic

(P.S. I finally added comments for each entry and Older Posts Newer Posts links. I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out!)

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