When I was a senior in high school I dated my very first long term girlfriend. I was 17 years old at the time and she was 15 years old. We actually met a few weeks before school began. I don't want to say her name so I will refer to her as MC.
MC was cute in the nerdy cute girl way. I always liked girls of that sort because they were attractive but didn't realize it. The nerdy cute girls weren't arrogant like the beauty queens.
When we started dating, her parents didn't really like me. If her parents had said that they didn't want us to date then I would have backed away from her. I knew from family experience that trying to hide a relationship behind your parents' back will ultimately explode in your face and just cause more trouble than the relationship is worth, especially at 15 years old. Unfortunately, her parents decided to be passive-aggressive instead of just being honest. They decided that MC wouldn't be old enough to date until she finished that year of school.
Because we couldn't date we would hang out with each other at sporting events, before school and a little after school. We actually did get to go to a school dance together but only because we double dated with her older brother and his date.
When the school year finally ended and I graduated, MC and I thought we would be able to date over the summer before I left for college. I had been accepted to The Ohio State University and I was going to be staying off campus with two of my older brothers. Unfortunately, MC had gotten a bad grade on her final report card and her parents felt that they had to punish her by not letting her date that summer.
By the end of the summer, MC and I had broken up and the break up hit me very hard. I didn't know it at the time but my thyroid gland was under-producing. (Edit:This wasn't the real cause of my depression. The depression was actually caused by MS and I wasn't diagnosed until years later.) This caused me to fall into a severe depression and it made studying almost impossible. I couldn't focus my mind on anything. I think back to my first quarter at Ohio State and I think how simple the courses I took really were. If I could have concentrated for an hour each day I would have smashed those courses. I was taking Differential Calculus, the first Physics course I would need for engineering and Italian.
The only thoughts I could hold in my head were thoughts of MC. I could have had so much fun while I was at college and gotten good grades but the depression was killing me. I was badly depressed for my first two years of college.
At the beginning of my third year at college I moved into the dorms. I believe my thyroid was producing more thyroxin and I was feeling much better. But just my luck, MC was starting at Ohio State and she was living in a dorm adjacent to my dorm. We used the same commons for our meals.
She had a new boyfriend. MC's boyfriend had his hair cut so his head resembled a bowling ball, his body was shaped like a pear and, best of all, he had one single, solid and very thick eyebrow. My roommates happened to know him and they told me that he was rather strange.
I started having those feelings about her and I didn't want them. Unfortunately, I had to interact with MC because both of us were on the fencing team. MC knew that I still liked her but she said she wasn't interested in me.
It wasn't until one day that I was talking with another girl while MC and her boyfriend walked by me that I knew something strange was going on in MC's mind. As MC and her boyfriend walked by, MC said hello to me and patted me on the butt without her boyfriend noticing she did it.
When I had time to think about MC's actions later, I wondered why she would do something rather flirty when she said that she wasn't interested in me anymore. The only conclusion that I could reach was that she didn't like me as a boyfriend but she did enjoy knowing that I was eating my heart out for her. When MC saw me talking with another girl I could only guess that MC felt her control on me slipping.
I saw MC about a few weeks later. She said hello to me and I responded in kind to her. She asked me how I was doing and I replied to her. I asked her how she was doing but I didn't make any move to prolong the conversation. I could see by the look on her face that she was puzzled and a bit disappointed.
That was the moment that any residual feelings for her just snapped. Until that moment I had her on a pedestal but I knew she didn't deserve it any longer because she enjoyed seeing me in pain over her. Basically, she had been playing me and loved it.
What I learned from this experience was that when it is time for a relationship to end that it is best just to go and not look back.
The whole situation was a Catch 22. If I chased her then she would just run away from me and If I didn't chase her then she would just stay away from me. So, depression or not, I should have just let her go and gotten on with my life.
I don't know if I have ever met the love of my life or if I ever will. I know that sometimes people hurt others accidentally but I will be damned if I will ever make myself that miserable over anybody else ever again.
Addendum: This story happened over 30 years ago. MC recently found me on Facebook and we talked. She hasn't had an easy life and I felt so petty for holding that anger that I no longer needed. She didn't realize how badly I was hurting at the time. I let go of that anger and, if it doesn't sound too condescending of me, I forgave her. There were also other things happening in here life which I was unaware at that time and I asked forgiveness from her, which she granted. She was looking to reconnect with old friends and she thought of me. I am genuinely touched by her and wish her the best.
