to the girl my boyfriend didn’t turn down

i don't blame you.

i don't respect your decisions, or your actions, but i understand why you picked them. they were not uncalled for. they were not unreasonable, or unwarranted, or unprompted.

i understand there was alc, and he has been leading you on, and feelings just come to the top, and like. he's my (ex) boyfriend. i wanted to get drunk and make out with him. i wanted the same thing you wanted. i know how you feel. we both liked him from october to now. we're both mad at him.

the only reason, that i have faith in, why he genuinely dated me and not you, is because i acted first. i showed interest a month earlier. i'm not saying he didn't like me, or love me, but it was awfully convenient for him to reciprocate my feelings. he likes being liked. he likes being liked by me, by you, by people. he likes the attention. the validity. the external assurance he's accepted.

but if the timelines were shifted, and you made a move on him earlier, or i waited until christmas season, he'd probably have been yours. he's passive. if you asked him out, he may have said yes. i'm not sure how much he would have liked liked you, as he goes for the attention, not necessarily the people, but i'm sure he would have developed attachment to you.

his love language is quality time and physical touch. i spent a notable part of our relationship trying to understand how to make the ride smoother. how to make him feel loved. how to understand his ed, his adhd, his roadblocks. not bad things, not flaws, just a little extra baggage i was willing to work on him with.

anyways. quality time and physical touch. i saw him almost everyday, and did something with him outside of school every three days, if not every other. walks in parks, making out to anime in the background, holding hands, just doing nothing like lying on his couch and seeing if he could taser me first, or i could blow hot air into his stomach. nothing really, but in that moment, it feels like the world is in that one room, and we are at the centre of it. it's worth mentioning i didn't know his love languages were quality time and physical touch. those are just also mine, and we display affection in ways we'd like it, so.

i liked all the same things he did. rom-com anime, a stupid video game, all types of music, cooking pancakes, talking his dog for a walk, appreciation for the arts. our interests, although to different degrees, had much overlap. he'd listen to me read my writing, and i'd watch him play guitar for hours. live guitar. you can never really get enough of it. sometimes, in the middle of the seventh bridge, you'll get the "this feels repetitive" feeling, but then you'll be listening to a soft song with easy chords in the back, and you'll miss his guitar so much your chest aches. you want it to play in your heart, echoing on your ribs and against your diaphragm.

what i think i'm trying to say is that. i gave him the perfect stage to fall in love with me. no, i didn't do everything right. i mean, if i did, it wouldn't be ending like this, would it? i didn't do everything right, but i didn't do anything extraordinarily wrong.

it was very. easy, i wanna say, for him to date. or well, easy is the wrong word, but it was convenient. a nice little ride he could go for without doing much, because we complemented each other pretty well, regarding our ways of showing affection and interests. there was so much to talk about.

and i think, really, he did love me. christmas eve. he loved me. that much i know.

i wrote him a letter, is was horribly messy, and he laughed so hard he cried. it's my favourite memory of him.

"sometimes," he said, "you open your mouth and talk and it's just. magic. you're magic. my mind goes blank and all i can focus on is you. sometimes not even your words, but just. you."

that was quite high praise, coming from a boy who talked like shakesphere. i don't think i have ever been happier.

but then it become, well, work. the honeymoon stage ended for him (it has never ended for me, in any of my relationships) and i actually wanted to be treated like a human being. i wanted to be acknowledged and talked to and taken on dates once a month. he avoided it. he liked getting the attention without having to necessarily reciprocate.

that was why he buckled for you, i think. he knew it was wrong, he was still in a relationship, but you were offering something with less strings attached than i was. you were offering something that needed no maintenance, he just lead you on, and you loved him. he didn't need to deal with your bad days, or when you disagreed with him, or when i wanted flowers for v day instead of nothing.

he said it himself. "i can't say no," a beat, "because i like the attention." i am not sure if he told you about the attention part.

this is. perhaps cruel to say, but he told me he didn't like you.

"do you like [censored name?]"

"no," he said, mad and worked up. "no, i don't like her." he's told me he likes you as a little sister. as a friend, he values and treasures you. he said that last november though, so i could now tell you for sure if that has changed.

"i just like the attention," he said. "i'm an attention whore."

and i gave him so much attention. i saw him for hours on end. i texted him and sent him insta posts and tiktoks and got snap to be connected with him. he asked me for space multiple times, so many times, and i gave it to him every time. he didn't like walls of texts. he didn't like it if seeing each other didn't have a designated "end" time. he didn't want to be kissed. he pushed me off his lap.

he wants. hmmm. it's not necessarily attention. he wants attention without the obligation to reciprocate anything.

because he thinks it's going to leave. he thinks he's unloveable, so he shoots himself in the foot, and then hates himself, even more, when it doesn't work out.

coward.

he likes the attention, so i think he lead you on. he couldn't say no, because he liked the attention. he didn't like you, and i don't even know if he liked me at the beginning, but he sure as hell likes being liked.

and so, he most definitely lead you on, but it was also convenient of him to belive he wasn't. that he was just treating you like he would with any friend, but you know, he did know you liked him. he was at least aware. but it was convenient for him to believe you didn't like him anymore, and that he could go back to talking in his, "oh??" "go on" "you don't say" flirty way of his.

so yeah.

i don't blame you. i don't respect your decision, because you knew he had a girlfriend when you tried to hook up with him and when you confessed for the second time, but i understand why you may have thought your feelings would have been reciprocated or felt the need to do something. alc does that, too.

(i would like to mention he's been piss drunk around me and has never acted like. had me sit on his lap on a couch and make our friends think we were hooking up.)

but whatever. attention-whore.

so yes. i don't want you to put this all on yourself. he lead you on. he chose his path of desire and it kinda fucked over everyone. don't blame yourself for our break-up. he was being a shitty boyfriend even before you came into the equation. we broke up without me knowing the full extent of the saturday party. i only learned about that after. about the "i love you" "i love you too" and the "i can't say no." after.

"i can't say no." because i like the attention.

how fucking selfish do you have to be to think that's okay?

as euphoria says; "you. dumb. fucking. bitch. i'm gonna fuck you up!" not you, my love, him. him.

you're, respectfully, a baby. a year younger, almost two. he should be mentoring you. being friends with you. not fucking with your feelings and making you feel like shit. and i know, because he did the same thing to me.

god.

anyways. i don't respect your decision or actions, but as another girl in this fucked up equation, i understand you, i don't blame you, and i hope you never feel for him again. not in the "i want him" way, but in the "you don't deserve that. you deserve better" way. you deserve someone who likes you for you, not just the goddamn attention.

please feel free to ask me questions, or for clarification, or to pull up recipes and timelines and girl. both of us deserve the truth. i want you to get it, because i want it so bad.

i don't blame you. do not, for a single second, ever think i'm blaming you. you're not innocent, but i would classify you more as an accomplice. but, well, it all goes back to him and his fucked up, spineless, moral code.

lots of love, and understanding, and hope your therapist can help you with this,

riley west