How do you go from saying “I love you” over and over every day for more than a year, shopping together for an engagement ring, and moving in together with the mutual understanding that the paperwork was a foregone conclusion, to #luckiestgirlintheworld with another guy in what seems like a matter of weeks?
I think Charles Bukowski must have had a similar experience when he wrote:
“The male, for all his bravado and exploration, is the loyal one, the one who generally feels love. The female is skilled at betrayal and torture and damnation.”
I will never really know what was in her heart, but it’s clear that it wasn’t love. At least, not for me.
I really let myself go this time. I was all in. More than ever before.
But nothing risked, nothing gained, right?
I wish I could say that I was completely duped, but the truth is that somewhere in the darkest recesses of my soul, where I don’t dare peek very often, I think I knew that she wasn’t true.
I gave her the opportunity to make her choice.
Nothing left to stop her except true love.
I truly, sincerely hoped that that she would choose me, and for a moment when I got back, I thought she had.
Until I saw the email.
Would a ring have made a difference, or would it have just delayed the inevitable?
In the end, she’s entitled to make her choice however she sees fit, and I’m entitled to choose someone loyal.
I’m glad I saw the hashtag.
It brings closure.
-D
