Dear Anita – & anyone else who reads this, I really need a reply ASAP.

I really hope you read this soon, as once again I’ve found myself at a point in my life where I feel – mentally numbed and disabled from the current situation. I really need your advice on what I should do.

I can’t remember if I said at the time or not, but I found myself in a tricky situation in Chicago in 2017. The person who helped me out, ill call him Magic. He found me when I needed him most and let me stay with him for the rest of my trip. We have been friends for four years since then and stayed in touch. I think I have romantically loved him for a long time. He is polyamorous and in a relationship with someone in France. He is spiritual and often goes a lot on universal signs and tarot readings. At the moment, he  doesn’t have a stable job and he’s travelling around Europe, living mostly on credit. He recently helped me pay £300 towards my rabbits vet bills too. ….

Anyway, he booked in a trip to come and visit me. He decided this, I didn’t invite him. In general, I have been doing well. I am growing in confidence and I have a place of work that loves me to bits – both the people I support and my colleagues. And most of the time my housemates are supportive too.

I planned a full packed week for Magic. Booked in loads of things and asked my housemates if he could stay here for a week. They were all excited to meet him. I picked him up from the airport on Wednesday. I even made a sign that said his name on it and held it up in arrivals. We had this mega hug and then we held hands on the bus back from the airport.

I had previously arranged a surprise party for him. So when we got back to my house, all my housemates and our friends were in the kitchen and shouted “Surprise!”. I was so excited to introduce Magic in to my world because everyone in my life knows how highly I speak of him.

Throughout the evening everyone was getting along great and having a great time.  He was getting on well with everyone and everyone loved him too.

But – this is where my world falls apart. We were all drinking, and he spent a lot of time talking to my housemates. Around 1am he approaches me in the kitchen in front of everyone, holds me by my top arms and says “Cat,I feel so inspired. Your housemate Lucy. Is she single? Is she single?” My heart broke. He then continues “I can say that right? We’re polyamorous right? We’re polyamorous right?” (this is a conversation that we have never had).

My heart was broken. I call I could say was “Who’s we?” and I went upstairs to my room to cry. It was horrible. My housemates spoke to him and set him up in the lounge. I went and spoke to him and said that I didn’t feel comfortable having him in my house. I was so hurt that after 4 years the first thing that he spoke to me about feelings was my housemate and I think that hurt was monumental. I felt overlooked, devalued and so many things.

Magic stayed in a hotel. I met up with him on Friday and we had food and went to a show with my work mates. I told him that I still didn’t feel comfortable having him stay in my house but he didn’t book  hotel again so he had to stay at mine on Friday night. On Saturday I felt too upset to be around him so I asked him to leave.

I’ve been so upset and messaging him how hurt I’ve been. It’s been horrible. He’s cried too and said that he said it because he wanted to share something and be honest. I explained that I never consented to be polyamorous and also that a rule for me is that if I was in something that was poly, I wouldn’t want to know what that person feels towards other people. I also said that it’s so inappropriate to try anything with someones housemate in general. Everyone knows that.

He’s staying in a hotel. I went to see him last night to tell him that I’d romantically loved him since Chicago. He said he always wants me in his life in some way or other and he thinks that I’m his twin flame. He showed me that he’d written this in his notebook, and was reading me the entire contents of his notebook. My heart felt closed and sometimes open. He went to the bathroom and I was flicking through the pages and he wrote that he had gone for  roast that day, but he had previously messaged me saying he’d been in his pjamas all day.

I asked him about it when he came out of the bathroom and he said that he went for a roast at Chris’s flat (Chris is my housemate Chloe’s boyfriend – Magic met him at the party on Weds). But Chris had told Magic not to tell me. This made me feel really paranoid and worse about the situation and that I’m lesser than everyone else. I wanted to leave but Magic shouted at me and told me that I don’t know how to love, that I only know how to snap at people who cross my path, that my aim was to make him as low as I was and that I am selfish. I really wanted to leave. He said I was a rubbish host because I abandoned him and left him alone in this unknown city.

Magic apologised and said he wanted me to stay and work through it because he loves me and that I’m worth it. Everything was so confusing because as much as I do want to stay and work through it, I also feel incredibly hurt and don’t feel like I can be around him, even though I’m meant to be hosting him.

I stayed the night at the hotel. We kissed and held each other. But deep down my heart and mind still feels locked in insecurity and this situation has brought up alot of things I need to do for myself – such as live for myself. We went for breakfst this morning, but I couldn’t speak and I had to leave him in the cafe.

I m home now. Feeling like a crap host, an abandoner, a loser and sat here with all my insecurities not knowing what to do – whether to sit with this pain and focus on my art, or try and push myself to go and be with Magic. I must add that at this moment in time Magic is super hyper and manic and not the same grounded person I met in Chicago. Wherever he is at mentally right now, I don’t think that I can support as I feel too hurt and also my own insecurities have flared up since Wednesday and I am struggling to see past them.

Someone, please advise what I should do.

Cat