Hope you like it. I shot her a text like "Yo." Actually I might be able to go find it. Okay no we texted a LOT and that's a lot of scrolling. Nevermind I searched for a word that was likely in my first few tests and I'm a genius. My first sentence was "Heyo." and she said "Ey" We (Camp roommates and Michael) had invited her to
Crap reading back on this makes me feel sick with sadness. Uhhhh. Foreshadowing. No no I can keep going, keep reading
her to come on a hike with us after rock climbing (Found the date, June 9th). We talked a bunch on said hike but my throat started feeling a bit sore. Friday I went down. It was probably COVID... I was out for 6 days I think and we texted each other a LOT. Like a LOT. Usually I don't text people that much and I have to text people first a lot so it def stood out to me how often she texted me first. Which was attractive. Plus she made some really intelligent jokes and references and I'm like. Dang, you cute. So by this point, spending time with me and my group of friends, she's picked up on the fact that I say "I love you" to everyone I have a positive view of. I love everyone, and I tell them that. (For the record, I also love those who I don't have a positive view of, but telling them that tends to weird them out or make them mad so I don't.) So by this point, I am cool with saying that to her and her not immediately going "Oh he's in love with me" because even tho I def am and get butterflies around her and want to talk to her constantly and want to be with her always and want to hug and hold her forevermore... she don't know that. Heh. Aaaaaanyway. Back up and at them as of probably the next Tuesday, so we started eating together again and talked a bunch. Of course, I told my roomies about this and they were totally supportive of it. In fact, my roomie Justin said he's got 5 USD for the first of us guys to kiss a girl on the trip. (You see my Canadian roomie Kyle had a crush on this one girl and was making moves too and ofc he's got no US money so he wants that for the souvenir lol) Now I'm a good boi, I ain't gonna kiss a girl I'm not dating so I was pretty sure the money was Kyle's if anybody's (He did get it btw, he kissed her cheek on the last day and told her it was a traditional Canadian farewell ritual
). Now, the first Tuesday of the week, a few of the counselors put on swing dancing. I know how to swing dance, but I was scared to just ask a woman to dance with me, especially because I know only a few moves. One of the guys at the camp, Ricardo, liked it so much that (To the overwhelming approval of the camp body, including the counsellors) he got a bunch of JBL speakers, linked them up and put them on the patio and had swing dancing every night from 11 to midnight. Of course, I was sick for a while, but by Tuesday I was better so Tuesday night we went climbing again and spent a great time there then I finally worked up the courage to ask her to dance. That was one of the best feelings, I remember shaking with the nerves, while my roomies look at us knowingly but as soon as my hands touched hers and her eyes locked with mine I was fine. No shaking, no nerves, I knew I was where I needed to be and that no matter how I did, we would have fun. She never took her eyes off me (Except that time I spun her into somebody) and we danced the whole time. I am so unprecedently in love with this girl I don't know what to do with myself. Wednesday, together, ended dancing. Thursday, together, ended dancing.
Now I'm going to interject real quick to tell you about how this camp ends, schedule-wise. On Friday morning, we have classes and a closing ritualistic list of announcements and activities, we go off with our discussion groups and our leader picks something for us to do (We went to Sunset Rock and took some great pictures) then our parents come up for the closing ceremony and talent show (Which is actually impressive as it's interesting people from all over the country). Then the parents leave and we stay, then we leave Sat morning. So I have this in my mind when I'm thinking about how I'm going to tell her.
Whether I'm going to tell her. You see, I'm so conscious of hurting her and I'm also afraid of failure.
Because of this, I think on Thursday that I might should not continue dropping hints or anything or saying I love you so often and I called her "Sis" a few times because I knew that even if I told her... it probably wouldn't work out. You see she lives 16 hours away from me and we met at camp. Plus, we talked about college and we have very different plans. I want private, she wants public. She'd be willing to go to college in the south, but she doesn't like the schools in my state. Anyway, I'm thinking I should not get either of our hopes up.
Friday. The last day. Classes, rituals, parents arrive, I introduce them, announcements, diplomas, talent show, then, by popular vote, they pull out the big speakers and take us to the big patio and we dance. This was one of the most emotionally and romantically charged experiences of my life. Because I knew that I might never see her again. I spent as much time with her as I could then, when the music had become more poppity and we were tired of that and she said she had a headache, we went to a bench away from the music and just talked for like 20 minutes.
Then it got quiet.
And I thought
Oh gosh. I can't just like. Experience all of this and not tell her. Even if we don't date, even if she doesn't feel the same way, even if we can't see each other again, I need to just tell her. So I told her. And about halfway in, she started crying. Now I know a lot of women, and I am very good friends with a lot of women. I do not understand women and I did not read this as any sort of clear sign of anything. So I continue. I tell her how I feel, how I've been trying to communicate that, how I don't know if it would work and how I love her in
that way and how I don't know how she feels and she doesn't need to feel the same way... "You don't even need to tell me how you feel, it's okay to just cry"
and then she said the most romantic thing I've ever heard someone say
Quietly "You stupid idiot, can't you see I'm crying? Of course I love you."
So we talked for a little while longer, we talked about how long I've liked her, when I first knew, what hints I was dropping, what my friends knew, what her friends knew (Her small group and they were rooting for it. Some of them even asked about me months afterward), when she liked me (At climbing as well lol) and midnight curfew arrived too soon. After getting back to our rooms, we realized we never took a selfie together so we sent each other pictures of us still wearing our dress formals for the ceremony. We texted until like 1AM.
Saturday morning we spent as much time with each other as we could, she had to leave at 10 for her flight so I woke up early to spend time with her. We talked about how we would keep this going. We decided not to date yet, to just be friends with potential over text until we decided it could work. This was also due to her very very protective parents (Red flag). Her parents delegated that no boy from camp was to text her without their permission. This is kind of reasonable but like... they made it really hard to get their permission. More to come. We talked about boundaries as if we were dating, just to have them established in case we did end up in-person dating, goals, things like that.
When she left, I had to wait like 40 hours for her parents to finally respond with permission for me to text her. Pain. Unfortunately, they did say we can't call or facetime. But. I, madly in love, think it's worth it. We talked, looking at my Screen Time, for at least 3 hours a day over text. She began to get in trouble for texting me so much so we had to text less. Plus, her parents didn't like me saying "I love you" so we started saying "iykyk." We called once because I thought she said her parents approved it but she was using a sketchy loophole so I told her we shouldn't. During this time, we talked about plans if we were to be married but like... never calling it that. Clearly planning our lives around each other but not ever saying we were. Our relationship somehow actually strengthened over text. We grew more comfortable with each other and more transparent and it went excellently, contrary to the expectations of everyone who has ever had a long-distance relationship.
I have been distracted by someone texting me about Star Wars so the quality of my previous writing-fervor-motivated lexications will now depreciate.
I, after leaving, immediately made her a playlist on Spotify called SMITTEN. The playlist had the number of songs that was the numbers of her birthday + the number of my birthday. For example (Not real) 3-22 + 8-18 = 3+22+8+18=51 and then 51 would be the number of songs in the playlist. The icon was a picture of the rock we would sit and talk on. For that picture, I texted my counselor who was still there the day after and gave him instructions on how to find it and take a picture of it. It had a bunch of love songs. She, then, made a playlist called Smitten (The Response) where she put her love songs with the thumbnail as a picture my parents took of the group of students dancing on Friday night. I then made a playlist called "Lost in those blue eyes" of all of the songs I thought described our situation best.
Then, I used an editing software to take all of the choruses of those songs and cut them together into basically a mixtape. I called it Lost In Her Eyes. Here it is, if you're curious.
Anyway, she listened to that like every day. We had a thematic song: I Can't Help Falling In Love With You by Elvis Presley that we had different versions of (There's like 8 good ones) interspersed throughout all of the playlists. I am of the opinion that all couples should have that thing for them that is special. The thing where you can say that one thing or do that one thing and your partner and they only know how much you love them. This is especially the case for me, being that I say I love you platonically to a lot of people so I need something to be like "I love you more than anyone else, dear."
Which reminds me, every night.
Every night for our entire relationship, I said either "Goodnight dearest Jeanette" or "Goodnight darling" because I am a romantic like that. I had planned to take my mashup song, edit all of the romantic texts we sent each other and make one of those like kinetic typography things with them. Every morning I sent her a picture of me smiling from the day before (Cuz morning uggo) and a different romantic message image I found on Google.
My dad said, when I asked him for advice (Among other things) that I should, above all, keep in mind that this could very well be someone's wife that I'm talking to and that if this relationship ends, make sure that there's nothing I do or say that I can regret. With that in mind, I wanted to take it really slow. We jumped in fast, but we weren't moving fast at all. This is how all of my relationships, both romantic and platonic, end up going.
September. We had just celebrated 3 months (With a huzzah text... that's kinda it.) of like... not dating? Anyway, I was getting tired of just texting. I still love this girl dearly and I want to talk to her, to see her face. We've been "together" long enough that her parents should be good to talk to me and get to know me, right?
So I texted her dad, asking for a 30 minute zoom call to get to know him and so he can get to know me. Up until this point, he has been ignoring Jeanette's requests to get to know me. They do not have a good relationship (Red flag). He's not abusive, but they just aren't near close. Her mom asks about me sometimes but can't say we can call because he's in charge, naturally.
Next thing I know, she texts me, saying her parents have told her she has to friend zone me and we need to wait 5 years to date. I told her I'm okay with that, but then she started being rude to me over the next week so I was forced to cut it off. I don't want to be bullied by the woman I love for 5 years just for it to change at the end of that. And I now we haven't talked since September 22, 2022. Since then, I almost dated another girl and now I'm alone and fine with that.
Scarox93
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