I will preface this by saying that I don’t care about age, I just consider it a number and am not looking for advice on how to date women my age. I grew up in an environment where everyone was 8 or more years older than the other and had perfectly healthy relationships, it’s about maturity, not the age.

I’m 27 years old, but you wouldn’t know it if you saw or heard me, I look like a teenager,partly because I’ve never weighed more than 105 lbs in my life, a result of being 3 months premature. Anyway, my ex is almost 19, we met online when she was living in Hawaii; her father was in the army and they moved around a lot. We met on a dating app and hit it off immediately, but I was hesitant after having some bad experiences with women on there before so i took a month to say that i loved her. Little did i know that at that time she was 15. So, we just decide to see how things go, no meeting, Hawaii is a long way from Ohio.

Anyway, things start off fine, then she gets distant and i find out she was perusing someone at school, but she came back, around that time I was looking for a companion, just someone to talk about it to while she was gone and met a girl and developed a crush, my insecurities lead me to send her a dick pic because I was curious about how i matched up (this girl had been around, but she lived in Germany so i never even considered any romantic relationship or any kind of infidelity, not even cybering) and well I kept it from her and the girl ended up telling her and she almost left me, but decided to give me another chance.

There’s some minor stuff I won’t get into, let’s just say that hung over the relationship for about a year until we almost broke up, but she said she was sorry for holding it over my head and unless I really pissed her off she never brought it up again. So fast forward to last year, it’s May, she had turned 18 in April, she’s legal, she’s been living in Florida for a year by this point and I go meet her. We hang out for 3 days at a hotel, go to the movies, dinner, just fun stuff and we end up sleeping together on the second night because we both agreed no sex the first night. Anyway, day 3 comes around, in the morning she’s distraught, doesn’t want me to go, but I don’t have anywhere to stay and I was running out of money.

So, I leave and promise to be moved down there within 6 months. Things are fine until I think it was august when she starts a “I don’t know what I want phase” and I tell her, like an idiot that I will wait for her, so during the time I meet another girl and we become friends, she’s just getting over a breakup with her girlfriend so I didn’t see anything to sorry about there. Anyway, a few weeks pass and she comes back and says she doesn’t want to lose me. I think everything is fine, but time is ticking, I’m supposed to be moved there by October and I cannot find anything within my budget and I’m worrying about it and all the time I’m anxious and I start getting needy and clingy, especially once she says it’s fine. My mind went into a tailspin “You were crazy over me, now you aren’t dying for me to be there? What’s going on?!” So, you know the story by now, I pull, she pushes until she ends up having sex with someone else and I start subconsciously treating her differently.

So I don’t hear from her for a week in the end of September and every morning I tell her good morning and every night I tell her goodnight and well I even almost found an apartment, but she was too busy to talk when I called to see if it was near her. Anyway, my anxiety is at it’s Max by October, I’m blowing up her phone daily and one day I went into her kik (we both knew each other’s passwords) to delete the conversation since she hadn’t opened it anyway) and I saw someone had said “I miss you too”.

So, I call her up, ask who he is, have to fight to get it out of her, and she says she’s sorry and I go off on her, eventually hang up and we talk later that evening, she was crying while we were on the phone. So, the next day I tell her I’m sorry for acting like that and that I hope they’re happy together and that I hope we can still be best friends.

So, I read a lot, everything I can find about getting an ex back, relationships, etc, but also work on myself, I was in a horrible place and I’m much better and wiser now; in a way it was a good thing because I’d grown complacent. So, I had been talking to this girl I met months before that and I had talked to her through all of it and a month had passed, she said it wouldn’t be a rebound and we decided to get together. Well, I was still hung up on my ex and I tried being friends and that got me no where, especially when I sent her a letter about how she had helped me through my grandfather dying of cancer and the fun times we had.

That was new years Eve when I sent it to her and her interest after my new girlfriend and I got together had plummeted (I scared her off) so I go no contact, because I hope it works and well either she’ll come back or I’ll be over her soon enough. So this month she messages me a video of a unicorn her boyfriend’s got her and I told her that it was cute, but I didn’t want to be friends and if she wanted to be together to give me a call. Nothing..

A few days later she sends me w flustered message, telling me to stop loving her and really not much else so I tell her the same thing again and don’t hear from her for 4 days. She asks if we can talk and I agree to, she says she kinda misses me and I tell her that’s sweet. So, it was either that evening or the next, I’m working and she asks about my new girlfriend and I tell her that I’m working and if she wants to talk that I get off at 10 and she can message me then. 10 comes around and no message, either she expected me to message her or she got busy, either way I don’t care, I’m tired of games.

I’m still not over her, no where near it, I think about her all the time and even dream about her. I hate what I’m doing to my current girlfriend, but she says she understands and that if I want to leave her for her that we’d still be friends, I really wish she wouldn’t say that, she has a lot of self-deprecating behavior that I scold her for and she’s getting the help she needs, therapy and antidepressants and I’m glad and happy for her, I’ve always managed to meet girls who had been a victim of a sexual assault (every girlfriend I’ve ever had) and usually after I help them, build their self esteem up and everything they leave, no good deed goes unpunished, but I have been at fault as well, a relationship is two people after all.

So, I’ll end this by saying that my ex graduates in May (5 days to a year after we met in person) and my current girlfriend is in her second year of college (she’s 19) and I’m taking it day by day, but I truly believe that my ex is my soulmate and that she has changed as well. I kind of forgot to mention that she left me for a 16 year old, so there’s that. She had told me about how she feels more like a mother than a girlfriend, but she’s afraid of being alone, which she admitted was ironic and the tables hwr turned since she always said the only reason i stayed was that i was afraid of being alone although i was alone for 2 years after my last relationship before her.

I don’t even know why i wrote this, maybe because it’s cathartic and maybe for some perspective. I truly apologize for the novella that I just wrote however. I’m just watching to see how things pan out, as my ex who’s my best friend (the one before her) and is like a younger sister to me said. “Stay with your girlfriend, she’s playing games, if she wants you back she has to do a lot more than just say I miss you.” and she’s right and I’m going to make her work for it for hurting me.

I admittedly was a doormat to a beautiful young woman and I paid the price, I let her use me and I was a pleaser and i put her on a pedestal, but I’ve learned a lot and continue to, she’s bottom priority since she left me for someone else. And, if this relationship ends up just being a rebound, I know I hate that I thought bad of her rebounding then I did the same thing…no room to talk,,,then well there’s plenty more beautiful young women out there and since I worked on my insecurities and self image, I’m well aware of the catch I am 🙂 I loved her for herself, the things I was attracted to most were her personality, her eyes and her voice. I might also mention that it was an interracial relationship as well.

Okay SERIOUSLY if I don’t stop you’ll ban me and I will not blame you, oh my god, I can’t apologize enough for this short story I’ve written!