rat

Well, I'll go against damn near everyone in this thread.

Roughly four years ago I met Andrea, and we were friends for about 6 months, just chummin around, hangin out. i dont get along with guys that well, as I generally have divergent ideas about the place of women in the scheme of things. Well, in December of 99, we started dating. we went back and forth, rediscovering our attraction time and time again as we fought, learned and renewed our relationship. Then, after I'd left a new girl to come back to her, things had become fine all over again. And, just as you said, I finally fell. Well, two weeks later, I'm tossed aside, and she starts dating a friend of mine, another one of those in the long line of people we'd chummed around with while we'd dated.

Jet to now. Up until two weeks ago, I'd never known what had happened at that point in time, why things had gone the way they had, and how I could have changed them. For three years, I carried around all the emotional "what-ifs" that stemmed from my first truly significant relationship with the opposite sex. But I'd burned her out of my mind, found new infatuations, a new love, and things kept turning out for the worst, even when the girls in question were deeply into me more than I into them.

Well, 3 years have passed, and I've grown up...alot. not that "I'm a senior not a freshman" growing up, but the kind that comes from overexposure to the real world from the age of 16 to 20. I'd gotten a taste of the real world while I was with her, and now I live and breathe the real world. And here we sit. We've been talking for 2 weeks, and things are back where they were four years ago. That attraction is still there, and she still knows exactly where to hit me to make it hurt or to make the world stand on its head.

So my advice, yea, put that firewall back up, but don't just say "fuck it" or "forget women" like I did. Learn from it, give it time, and revisit it a year or three from now. Not in a creepy call from the blue, but if circumstances draw you back together, even on a chance bump-in, talk to her. Hell, I'd seen Andrea over a half-dozen times in situations we could have spent time talking together over the past 3 years. But I wasn't ready to man up to the situation. Give it time.

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