NYC is where love comes to die

• Whats up yall. My friends have told me that I should write this story down and lately I have come to honestly believe the title of this post. So this here is for Dan, Maria, Gina and Olivia.
  Full disclaimer, I am not a great writer. So fully expect grammatical errors. I'm literally doing this because I got tired of telling people the same story and now I can just give them a link to follow so they can read it on their own... If I don't know you and you somehow stumble upon this, I'll give you some background info I guess. I'm just a guy who is constantly in his feelings and is still in the process of figuring out how to deal with those feelings in a way to is healthy. Honestly, I really think that's all people really need to know. So here we go.
  (names are changed, but other than that I'm pretty much explaining everything)
  Ya'll, NYC is trash. And I used to think that it was trash because of my long commute into the city, or because the train always smells like pee, or because there is trash everywhere, or maybe it was because New Yorkers don't actually know how to get into train... You go all the way inside the car! Don't stand by the door and then complain when I hit your with my bag. It's literally your own fault. If you or anyone you know has every done this, just know that I hate you and I hope people always shove you out of the way!!!! But like I was saying, NYC is trash. But not for any of the reasons I had listed or the millions more that I didn't. NYC is trash because I fully believe that all of my chances at love have died here.
  Now I don't want you to think that I'm just out here being your everyday sad boy or whatever. Because I'm not. It's just that these last few days kind of tied together all of the crappy things (can I use expletives here? I've never actually been on reddit...) that have happened since I moved here in August. I literally have the best support system here and even if I don't tell you, if you think that you're a part of it, just know that I love you soooo much. That's really strange to type out... But yeah, I'm generally a pretty happy person, but like I said, this week just kind of got to me. So yeah. Enjoy (or don't) this story
  So I'm the kind of person that develops feeling pretty fast and I don't like when people use the phrase "blinded by love", but ya'll I become Ray Charles (R.I.P) when I'm interested in somebody. This story starts back in 2012. I was in high school and went bowling with a few of my friends. One of my friends (I'm gonna just use initials) O asked to bring a friend of hers. And you know, I didn't want to be rude. So I said "sure". My friends for the most part don't have attractive friends, so in the back of my mind I'm honestly not expecting much from this friend she had invited. But boy was I wrong... O text me saying that her and her friend were outside of the bowling alley, so I go to meet them. They both get out of the car and immediately I say "that's not your friend". I don't say hello, no how have you been, nothing. I just said "that's not your friend". When I tell ya'll that this girl was fine, I mean it. So after my cringe worthy "introduction", we go inside and start to bowl. The whole time, O's friend is talking to me and the only thing that I can think of is "she must be really bored. Because there's no other reason that she'd want to talk to me when there are other people here that she knows." I have pretty low self-esteem when if comes to relationships (platonic and non) and I always found that to be weird. Because in all other aspects of my life I think i'm amazing! Well... within reason. But yeah, O's friend is talking to me for pretty much the whole time and I'm just thinking to myself "once this day is over, I'll never see her again." After we finish bowling I head home and the only thing on my mind is that I just met a beautiful girl who is smart, funny and most of all really kind. After that, I assumed I'd never see her again and I put her to the back of my mind.
  Fast forward to Spring of 2013.
  It's the day of prom and I'm at the dance. I'm having a pretty good time with my date and then something catches my attention at the entrance. Ya'll, O had brought the friend from when we went bowling as her date to prom! So. I'd never been so enamored by someone before and it was honestly pretty awkward. Because I totally had a date, but here I am fawning over this girl that I had only met once. Crazy right? But yeah, she's there and I was so sure she wouldn't talk to me let alone remember who I am... This girl walked up to me, said hey, said my name and remembered what we had talked about from when we went bowling! I honestly died a bit guys. I couldn't believe it at all. So in my head I'm thinking of all of the possible reasons that she'd even be over here talking to me. I thought she was either bored, maybe she didn't know anybody else (she did) or maybe she felt bad for me for some reason and felt she had to speak with me. I won't lie, I was pretty awkward back in high school and that last explanation made good sense. Even now, I could understand if that was the reason she had talked to me. So after a while I go back to my date and I figure that now, I have seen the last of O's friend.
  Fast forward to February 2014
  O is having some kind of issue, so I drive to her house (because i'm a great friend) to see what was going on. When I arrive, I see O is outside just sitting there on the phone with someone. I walk over and O goes "oh hey! I'm just talking to A (her really gorgeous friend) on the phone." I try to play it cool like I wasn't excited that I might be able to talk to her and just go "oh yeah, hey A". But I messed up because I tried to make my voice deeper and O called me out. WHILE SHE WAS ON THE PHONE WITH A... So that was really awkward. After that whole thing, O tells me that A was complaining that she didn't have a date for prom that year. And without skipping a beat, I go "I'll take you!". But I had thought that she was joking! Because there is no way a girl like that didn't have a date... A says that I could take her and we just leave it at that.
  March 2014
  It's prom season and like I said, I didn't think that A actually wanted me to take her to prom so I only worried about my prom. So prom day comes and I'm super excited! it's senior year and I'm going with my friends! We get to the venue and no more than 20 mins in, I get a tap on my shoulder and I hear "so why didn't you take me to prom?". I turn around and sure enough, It's A. So I muster every brain cell I have and rattle off something along the lines of "I don't know... I didn't think you were serious." And still to this day, that's probably one of my dumbest responses to anything ever. I was true, but I can think of so many other things that I could've said... After a while we laugh about the situation and go on to enjoy the night. Later that night we start to talk about our plans for school once we graduate. It turned out that I was going to school in the Midwest and she'll be out on the East Coast. So immediately, I knew not to assume that anything would come out of our few encounters since we weren't going to school anywhere close to each other. So prom ends and now I'm 100% convinced that I'll never see her again.
  December 2014
  I'm on facetime with O just talking about life when she goes "A just texted me and she says hi". Keep in mind, I still thought she only would want to talk to me when she was bored. So I tell O, "there's no way she talk to me just out of the blue, so I doubt she said hi". And O just goes, "no. she wants to talk to you". I call her bluff and tell her that if A wanted to talk to me, then she sound text me. Ya'll... My phone pings and I get a text saying "Hey (im leaving my name out, but she says my whole name when she would speak to me), it's A (I also address her by her full name too)." I lost my mind you guys. I literally couldn't believe that this girl had went out of her way to talk to me! From then on out we would talk everyday and I really got to understand her. We would fall asleep on facetime together and just be up for hours talking about any and everything. It wasn't long before I knew that I was interested in her. So, even though we had talked about her feelings about long distance (not us, but the concept in general), I decided to shoot my shot anyway. When I tell you this girl has a way with words, I mean it Somehow she avoided my question so well that I literally wasn't sure if I had asked if she wanted to date or not. A, I'm not sure if I'll ever show you this, but I'm still amazed by that lol. But yeah, so she pretty much made it known that she wouldn't want to do long distance and I was okay with that. She has beautiful handwriting and would send me hand written letters from time to time and my response to that was that I would burn her a cd of songs that reminded me of her. My handwriting is absolute trash so there's nooooo was I would send her a hand written letter. I remember when on of my roommates accidentally threw away one of the letters that she had sent me. I'd never felt such a rage build up inside of me! They each mean something to me and I actually still have them in my possession. But yeah, the school year goes on and summer is right around the corner. I learned that we actually didn't live to far away from each other back home. So we tried to make plans to meet up when we both went home. Im going to skip things starting from here on out, but you'll get the general idea I think.
  We finally meet up back home and I still remember seeing her get out of her car and walking over to me in her with sun dress with yellow sunflowers (I know nothing about flowers, but they sure did look like sun flowers...). Her skin was sun kissed since she had just come back from vacation and her highlights in her accented her complexion soooo well. It was weird... Here I am, finally getting the chance to be face to face with the girl that I had fallen for and just getting to that point from back when I was so convinced that she didn't really want to talk to me seemed like it had taken years. But her she was right in front of me and not just behind some screen. We went out for breakfast and the entire time, all that I could think about was how amazing she was. I still don't see why she wanted to talk to me in the first place. But never the less, she did. After that day it solidified how I felt for her. I just knew that she was someone that I wanted in my life. Back then, I had always thought about what my love story would be and who it would star. I was so sure that it was her and nobody could convince me otherwise. She goes on a family vacation and comes back two days before I had to go back off to school for Orientation Leader training. We meet up one more time to go downtown. For some strange reason I typically want people to sing with me when I'm just walking down the street and A would always tell me that she'd never sing with me because she hates her voice. So out of curiosity, I played her her favorite song from the cd that I had burned her just to see if she'd sing with me. Shortly after it starts to play she hears me singing, grabs my hand and sings alone with me. (her voice was good, so I don't know what the issue was...). So here the two of us are, holding hands and singing downtown without a care in the world. I'm on cloud 9 at that point. But, then it starts to rain... So we run underneath this huge tree and there we are just huddled together there. As I held her in my arms all I could think about was how I didn't want the moment to end. She looks up at me and there was a kind of warmth to her eyes. I started to lean in to kiss her, but I stopped because I remembered our conversation about how she doesn't want to do long distance. I'd rather have her in my life in some way than to not have her in it at all and I knew that if I had kissed her it would've made things weird between us. So we stood there in a warm embrace until the rain stopped... Afterwards she let me hold her Polaroid camera and I took a pic of her and that picture is still in my wallet today. The next day, a get a text from her and it reads "Why didn't you kiss me yesterday in the rain!?". Bruh... I've never run so fast back to my house you guys. I should've been an Olympian or something! I get back to the house, grab my car keys and just start driving. I honestly didn't even know where I was going until I got to her house. Just letting you know, I had been there before so it's not like I just instinctively knew where she lived or that I was stalking her... So once I realize where I actually was, I started to freak out. Because I could've leave because I was already there and I was scared she'd looked out the window and seen my car. So that would've been a weird conversation to have. So I get out of the car and ring the doorbell. Her dad (who I had never met) answers the door and I go "Hello, is A home?". Internally, I'm dying but I'm trying so hard to play it cool! He calls her to the door and I remember shes at the top of her steps and she just goes "wow, what are you doing here?". Please remember that I'm still trying to hid how nervous I am and I just say to her "lets go on a walk". She comes down the stairs and at that moment I'm filled with so many emotions. I'm nervous since I didn't really think about coming here, I'm happy that she seemed to have wanted to see me and I'm confused because I had no idea what I was even gonna say to her. So I grab her hand to lead her away on our walk and she immediately stops me. She goes "you know you're shaking, right?" and I'm still trying to play it cool like I wasn't nervous... So she hold up my hand and when I tell ya'll that I was shaking, I mean really bad... It was almost as if I was doing jazz hands. She takes my hand into both of hers and says "ok, lets go". I still remember how warm her hands were and how comforting it was that she grabbed my hand. We end up walking around her neighborhood and I lay everything out. I tell her that I'm honestly not sure if the feelings I have for her are love, but that I knew that it must be pretty close. We were both young and I didn't really have a good reference point to determine if it was love or was I just really into her. But still, it was a feeling I had never felt before and I wasn't sure what it was. I have always wanted to fall in love, have a very cliche love story and I was so sure that this was my time to shine! I figured that I'd let it all out, she'd think about doing the whole long distance thing and in a few years we'd married... After I tell her how I feel, she just leans in and kisses me. Ya'll I almost died. Here I was with this girl that that I had met by chance. Who I was so sure only talked to me because she had nothing better to do. Who had just kissed me. In my head, I just knew that this was where everything would start for me. We'd be a couple, I'd travel to go see her, she'd come and see me and everything would be great! We would've done that, both graduated on time and argued about where we'd ultimately want to end up, even though I knew that I'd probably just go wherever it was that she wanted to go. With all that in mind, I ask "so what are we?". She gently grabs my face and goes "I think you still know". I'd never been so defeated in my life. I felt like I was standing in the middle of the street alone and everyone in her neighborhood was looking out their window just laughing at me. Looking back on it, I'm still really glad that I had said what I did. So we stood there for a bit in silence and then I walked her back to her house. I was leaving for school the next day and I needed to get back home to get ready. So I told her goodbye and got in my car to go home. I'm the kind of person that listens to sad music when I'm sad so my entire ride I was just listening to In the Loneliest Hour by Sam Smith (I actually just put that on now) and I knew that I couldn't leave things where they were. I got home and I took out paper to write A how I feel and that I'll always feel that way. This was big for me, because like I said, I hate my handwriting... So I wrote her a two page letter, made another cd for her and after I finished packing I drove to her house and put it in her mailbox. The next day I waited until I got on the plane to send her a text "Hey, I left something for you in your mailbox. When you read it, listen to track 7.". Track 7 was a version of Hey Ya by the Blanks. Listen to it. It's great. I had to wait until I got on the plane to send it because if I sent it and she responded, I would've missed my flight just to go see her... So I send the text and go back to school.
  I wasn’t really sure if I needed to add this part into this, but I’m actually really proud of it so I will. In one of the letter at A had sent me, she mentioned how it sucks that our lives are like a movie. As I said in the beginning, there’s a lot that I’m leaving out. So in my letter to her I wrote “I think it’s kind of great that our lives are like movies. The only bad thing is that we don’t get enough screen time in each other’s”. This my friends was probably the coolest thing I’d ever said and I’m still pretty darn proud of that!
  A few days later she FaceTimes me and we start to talk about whether or not alternate universes actually exhaust and whether or not the two of us were happy there... I could see that she was getting pretty upset thinking about that so I told her that as long as she’s happy then I’m ok. Because now that I’m looking back at it, I did love her and even if it hurts, you might have to let the one you love go. So after that we didn’t talk as often, but I’d still try to keep up with what she was doing and I’d see her whenever I’d come to her city. Each time I saw her, I felt like it was the first time. And even though we were friends those feeling where still there.
  Keep in mind that’s was still away at school and living my own life Althea same way that she was living hers, but even though I would see other girls while I was at school, I never got the same feeling that I had with her.
  So the last three years of undergrad go by and I’d see her during breaks.
  Fast forward to Spring 2018
  I accept an admission decision from a great school in the same city as A. Trust me when I say that she wasn’t a deciding factor in whether or not I go here. But I did start thinking about her more as I became to get ready to move here... SoI’m getting ready to move to a brand new city, start a masters program and I’m finally going to be in the same city. Things honestly were looking pretty good for me! And to all of my friends that really encouraged me to really come here and pursue my dreams and A, I can’t thank y’all enough. Because even though this story is trash, I appreciate you guys for believing in me even when I gave you no real reason to!
  A few days before I actually move to nyc I text A and tell her when I’d be there. She already knew I was coming because I made a post about it on insta that she liked. And we plan to meet up at the park by my campus.
  So the day we planned on meeting up I get to the park really early because I’m so nervous. I was worried about whether or not she thought I looked weird, or maybe she just wouldn’t like hanging out with me... instead of just awkwardly standing in the park I go off and explore the area since I haven’t done that yet. Then all of a sudden I get a text from A telling me she was there. So I run back to the park. And right when I get there I saw a figure wearing a white sun dress, chucks and had her long curly hair down. I just knew it was her. I walk up and say hey (there was no shaking this time. I promise). We go off, enjoy the day together and once again I feel like that 17 year old when I first met her. She was funny, beautiful and most of all she was kind. Ya’ll we went to the Casper store and if you would’ve told me that it was possible to have fun in the Casper store (in a way that’s legal lol) I would’ve thought you were crazy! But it was such a great time. I’m the kind of guy that is always wrapped up in his thoughts (why Olivia recommended I write this down), but for some reason I only thought about being there in the moment, with her. I always saw memes that said things like “be his/her peace” but I never thought that could actually happen. But her I was, with her and without a care in world! It was very strange. Because I didn’t think about anything else other than the two of us in that moment.
  So the day is over and all that I want to do is see her again. So I’m trying to plan when the next time that I see her would be. But her schedule is always very busy. So it makes it very difficult, especially with me starting school soon. So the more that I try to find time to meet up with her the more I start to realize that she hasn’t reached out to me to try and set something up... She doesn’t ask about anything, doesn’t text me at all first. And this was really disheartening. I went a while without talking to her just to see if she’d reach out to me. She didn’t. And that was probably the first difficult situation that I had to deal with here in the city. I spent so much time over the summer building up what this would be like when I moved here only for it to come crashing down around me... So that was a pretty difficult time for me. A little bit after that I re-downloaded an app called hinge (I was so sure I wouldn’t need it.).
  The app was fine but I didn’t really care to actually meet someone. I mainly wanted to meet people for lunch since I didn’t have many friends here at school. But one person stood out. We will just call her D. D was great and we started out as friends. She is french and she has a beautiful accent too! After a while, I asked her out on our first date. And I remember that whole time clear as day. I knew that she was very prideful and didn’t like to lose, so I figured going to mini golf would’ve been perfect! Because I’m actually pretty good at it and I can gage how much she doesn’t like to lose and see if she’d actually get angry or if it was more like she’d just get moody. So we go and from the beginning I knew that I was going to win. But to make it interesting, I told her the loser has to buy dinner (I promise you that I’m not that bad of a date! It was just because she’s super competitive). I win and we go to dinner. While we’re eating all I could think about was how I wanted to make it earlier in the day so we could stay out longer. Beyond her constant need to be right or win, she was great. She’d do small things that showed that she cared. She’d text me first, she’d ask when I was free to meet up, she’d always ask how my day was and she would go out of her way to meet up with me just like I would with her. I was actually really happy during this time. I would pretty much see her everyday and as each day went on, my feelings grew more and more. Then on my birthday, she told me that she had gotten into this really amazing study abroad program in Mexico and would be leaving the country the country to go to Mexico. Bruh... I think that me simply saying that I was sad is an understatement... Here I was, finally happy in NYC. Even with the commute, the New Yorkers and everything else, just to have that happiness snatched away from me like a balloon swept away by a strong gust of wind.
• We both decided that it'd be better for us to just be friends and even though I knew it'd be painful, I knew it was something that I needed to do. She'd be even more upset when she leaves if we had kept seeing each other in a romantic way. And even though it hurt, I knew that was what I needed to do. Surprisingly during that time, A asked me if I wanted to meet up! So we go out to eat and the entire time I'm just wishing that I was there with D. This revelation honestly hurt pretty bad. Because here I am, eating with the girl that I thought I would've been with when I moved here, the one that I though was the love of my life, and all that I'm doing is thinking about a girl I had met online. For the sake of time, I'll skip a few things. But basically, we would do couple like things without being a couple. I't hurt so much that I couldn't love her the way that I wanted. I genuinely mean "love her", because I do love her. She was the first person that I've ever said "I love you" to where I didn't say it because I felt obligated to say it. I meant every letter in that statement. We did everything together. She even invited my to thanksgiving with her friends! Ya'll this girl was amazing. She even made sure I voted! She isn't even from here! I thought that was amazing and had to share with you all. There's a lot more that happened in between thanksgiving and now but i'm getting tired of writing more. Let me know if you want to know more. Or I'll just update this later.... But yeah, I love her and she's getting ready to leave for mexico, so i'm stuck in my feelings everyday. But this all came to a head on January 11th at 9:28 AM. That was when I walked her to her uber pick up to get her to the airport. If you've ever seen a romcom, then you can guess how our goodbye went. She said goodbye and I tell her "A plus Tard" (see you later). I was working on my french since she spoke it and would let me practice with her. I give her a kiss goodbye and I watched her car until I could no longer see it. It was strange. People always say things like "my heart hurts" when they experience something like I just did and honestly, I always thought that was sooooo dumb. But it's real! I honestly felt like my heart was breaking and I had physical pain in my chest. After she left, I tried to avoid things that would remind me of her, but that didn't really work since we spent so much time around my campus. Everywhere I went I was reminded of her and I think it was the constant reminder of her that made this whole situation more painful. Because I never really got a chance to let her go. It also didn't help that we would message each other on whatsapp almost everyday. So I never really got to get over her. After a while went by I forced myself to get back onto hinge even though I wasn't sure that I wanted to... I ended up meeting a bunch of great people and a few people that were trash. If you're reading this, you're not trash. But out of the people that I met, I didn't really feel as though I could date them. There was one, but I thought it'd be better for us to be friends (as you can see, these all seem to start by being friends. So lets see how long it takes for this to one to blow up in my face). I honestly think that I should be single for awhile. Because there's so much that I need to work out after this year.

Now, I guess I'll get to why I'm writing this.

The other week O had told me that she was going to be coming back to the city for a week. And honestly, I was so excited to see her again. I had it all planned out. I was going to take her on the valentines date that I never got to give her. I mean we were going to go to a nice restaurant, boating in the park, take those stupid horse carriages in central part, see the high line and so much more. Because I felt like I owed her that. I just wanted to do something nice for her that she'd remember. So we met up the first day that she came back and my heart felt like I just ran a marathon. Normally I lie to myself and just say that everything is fine. But this time I was honest and I said that I was nervous because I wanted to make her time here so perfect. That day was strange. Because it felt as if she didn't even leave. I remembered her mannerisms and could even guess how she'd respond to different things (accent and all). I don't mimic her accent btw. I'm just saying, that how she pronounces words in English depend on her mood and I could tell how she was going to respond. I'm not sure if that makes and sense but it works for me so i'm keeping it. So the first day I had class after we got lunch together. After class I met her and another one of our friends for drinks at a bar not too far away from here. Ya'll she looked amazing and all that I wanted to do was tell her. But I knew if I did, it'd make her time here weird. So even though I was in my feelings, I tried really hard not to let it show. The next day I had taken off of work so we could spent the day together and this was when I planned on taking her on that date I was never able to take her on. So I'm freakishly excited! When it was time for us to meet up she had asked "where are we going to meet you?" and I was completely caught off guard... This "we" she was talking about was one of our mutual friends who had been bailed on by her friends. So D was just being a good friend by inviting her. I wont lie... That hurt though and I'm not really sure why it hurt as much as it did! I knew that we were friends. I knew that it wasn't anything serious. So why did if hurt so much to have someone else there? Maybe I'll have an answer once i'm finished writing this *shrugs*. But yeah, D and the mutual friend would keep speaking in french and I felt alienated whenever they would because I only knew every other word that they were saying... (I found out why it hurt!) So when they would do that, I would just put on my headphones and listen to music instead of just sitting there wondering what in the world is going on. The day goes on and I figured that D would have a better time if I just left. Since I saw how happy she was to be speaking french with her friend. So I came up with an excuse to leave and I ended up coming down to school. Apparently both D and the friend thought this was really rude and were upset for the rest of the day even after I left. So I'm now upset because I figured that I ruined her whole day and I would never want to do that! So that hit me pretty hard... Because here I am trying to give her a perfect day only to learn that I ruined it. the next day we meet up and I can explain how I felt about the whole situation. Even though we talked it over, I still felt bad because I was so sure that I ruined her day even though she said I didn't. The next night is her last night before she goes back to mexico, so in my head I have to make sure that it's a great night. We end up going to this performance art concert(?) Im not really sure what to call it... It was strange. But even though it was strange, we were enjoying ourselves and each others company. At the venue they had a tarot card reader the we signed up for. Now, I don't really believe in the whole reading the stars thing... It just doesn't make sense to me. But literally, the lady draws her cards and she goes "someone, or some event hurt you deeply in the beginning of January". Keep in mind D left on January 11th and that literally caused me so much pain. How this lady knew that I really don't know! But she started going on about how I need to be more open with those around me and how it's not okay to invest so much emotional energy into others but none in yourself. So I guess that's another reason as to why I'm writing this out. After that reading was over we ended up going to this club. The whole time I couldn't help be be in awe of D. When she's out, she becomes a carefree black girl and it's something that everybody should see. Ya'll ever see a seemingly carefree black girl walk down the street? It's magical! But yeah, she was enjoying herself and that was all that I wanted so I'm extremely happy. But at the end of the night she became visibly upset. And I knew why, but she didn't want to admit it. Remember, she's stubborn... She didn't want to leave the city. From the day that I met her, all she would talk about was how much she loved this city. And here she was, about to leave her favorite city again. Even though I knew she was sad about leaving the city and I knew she was sad to leave me and her friends again, for some reason I just needed to hear her say that. So for the rest of the night I was fixated on whether or not she was going to say it. And because of this, all of the feelings that I tried to just push to the back of my mind just came surging forward. So now I'm sad that she's upset and because I want her to stay so badly... So, just so she doesn't cry in front of us, she calls her uber to go home. She said goodbye and that's it. THAT'S ALL SHE SAID. Ya'll I was so sad. I know that I wasn't going to get a whole speech about how she missed me, but I at least thought I'd get something! She would text me all the time about how she missed me and now she has the perfect chance to say it in person! But she didn't. She just left... So I know that I said that it hurt the first time that she left. But this... This was a different kind of pain. I was stay at a friends house that night after she left we went back to his place. For the most part I did really well holding everything together. That was until it started to rain on our walk back to his place. It was like every single emotion that I kept inside just came out all at once. Honestly I'm glad that it was raining because that mean't he was less likely to see the tears falling off of my face. After a while though I couldn't hold it back as much and the tears just fell. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried about this. I was angry, I was sad and I was confused. And I fully understand how important it is to let your tears fall. So while we are walking to his place I'm bawling hysterically, it's raining and I start yelling at him. Well... I wasn't yelling at him. I told him "I'm going to talk at you. I don't need you to say anything. I just have a lot to say." and I just let loose... We get back to his place and I text D about how I was upset she didn't say anything other than "bye" and we start having this back and forth about how she should always say how she feels. After a while I go to sleep because I had to teach in the morning, so I end that conversation since I cant turn back time and just get her to say it and I had already said what I needed to to my friend. I cry myself to sleep.

So I'm convinced that NYC is where love goes to die. Because in a city of 8.6 million people, it's amazing how many people that I've met have similar stories to mine. When I got here, I was starry eyed and just ready for what life had in store for me. Now, I'm bitter and just waiting for the next person that I'm interested in to leave.

I was listening to Boogie the other day and he said something that really resonated with me. He said "I'm tired of working at myself, I want to be perfect already. I'm tired of the dating process, I wanna know it's certain already". And at this point in my life, I'm tired of not having things work out. I'm tired of working on becoming the man that I want to be. I want to wake up one day and not recognize the man that I see because I finally became who I really want to be. I feel like the best way to describe my entire experience in this city would be that it's like I'm trying to go the right way in life's intersection. Life keeps trying to get the best of me and I refuse to play it's twisted little game. So each day I keep it moving. Trying to be better than I was the day before and still just waiting to find my forever.

Submitted May 05, 2019 at 02:25AM

Whats up yall. My friends have told me that I should write this story down and lately I have come to honestly believe the title of this post. So this here is for Dan, Maria, Gina and Olivia.Full disclaimer, I am not a great writer. So fully expect grammatical errors. I'm literally doing this because I got tired of telling people the same story and now I can just give them a link to follow so they can read it on their own... If I don't know you and you somehow stumble upon this, I'll give you some background info I guess. I'm just a guy who is constantly in his feelings and is still in the process of figuring out how to deal with those feelings in a way to is healthy. Honestly, I really think that's all people really need to know. So here we go.(names are changed, but other than that I'm pretty much explaining everything)Ya'll, NYC is trash. And I used to think that it was trash because of my long commute into the city, or because the train always smells like pee, or because there is trash everywhere, or maybe it was because New Yorkers don't actually know how to get into train... You go all the way inside the car! Don't stand by the door and then complain when I hit your with my bag. It's literally your own fault. If you or anyone you know has every done this, just know that I hate you and I hope people always shove you out of the way!!!! But like I was saying, NYC is trash. But not for any of the reasons I had listed or the millions more that I didn't. NYC is trash because I fully believe that all of my chances at love have died here.Now I don't want you to think that I'm just out here being your everyday sad boy or whatever. Because I'm not. It's just that these last few days kind of tied together all of the crappy things (can I use expletives here? I've never actually been on reddit...) that have happened since I moved here in August. I literally have the best support system here and even if I don't tell you, if you think that you're a part of it, just know that I love you soooo much. That's really strange to type out... But yeah, I'm generally a pretty happy person, but like I said, this week just kind of got to me. So yeah. Enjoy (or don't) this storySo I'm the kind of person that develops feeling pretty fast and I don't like when people use the phrase "blinded by love", but ya'll I become Ray Charles (R.I.P) when I'm interested in somebody. This story starts back in 2012. I was in high school and went bowling with a few of my friends. One of my friends (I'm gonna just use initials) O asked to bring a friend of hers. And you know, I didn't want to be rude. So I said "sure". My friends for the most part don't have attractive friends, so in the back of my mind I'm honestly not expecting much from this friend she had invited. But boy was I wrong... O text me saying that her and her friend were outside of the bowling alley, so I go to meet them. They both get out of the car and immediately I say "that's not your friend". I don't say hello, no how have you been, nothing. I just said "that's not your friend". When I tell ya'll that this girl was fine, I mean it. So after my cringe worthy "introduction", we go inside and start to bowl. The whole time, O's friend is talking to me and the only thing that I can think of is "she must be really bored. Because there's no other reason that she'd want to talk to me when there are other people here that she knows." I have pretty low self-esteem when if comes to relationships (platonic and non) and I always found that to be weird. Because in all other aspects of my life I think i'm amazing! Well... within reason. But yeah, O's friend is talking to me for pretty much the whole time and I'm just thinking to myself "once this day is over, I'll never see her again." After we finish bowling I head home and the only thing on my mind is that I just met a beautiful girl who is smart, funny and most of all really kind. After that, I assumed I'd never see her again and I put her to the back of my mind.Fast forward to Spring of 2013.It's the day of prom and I'm at the dance. I'm having a pretty good time with my date and then something catches my attention at the entrance. Ya'll, O had brought the friend from when we went bowling as her date to prom! So. I'd never been so enamored by someone before and it was honestly pretty awkward. Because I totally had a date, but here I am fawning over this girl that I had only met once. Crazy right? But yeah, she's there and I was so sure she wouldn't talk to me let alone remember who I am... This girl walked up to me, said hey, said my name and remembered what we had talked about from when we went bowling! I honestly died a bit guys. I couldn't believe it at all. So in my head I'm thinking of all of the possible reasons that she'd even be over here talking to me. I thought she was either bored, maybe she didn't know anybody else (she did) or maybe she felt bad for me for some reason and felt she had to speak with me. I won't lie, I was pretty awkward back in high school and that last explanation made good sense. Even now, I could understand if that was the reason she had talked to me. So after a while I go back to my date and I figure that now, I have seen the last of O's friend.Fast forward to February 2014O is having some kind of issue, so I drive to her house (because i'm a great friend) to see what was going on. When I arrive, I see O is outside just sitting there on the phone with someone. I walk over and O goes "oh hey! I'm just talking to A (her really gorgeous friend) on the phone." I try to play it cool like I wasn't excited that I might be able to talk to her and just go "oh yeah, hey A". But I messed up because I tried to make my voice deeper and O called me out. WHILE SHE WAS ON THE PHONE WITH A... So that was really awkward. After that whole thing, O tells me that A was complaining that she didn't have a date for prom that year. And without skipping a beat, I go "I'll take you!". But I had thought that she was joking! Because there is no way a girl like that didn't have a date... A says that I could take her and we just leave it at that.March 2014It's prom season and like I said, I didn't think that A actually wanted me to take her to prom so I only worried about my prom. So prom day comes and I'm super excited! it's senior year and I'm going with my friends! We get to the venue and no more than 20 mins in, I get a tap on my shoulder and I hear "so why didn't you take me to prom?". I turn around and sure enough, It's A. So I muster every brain cell I have and rattle off something along the lines of "I don't know... I didn't think you were serious." And still to this day, that's probably one of my dumbest responses to anything ever. I was true, but I can think of so many other things that I could've said... After a while we laugh about the situation and go on to enjoy the night. Later that night we start to talk about our plans for school once we graduate. It turned out that I was going to school in the Midwest and she'll be out on the East Coast. So immediately, I knew not to assume that anything would come out of our few encounters since we weren't going to school anywhere close to each other. So prom ends and now I'm 100% convinced that I'll never see her again.December 2014I'm on facetime with O just talking about life when she goes "A just texted me and she says hi". Keep in mind, I still thought she only would want to talk to me when she was bored. So I tell O, "there's no way she talk to me just out of the blue, so I doubt she said hi". And O just goes, "no. she wants to talk to you". I call her bluff and tell her that if A wanted to talk to me, then she sound text me. Ya'll... My phone pings and I get a text saying "Hey (im leaving my name out, but she says my whole name when she would speak to me), it's A (I also address her by her full name too)." I lost my mind you guys. I literally couldn't believe that this girl had went out of her way to talk to me! From then on out we would talk everyday and I really got to understand her. We would fall asleep on facetime together and just be up for hours talking about any and everything. It wasn't long before I knew that I was interested in her. So, even though we had talked about her feelings about long distance (not us, but the concept in general), I decided to shoot my shot anyway. When I tell you this girl has a way with words, I mean it Somehow she avoided my question so well that I literally wasn't sure if I had asked if she wanted to date or not. A, I'm not sure if I'll ever show you this, but I'm still amazed by that lol. But yeah, so she pretty much made it known that she wouldn't want to do long distance and I was okay with that. She has beautiful handwriting and would send me hand written letters from time to time and my response to that was that I would burn her a cd of songs that reminded me of her. My handwriting is absolute trash so there's nooooo was I would send her a hand written letter. I remember when on of my roommates accidentally threw away one of the letters that she had sent me. I'd never felt such a rage build up inside of me! They each mean something to me and I actually still have them in my possession. But yeah, the school year goes on and summer is right around the corner. I learned that we actually didn't live to far away from each other back home. So we tried to make plans to meet up when we both went home. Im going to skip things starting from here on out, but you'll get the general idea I think.We finally meet up back home and I still remember seeing her get out of her car and walking over to me in her with sun dress with yellow sunflowers (I know nothing about flowers, but they sure did look like sun flowers...). Her skin was sun kissed since she had just come back from vacation and her highlights in her accented her complexion soooo well. It was weird... Here I am, finally getting the chance to be face to face with the girl that I had fallen for and just getting to that point from back when I was so convinced that she didn't really want to talk to me seemed like it had taken years. But her she was right in front of me and not just behind some screen. We went out for breakfast and the entire time, all that I could think about was how amazing she was. I still don't see why she wanted to talk to me in the first place. But never the less, she did. After that day it solidified how I felt for her. I just knew that she was someone that I wanted in my life. Back then, I had always thought about what my love story would be and who it would star. I was so sure that it was her and nobody could convince me otherwise. She goes on a family vacation and comes back two days before I had to go back off to school for Orientation Leader training. We meet up one more time to go downtown. For some strange reason I typically want people to sing with me when I'm just walking down the street and A would always tell me that she'd never sing with me because she hates her voice. So out of curiosity, I played her her favorite song from the cd that I had burned her just to see if she'd sing with me. Shortly after it starts to play she hears me singing, grabs my hand and sings alone with me. (her voice was good, so I don't know what the issue was...). So here the two of us are, holding hands and singing downtown without a care in the world. I'm on cloud 9 at that point. But, then it starts to rain... So we run underneath this huge tree and there we are just huddled together there. As I held her in my arms all I could think about was how I didn't want the moment to end. She looks up at me and there was a kind of warmth to her eyes. I started to lean in to kiss her, but I stopped because I remembered our conversation about how she doesn't want to do long distance. I'd rather have her in my life in some way than to not have her in it at all and I knew that if I had kissed her it would've made things weird between us. So we stood there in a warm embrace until the rain stopped... Afterwards she let me hold her Polaroid camera and I took a pic of her and that picture is still in my wallet today. The next day, a get a text from her and it reads "Why didn't you kiss me yesterday in the rain!?". Bruh... I've never run so fast back to my house you guys. I should've been an Olympian or something! I get back to the house, grab my car keys and just start driving. I honestly didn't even know where I was going until I got to her house. Just letting you know, I had been there before so it's not like I just instinctively knew where she lived or that I was stalking her... So once I realize where I actually was, I started to freak out. Because I could've leave because I was already there and I was scared she'd looked out the window and seen my car. So that would've been a weird conversation to have. So I get out of the car and ring the doorbell. Her dad (who I had never met) answers the door and I go "Hello, is A home?". Internally, I'm dying but I'm trying so hard to play it cool! He calls her to the door and I remember shes at the top of her steps and she just goes "wow, what are you doing here?". Please remember that I'm still trying to hid how nervous I am and I just say to her "lets go on a walk". She comes down the stairs and at that moment I'm filled with so many emotions. I'm nervous since I didn't really think about coming here, I'm happy that she seemed to have wanted to see me and I'm confused because I had no idea what I was even gonna say to her. So I grab her hand to lead her away on our walk and she immediately stops me. She goes "you know you're shaking, right?" and I'm still trying to play it cool like I wasn't nervous... So she hold up my hand and when I tell ya'll that I was shaking, I mean really bad... It was almost as if I was doing jazz hands. She takes my hand into both of hers and says "ok, lets go". I still remember how warm her hands were and how comforting it was that she grabbed my hand. We end up walking around her neighborhood and I lay everything out. I tell her that I'm honestly not sure if the feelings I have for her are love, but that I knew that it must be pretty close. We were both young and I didn't really have a good reference point to determine if it was love or was I just really into her. But still, it was a feeling I had never felt before and I wasn't sure what it was. I have always wanted to fall in love, have a very cliche love story and I was so sure that this was my time to shine! I figured that I'd let it all out, she'd think about doing the whole long distance thing and in a few years we'd married... After I tell her how I feel, she just leans in and kisses me. Ya'll I almost died. Here I was with this girl that that I had met by chance. Who I was so sure only talked to me because she had nothing better to do. Who had just kissed me. In my head, I just knew that this was where everything would start for me. We'd be a couple, I'd travel to go see her, she'd come and see me and everything would be great! We would've done that, both graduated on time and argued about where we'd ultimately want to end up, even though I knew that I'd probably just go wherever it was that she wanted to go. With all that in mind, I ask "so what are we?". She gently grabs my face and goes "I think you still know". I'd never been so defeated in my life. I felt like I was standing in the middle of the street alone and everyone in her neighborhood was looking out their window just laughing at me. Looking back on it, I'm still really glad that I had said what I did. So we stood there for a bit in silence and then I walked her back to her house. I was leaving for school the next day and I needed to get back home to get ready. So I told her goodbye and got in my car to go home. I'm the kind of person that listens to sad music when I'm sad so my entire ride I was just listening to In the Loneliest Hour by Sam Smith (I actually just put that on now) and I knew that I couldn't leave things where they were. I got home and I took out paper to write A how I feel and that I'll always feel that way. This was big for me, because like I said, I hate my handwriting... So I wrote her a two page letter, made another cd for her and after I finished packing I drove to her house and put it in her mailbox. The next day I waited until I got on the plane to send her a text "Hey, I left something for you in your mailbox. When you read it, listen to track 7.". Track 7 was a version of Hey Ya by the Blanks. Listen to it. It's great. I had to wait until I got on the plane to send it because if I sent it and she responded, I would've missed my flight just to go see her... So I send the text and go back to school.I wasn’t really sure if I needed to add this part into this, but I’m actually really proud of it so I will. In one of the letter at A had sent me, she mentioned how it sucks that our lives are like a movie. As I said in the beginning, there’s a lot that I’m leaving out. So in my letter to her I wrote “I think it’s kind of great that our lives are like movies. The only bad thing is that we don’t get enough screen time in each other’s”. This my friends was probably the coolest thing I’d ever said and I’m still pretty darn proud of that!A few days later she FaceTimes me and we start to talk about whether or not alternate universes actually exhaust and whether or not the two of us were happy there... I could see that she was getting pretty upset thinking about that so I told her that as long as she’s happy then I’m ok. Because now that I’m looking back at it, I did love her and even if it hurts, you might have to let the one you love go. So after that we didn’t talk as often, but I’d still try to keep up with what she was doing and I’d see her whenever I’d come to her city. Each time I saw her, I felt like it was the first time. And even though we were friends those feeling where still there.Keep in mind that’s was still away at school and living my own life Althea same way that she was living hers, but even though I would see other girls while I was at school, I never got the same feeling that I had with her.So the last three years of undergrad go by and I’d see her during breaks.Fast forward to Spring 2018I accept an admission decision from a great school in the same city as A. Trust me when I say that she wasn’t a deciding factor in whether or not I go here. But I did start thinking about her more as I became to get ready to move here... SoI’m getting ready to move to a brand new city, start a masters program and I’m finally going to be in the same city. Things honestly were looking pretty good for me! And to all of my friends that really encouraged me to really come here and pursue my dreams and A, I can’t thank y’all enough. Because even though this story is trash, I appreciate you guys for believing in me even when I gave you no real reason to!A few days before I actually move to nyc I text A and tell her when I’d be there. She already knew I was coming because I made a post about it on insta that she liked. And we plan to meet up at the park by my campus.So the day we planned on meeting up I get to the park really early because I’m so nervous. I was worried about whether or not she thought I looked weird, or maybe she just wouldn’t like hanging out with me... instead of just awkwardly standing in the park I go off and explore the area since I haven’t done that yet. Then all of a sudden I get a text from A telling me she was there. So I run back to the park. And right when I get there I saw a figure wearing a white sun dress, chucks and had her long curly hair down. I just knew it was her. I walk up and say hey (there was no shaking this time. I promise). We go off, enjoy the day together and once again I feel like that 17 year old when I first met her. She was funny, beautiful and most of all she was kind. Ya’ll we went to the Casper store and if you would’ve told me that it was possible to have fun in the Casper store (in a way that’s legal lol) I would’ve thought you were crazy! But it was such a great time. I’m the kind of guy that is always wrapped up in his thoughts (why Olivia recommended I write this down), but for some reason I only thought about being there in the moment, with her. I always saw memes that said things like “be his/her peace” but I never thought that could actually happen. But her I was, with her and without a care in world! It was very strange. Because I didn’t think about anything else other than the two of us in that moment.So the day is over and all that I want to do is see her again. So I’m trying to plan when the next time that I see her would be. But her schedule is always very busy. So it makes it very difficult, especially with me starting school soon. So the more that I try to find time to meet up with her the more I start to realize that she hasn’t reached out to me to try and set something up... She doesn’t ask about anything, doesn’t text me at all first. And this was really disheartening. I went a while without talking to her just to see if she’d reach out to me. She didn’t. And that was probably the first difficult situation that I had to deal with here in the city. I spent so much time over the summer building up what this would be like when I moved here only for it to come crashing down around me... So that was a pretty difficult time for me. A little bit after that I re-downloaded an app called hinge (I was so sure I wouldn’t need it.).The app was fine but I didn’t really care to actually meet someone. I mainly wanted to meet people for lunch since I didn’t have many friends here at school. But one person stood out. We will just call her D. D was great and we started out as friends. She is french and she has a beautiful accent too! After a while, I asked her out on our first date. And I remember that whole time clear as day. I knew that she was very prideful and didn’t like to lose, so I figured going to mini golf would’ve been perfect! Because I’m actually pretty good at it and I can gage how much she doesn’t like to lose and see if she’d actually get angry or if it was more like she’d just get moody. So we go and from the beginning I knew that I was going to win. But to make it interesting, I told her the loser has to buy dinner (I promise you that I’m not that bad of a date! It was just because she’s super competitive). I win and we go to dinner. While we’re eating all I could think about was how I wanted to make it earlier in the day so we could stay out longer. Beyond her constant need to be right or win, she was great. She’d do small things that showed that she cared. She’d text me first, she’d ask when I was free to meet up, she’d always ask how my day was and she would go out of her way to meet up with me just like I would with her. I was actually really happy during this time. I would pretty much see her everyday and as each day went on, my feelings grew more and more. Then on my birthday, she told me that she had gotten into this really amazing study abroad program in Mexico and would be leaving the country the country to go to Mexico. Bruh... I think that me simply saying that I was sad is an understatement... Here I was, finally happy in NYC. Even with the commute, the New Yorkers and everything else, just to have that happiness snatched away from me like a balloon swept away by a strong gust of wind.We both decided that it'd be better for us to just be friends and even though I knew it'd be painful, I knew it was something that I needed to do. She'd be even more upset when she leaves if we had kept seeing each other in a romantic way. And even though it hurt, I knew that was what I needed to do. Surprisingly during that time, A asked me if I wanted to meet up! So we go out to eat and the entire time I'm just wishing that I was there with D. This revelation honestly hurt pretty bad. Because here I am, eating with the girl that I thought I would've been with when I moved here, the one that I though was the love of my life, and all that I'm doing is thinking about a girl I had met online. For the sake of time, I'll skip a few things. But basically, we would do couple like things without being a couple. I't hurt so much that I couldn't love her the way that I wanted. I genuinely mean "love her", because I do love her. She was the first person that I've ever said "I love you" to where I didn't say it because I felt obligated to say it. I meant every letter in that statement. We did everything together. She even invited my to thanksgiving with her friends! Ya'll this girl was amazing. She even made sure I voted! She isn't even from here! I thought that was amazing and had to share with you all. There's a lot more that happened in between thanksgiving and now but i'm getting tired of writing more. Let me know if you want to know more. Or I'll just update this later.... But yeah, I love her and she's getting ready to leave for mexico, so i'm stuck in my feelings everyday. But this all came to a head on January 11th at 9:28 AM. That was when I walked her to her uber pick up to get her to the airport. If you've ever seen a romcom, then you can guess how our goodbye went. She said goodbye and I tell her "A plus Tard" (see you later). I was working on my french since she spoke it and would let me practice with her. I give her a kiss goodbye and I watched her car until I could no longer see it. It was strange. People always say things like "my heart hurts" when they experience something like I just did and honestly, I always thought that was sooooo dumb. But it's real! I honestly felt like my heart was breaking and I had physical pain in my chest. After she left, I tried to avoid things that would remind me of her, but that didn't really work since we spent so much time around my campus. Everywhere I went I was reminded of her and I think it was the constant reminder of her that made this whole situation more painful. Because I never really got a chance to let her go. It also didn't help that we would message each other on whatsapp almost everyday. So I never really got to get over her. After a while went by I forced myself to get back onto hinge even though I wasn't sure that I wanted to... I ended up meeting a bunch of great people and a few people that were trash. If you're reading this, you're not trash. But out of the people that I met, I didn't really feel as though I could date them. There was one, but I thought it'd be better for us to be friends (as you can see, these all seem to start by being friends. So lets see how long it takes for this to one to blow up in my face). I honestly think that I should be single for awhile. Because there's so much that I need to work out after this year.Now, I guess I'll get to why I'm writing this.The other week O had told me that she was going to be coming back to the city for a week. And honestly, I was so excited to see her again. I had it all planned out. I was going to take her on the valentines date that I never got to give her. I mean we were going to go to a nice restaurant, boating in the park, take those stupid horse carriages in central part, see the high line and so much more. Because I felt like I owed her that. I just wanted to do something nice for her that she'd remember. So we met up the first day that she came back and my heart felt like I just ran a marathon. Normally I lie to myself and just say that everything is fine. But this time I was honest and I said that I was nervous because I wanted to make her time here so perfect. That day was strange. Because it felt as if she didn't even leave. I remembered her mannerisms and could even guess how she'd respond to different things (accent and all). I don't mimic her accent btw. I'm just saying, that how she pronounces words in English depend on her mood and I could tell how she was going to respond. I'm not sure if that makes and sense but it works for me so i'm keeping it. So the first day I had class after we got lunch together. After class I met her and another one of our friends for drinks at a bar not too far away from here. Ya'll she looked amazing and all that I wanted to do was tell her. But I knew if I did, it'd make her time here weird. So even though I was in my feelings, I tried really hard not to let it show. The next day I had taken off of work so we could spent the day together and this was when I planned on taking her on that date I was never able to take her on. So I'm freakishly excited! When it was time for us to meet up she had asked "where are we going to meet you?" and I was completely caught off guard... This "we" she was talking about was one of our mutual friends who had been bailed on by her friends. So D was just being a good friend by inviting her. I wont lie... That hurt though and I'm not really sure why it hurt as much as it did! I knew that we were friends. I knew that it wasn't anything serious. So why did if hurt so much to have someone else there? Maybe I'll have an answer once i'm finished writing this *shrugs*. But yeah, D and the mutual friend would keep speaking in french and I felt alienated whenever they would because I only knew every other word that they were saying... (I found out why it hurt!) So when they would do that, I would just put on my headphones and listen to music instead of just sitting there wondering what in the world is going on. The day goes on and I figured that D would have a better time if I just left. Since I saw how happy she was to be speaking french with her friend. So I came up with an excuse to leave and I ended up coming down to school. Apparently both D and the friend thought this was really rude and were upset for the rest of the day even after I left. So I'm now upset because I figured that I ruined her whole day and I would never want to do that! So that hit me pretty hard... Because here I am trying to give her a perfect day only to learn that I ruined it. the next day we meet up and I can explain how I felt about the whole situation. Even though we talked it over, I still felt bad because I was so sure that I ruined her day even though she said I didn't. The next night is her last night before she goes back to mexico, so in my head I have to make sure that it's a great night. We end up going to this performance art concert(?) Im not really sure what to call it... It was strange. But even though it was strange, we were enjoying ourselves and each others company. At the venue they had a tarot card reader the we signed up for. Now, I don't really believe in the whole reading the stars thing... It just doesn't make sense to me. But literally, the lady draws her cards and she goes "someone, or some event hurt you deeply in the beginning of January". Keep in mind D left on January 11th and that literally caused me so much pain. How this lady knew that I really don't know! But she started going on about how I need to be more open with those around me and how it's not okay to invest so much emotional energy into others but none in yourself. So I guess that's another reason as to why I'm writing this out. After that reading was over we ended up going to this club. The whole time I couldn't help be be in awe of D. When she's out, she becomes a carefree black girl and it's something that everybody should see. Ya'll ever see a seemingly carefree black girl walk down the street? It's magical! But yeah, she was enjoying herself and that was all that I wanted so I'm extremely happy. But at the end of the night she became visibly upset. And I knew why, but she didn't want to admit it. Remember, she's stubborn... She didn't want to leave the city. From the day that I met her, all she would talk about was how much she loved this city. And here she was, about to leave her favorite city again. Even though I knew she was sad about leaving the city and I knew she was sad to leave me and her friends again, for some reason I just needed to hear her say that. So for the rest of the night I was fixated on whether or not she was going to say it. And because of this, all of the feelings that I tried to just push to the back of my mind just came surging forward. So now I'm sad that she's upset and because I want her to stay so badly... So, just so she doesn't cry in front of us, she calls her uber to go home. She said goodbye and that's it. THAT'S ALL SHE SAID. Ya'll I was so sad. I know that I wasn't going to get a whole speech about how she missed me, but I at least thought I'd get something! She would text me all the time about how she missed me and now she has the perfect chance to say it in person! But she didn't. She just left... So I know that I said that it hurt the first time that she left. But this... This was a different kind of pain. I was stay at a friends house that night after she left we went back to his place. For the most part I did really well holding everything together. That was until it started to rain on our walk back to his place. It was like every single emotion that I kept inside just came out all at once. Honestly I'm glad that it was raining because that mean't he was less likely to see the tears falling off of my face. After a while though I couldn't hold it back as much and the tears just fell. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried about this. I was angry, I was sad and I was confused. And I fully understand how important it is to let your tears fall. So while we are walking to his place I'm bawling hysterically, it's raining and I start yelling at him. Well... I wasn't yelling at him. I told him "I'm going to talk at you. I don't need you to say anything. I just have a lot to say." and I just let loose... We get back to his place and I text D about how I was upset she didn't say anything other than "bye" and we start having this back and forth about how she should always say how she feels. After a while I go to sleep because I had to teach in the morning, so I end that conversation since I cant turn back time and just get her to say it and I had already said what I needed to to my friend. I cry myself to sleep.So I'm convinced that NYC is where love goes to die. Because in a city of 8.6 million people, it's amazing how many people that I've met have similar stories to mine. When I got here, I was starry eyed and just ready for what life had in store for me. Now, I'm bitter and just waiting for the next person that I'm interested in to leave.I was listening to Boogie the other day and he said something that really resonated with me. He said "I'm tired of working at myself, I want to be perfect already. I'm tired of the dating process, I wanna know it's certain already". And at this point in my life, I'm tired of not having things work out. I'm tired of working on becoming the man that I want to be. I want to wake up one day and not recognize the man that I see because I finally became who I really want to be. I feel like the best way to describe my entire experience in this city would be that it's like I'm trying to go the right way in life's intersection. Life keeps trying to get the best of me and I refuse to play it's twisted little game. So each day I keep it moving. Trying to be better than I was the day before and still just waiting to find my forever.