I try my best to be me when a person first meets me.
One day, I met this girl. I wanted her to like me, as a friend. Then as more. And I…was too much.
I do this with everyone. Those I have no interest in, beyond a hello. Those I hope to fall in love with one day. I don’t do it on purpose, though, the oversharing. I do keep a little of me back. But I also don’t lie about who I am. Of course some seem to see all of me, anyway, but others…struggle to see beyond what they want to see in me.
I guess, though, that’s not always easy for others to understand. Others, who had different life experiences than I have. How quickly I fall into what I want. That I mean everything I say. They feel pressure to say things they don’t mean, and they assume I do, too.
But it ended up all wrong.
They think I’m…I don’t know. It’s not how I think. But maybe when they do see my flaws, perhaps it is a shock. The discrepancy between fantasy and reality.
I don’t know what happened. One day I was “utterly amazing” and “beautiful” and “worthy of everything.” The next, I was responsible for everything wrong in their life. I was lazy, stupid, horrible. I wasn’t good enough to even say goodbye.
But I thought she was like me. When she wanted everything, all at once. I thought she was the one who falls in to love as easily as I do. But it turns out I need the skeptic, the one that takes time.
I chose to allow myself to be flattered.
Never again.