Chapter Thirty-Five: Young Love And Other Shenanigans (~jinghan)

Since the topic was brought up by Shannon, it is perhaps the right time to write about relationships and breakups now.

Breakups are scary. Even if you see it coming. Even if it’s your decision. No- especially if it’s your decision. For me, it was a week of nail biting, sleepless nights and sweaty anticipation. But by the end of that week I was single again. It took me a long time to get used to the word “boyfriend” (my first one) and now I find myself back at square one shying away from using the new and foreign word “ex-boyfriend”.

The day after the breakup I got a phone call from a girlfriend, “Hey are you free next Tuesday? I was wondering if you wanted to catch up just to do girly stuff, paint our nails, eat cake, you know?”

“Yeah, sounds awesome, I’ll be over around lunch time.”

If she had been expecting me to be sad, or hateful, or just confused, she must have been disappointed at my cheer when I met up with her that Tuesday. We did paint our nails, but there was no cliche post-relationship weeping and mass-consumption of ice-cream as teen novels seem to suggest. I won’t lie, I did cry. But it was from sheer emotional exhaustion, and the nauseous feeling you get when you have to face up to change in your life. One thing I will never admit to, though, is regret. I don’t regret having the relationship, and I don’t regret that it had to end. Perhaps it’s just pride that prevent that, but perhaps it’s because the experience changed me, matured me in some positive way.

I’m a romantic. I have great faith in young love. It makes me cringe when my parents are not very good at hiding their assumption of how shallow young love is. But now I bet you want to ask me: then why? Why did you break up? It’s been six weeks and I’m still trying to work that out myself.

Before uni started I had pictured that I would make new friends, they would get to know my boyfriend, I would see him a lot more than I did back at school, I would have him hang out at my place when we were both free, maybe move out with him eventually. I remember my (now ex) boyfriend saying to me “I’m scared that when we start uni you’ll meet guys who are better than me.” But that wasn’t what he should have worried about at all. In the small picture, the breakup was me realising and being ashamed of how disconnected I was from my friends, and finally admitting to myself that being in my current relationship wasn’t helping that. In the bigger picture, it was because we were both growing and changing. We had headed in the same direction for a while, but now it was time to become different people.

The weeks after the break up there was a great sense of freedom, but with that came a great sense of fear. For the first time, I was surrounded by new and exciting people and I could fall in love with anyone, but I was (and still am) scared because I also have the power to hurt anyone.

“Hey, how are you going?” I text to my (newly) ex boyfriend a mere week later. (What can I say? Old habits die hard.)

“Uni’s busy, but what’s new? How about you?”

“The word busy doesn’t even start to describe how busy I am at the moment. Take care.”

And so in this friendly but not too intimate or awkward way our friendship has now played on. I thought the breakup would be hard, emotional, soul-crushing, character-changing; but now I know, it’s the working out who you are afterwards part that is the hard part. I’m excited to forge new intimacies and experiences, but I’m scared that I may get trapped in a pattern of repeating the past. Not knowing what I want from a relationship and then hurting people because of that. At the moment, I’m giving myself time and space to just be me. To have a crush on everyone, but admit none to anyone. To think about what I really want from a relationship.

My girl friend pulls me over to her by my arm. “He hugged me! Do you think that means anything? He doesn’t do it to any other girls. Does it mean something?”

It’s the third time she’s asked me this week. “Why are you asking me? You know the answer!”

Spring fever is abundant at uni at the moment. A likes B but is scared that B likes C. In the meantime D seems a bit too interested in A, and a bit too interested in E at the same time. And E is interested in F but doesn’t know F is already in a relationship… and it all sounds like its straight out of a soap opera. I sit down with my friend and we have a long discussion about boys and relationships. She describes in detail the sort of guy that she can’t stand. And I can’t help smiling to myself as I hear it; it’s just the sort of guy that I enjoy the company of. And the sort of guy that she swoons over sounds like the sort of guy that I can never get beyond being just an acquaintance to. I kept thinking that she is over thinking her feelings, telling too many people about her feelings, but maybe people are just… different.

I’m one boyfriend down. But I don’t think that’s enough to shake my faith in young love. Besides, look how much I’ve learnt about getting to know people and accepting them for who they are.