I am not an angry person.

(Sorry about the first link, my mouse freaked out and it accidentally hit publish!  Beware, this is kind of big. And by big, I'm referring to its length.  It's huge.)

Like, seriously.

I do get mad, but I cannot stay mad.  

I hate being mad at people.  I want to fix it.  I cannot hate people.

One would think that I would hate all the people who bullied me for twelve years, who hurt me repeatedly, who are the reason why I still struggle with major trust issues, but nope.

I will always forgive you.

Case in point: That dude who interrupted my State & Local class to tell me to stop talking so much? A week later, I offered to take notes for him when he was missing class for a golf tournament, and now it's just like any other casual classmate relationship. I think it sort of blew his mind the first time after the incident that he said "Hey, how's it going?" and I smiled back and said "Hey, it's goin' all right, how are you?" And while sometimes I do think that my life would just be easier if I could blow off and ignore all the people who hurt me, deep down I am grateful that this is a gift God has blessed me with.

Oh, I promise, I'm going somewhere with this. I always am!

I got up at 7:30, worked on stuff to help me study for my Government exam, and went to go eat breakfast with Nick this morning at 9:00, just like he said.  9:15, he waltzes in the door with his bookbag and says "I can't stay.  I have to go study.  I was supposed to study last night but we ended up playing video games."  Now that excuse, I believe.  I do know a thing or two about boys.  It didn't occur to me till about 10 minutes later because I was so tired that I needed to talk to him, so I called him and by golly, he actually answered!  He told me to call him at 9:00 tonight because his English exam would probably take the entire 3 hours.  This was without me saying I wanted to talk to him about something; I just told him I wanted a make-up for the fact that I didn't get breakfast.  Which was sort of serious, and sort of a joke.

Pretty much immediately after I finished breakfast, I got a text from Ryann and on and off throughout the day, she and I talked about everything that was going down, and the more I talked to her about it, the more mad I got.  Like, I was really pissed, and that's big for me.  She originally suggested I just not say anything to him and act like this didn't bother me.  Once I explained to her that I had to say something or it was going to bug me like crazy and that I was doing this for me, though, she said she was proud of me and she understood.  But yeah.  She got me kind of fired up, in a really sweet and supportive way, if that makes any sense.  I don't think she was trying to get me angry about it, even though she was angry herself.

So anyway, I went on about my business, I checked with another guy I met in the dining hall yesterday about selling about selling my books to him (because the bookstore is a complete ripoff) and he took two of them, went and took my State & Local exam that was so easy I was out of that 12:00 exam at 12:10, went to the bookstore and returned the books they would take (because again, they are a RIPOFF), took all that money to the Business Office to go in my account for next semester's bills (since hey, it's not my money), and then came back and started on my French presentation for my (last!!!!) final tomorrow while texting Ryann whenever my phone decided to be nice and send me the texts. (Have I mentioned I really can't wait to get a new phone for Christmas? Because I can't. I'm so excited to get rid of this aggravating thing.)

Well, I temporarily forgot in all that madness that I made plans with Elizabeth yesterday to meet up tonight to sort through everything, but that was when I was expecting the talk with Nick to happen this morning.  But I went and had dinner with her anyway because a) I need to eat and b) she's awesome.  She also suggested I not do this because she was worried I'd ruin any chance of a friendship and just because that's how she'd handle it, but she, too, supported me when I explained to her that I felt I HAD to do this for my sanity's sake.  She and Ryann have both been absolutely amazingly supportive friends throughout this, even when Ryann is dealing with all of her own crap.

Anyway, here's where the juicy stuff happens. (Ha, and look how long this already is! Sorry!)

I called Nick just after 9:00 tonight, and what do ya know, he answered again! Except he needed to delay it by 30 minutes to an hour, because surprise surprise, he had just pulled in somewhere else.  All I told him was that I needed to talk to him in person and when he asked "Is there something I should know about?" all I said in reply was "Ummm, you'll see when you get here."  He said, "Ooookay." and I could tell he was kinda nervous.  So I gave him my dorm number (boo crappy Sprint reception) half expecting him not to call back, but he did about 9:45.  I met him outside and we went to go talk in Shouse.

I was trying really hard not to make the shaking my arms were doing from the nerves visible.  I hate confrontations about as much as I hate being mad at people.  On the upside, he let me get out what I needed to say, so that was a help.  The downside is that it took me twenty-five minutes to get a straightforward, no bullcrap, honest answer.  So that big chunk was basically me telling him in every way I could think of that I think he HAD to know that holding my hand when he knew I had feelings for him was flirtatious, that I've had a lot of guys play mind games with me and I felt like he was doing the same thing, that I want to be his friend but I'm not going to set myself up to get messed with and subsequently hurt, that if he couldn't give me a straight answer I didn't think we could be friends because I wouldn't be able to trust him, that if he really did care about me, he'd be honest, and oh so many other things because like I said, it was TWENTY FIVE MINUTES.  Of course, half the reason it took that long was because every time I'd finish a sentence he'd make some sarcastic but somehow hilarious remark that would completely make me lose my train of thought.  Finally, FINALLY, I managed to get out of him the following: "I held your hand all those times because I knew you had feelings for me and didn't know how to let you down gently."  And the part of me that thought that was a jackass thing to do was overshadowed by the part of me that thought it's a typical, immature, idiotic 19-year-old thing to do and the part of me that was just relieved I finally got a straight answer!

So then I had to explain to him that I need him to be HONEST with me if this friendship is going to work because I'd rather him be honest and hurt me for ten seconds than pull this crap and lead me on for the better part of a month.  And then he got antsy and he apologized and we got up because he's going home tonight and it's almost an hour away, but then somehow spent the next twenty minutes talking about all sorts of random things that you really don't need to know about.

What you do need to know is the realizations I came to from this monstrous conversation.  There are two of them:

1) It's a really good thing that this kid does not want to be in a relationship any time soon because OH MY GOSH HE SUCKS AT COMMUNICATING. (And before any of you tell me that all men suck at communicating, let me just say that I have a hard time believing any man you know could be THIS bad and still be in a relationship.)

2) WHAT IN THE WORLD DID I EVER SEE IN THIS KID?!?!?!  Like seriously, that last twenty minutes of the conversation by itself eradicated any semblance of romantic feelings I had for him.  He is FAR too immature.  And the whole "he cannot be serious when he knows I need him to be serious about something" would drive. me. up. the. wall.

So yeah.  I'm fine.  Like seriously, I'm just over it.  I'm glad that it's over, and I'm REALLY glad I had this conversation tonight instead of a couple months from now when he would've had the opportunity to lead me on even more and make me fall even harder for him which would then leave me hurt way worse than any hurt I've experienced since the conversation last night.

This is why I always fall for guys that are years older than me.  Because while their immaturity is still festering inside their strange little souls, part of it has gone into retirement.

All right, then.  As you were.

Oh, and if you made it all the way to the bottom of this without, oh, I don't know, gouging out your eyeballs from sheer boredom and pain at reading all of this, I love you. :)