Introduction

"I don't want to be in a relationship."

My boyfriend of 5 and a half years (although on-and-off) said.

"I'm not ready."

I blinked. And then the tears completely blurred the image of his emotionless face. There wasn't any sadness in his eyes when he said those words. Only pity and possibly, disgust. He felt sorry, but only because someone had turned on the faucet from my eyes and nose, and there wasn't enough tissue to contain it all. My poor scarf and sleeves.

"Please," I begged, sounding desperate like a beaten up puppy, "I'm not ready to be single."

"I'm sorry. I've made up my mind."

We sat silent in the lounge room of his condo building and the only sounds were that of defeat sniffling from my nose. I'm not a graceful cryer. I have a sinus thing. So it was both physically and emotionally an uncomfortable moment. I started to get up and leave.

"Are you walking out on me?" He questioned. It always upset him whenever I would storm out on him during a fight or very tense moment. And lately, since the months leading up to this point, we've been getting into a lot of fights and arguments. I saw it as growing pains when we would argue--every relationship goes through those moment, right? And every single time we got through a rough patch, I saw it as another layer of bricks being laid down for the foundation of our house, that is our relationship and future.  I had this concept that anything in life can be related to building a house, or a large building, or a structure of any kind. Whether it is relationships, education, or even careers, every moment and step we take, is another part of the construction process of that building. How I yearned to one day live in that building we built together.



We met when we were 19. I was 20, he was 19. We skipped a lot of the getting-to-know-each-other process and went straight to the 'I love you' step. He fell madly in love with me the moment he saw me. But, I was 20 years old in a generation where we began to see a growing number of hard-working professional single or unmarried women over the age of 30. Marriage and love had not occurred to me yet and I feared it greatly. This set the tone of how our building would be built--under great hesitation. A year later, we went to the 'planning our future' phase. It was blissful honeymoon phase for the first year and a half of our relationship and I felt like we had all the time in the world because we were so young and naive. We took things really slow because of that and like most construction projects here in Toronto, the foundation took its time to be built.

I wanted us to be the 'cool' couple. Totally relaxed and not really concerned with typical young-people relationship phases. We never celebrated monthly anniversaries, we kept our relationship status hidden from our social media, and we only let our families and a very small handful of our closest friends know of our relationship. Whenever he would buy me gifts, I never felt the need to post it on social media and let the world know how loved I was and how I had the greatest boyfriend in the world. In hindsight, perhaps I should have.

He certainly had amazing qualities about him that I had not paid much attention to, or was grateful enough for them. I loved that he was loyal to those he cared deeply for. He would never "leave a man behind", he would always tell me whenever I felt left behind or alone. He was gentle and shy in social situations, so I wore the pants for the majority of the relationship and it made me feel strong and dependable. He always encouraged me and made me feel like I could do anything. Whenever he was under a lot of pressure and stress, he managed to pull through it all and just get stuff done! It amazed me, because at the time I was struggling with a growing hidden anxiety that caused me to never get things done. Most importantly, he has a great relationship with his mother and grandmother. A girl's best dream. His family is amazing. I loved them so much and I think they loved me too?


"I'm just going to the washroom to wash my face." I replied meekly. I should have just walked out while I had some ounce of dignity left. I crouched in the bathroom stall, clutching my arms with my hands. "Why, God," I cried out into the ceiling, "Help me be okay with this..." My eyes were swollen and red with mascara smudged under my eyes. My nose rubbed red by my sleeves and my lips and mouth were dry from anxiety and stress. I was a hot mess.

We walked out of the condo and into the streets to the alley behind the building. He lit up a cigarette. When we met I knew of his smoking and drinking habit. I tried to help him to quit and he did. He loved me so much that quitting both of these habits was incredibly easy to do. His parents disproval of this habit also helped as well. That's why they loved me immediately, among other things.

"I've been smoking and drinking for a while now," he spoke, "I didn't want you to see me like this." He stood five feet away from me, completely aware of the effects of second hand smoke and the chemicals he was breathing in. He still cared for me and still cared about what I thought of him. He looked down at his cigarette in shame.

"I should have been there for you," I replied, "this shouldn't have happened. You shouldn't have felt the need to do this. You shouldn't have felt so stressed out. That's what a relationship is for! I'm supposed be there for you!" I cried. I blamed myself so much that night for what had transpired.

"I'm sorry, I can't be emotionally attached, I need to focus on my studies" I said, couple months ago as we sat at my kitchen table. He had come over to complain about how distant I was and how lonely he felt because I was being this emotionless distant robot. He wanted to take a break from me a couple months ago and I didn't let him. I explained that school makes me stressed out and sometimes I can't handle the burden of emotionally caring for him and also caring for myself, so I shut myself off from feelings entirely. He should understand and just tolerate it until I was finished with my undergrad. I promised I'll be done and out and back as a normal girlfriend soon. He reluctantly agreed and we tried it my way for a few more months.




"Don't blame yourself, I'm just not ready," he assured me as threw his finished cigarette to the ground. The night was getting colder and the smell of pollution settled in the wet air. He stopped and looked around uncomfortably as people passed by the alleyway. I just stood there with tears now slowly streaming down my cheeks, my hair was a mess. I didn't want to leave him but my feet because I knew if I left him that night, that would be the last time I would ever see him. "I don't know how we lasted this long," he broke the silence. "Because we loved each other," I weakly and unconfidently responded. He checked his watch for the time. "I'm meeting up with Paul at 9," he looked impatient wondering why I was still there. "Can't we just go watch movies like we had planned?" I begged again. "No, it takes him at least two hours to get downtown," he lied, "I can't do that to him."


"You have to come meet my friends, we're going to grab some drinks tonight," he said over the phone. It was our 6 month anniversary and he was excited for me to meet them. Always nervous to meet new people, I hesitated and tried to come up with an excuse as to why I couldn't go out that night. "Just come for like, one hour," he insisted. "Okay fine," I gave in. I spent hours picking out the right clothes, applying my makeup, and styling my hair. I struggled greatly with self image and I didn't want his friends to think he had a lame fat girlfriend. I wanted him to be proud to have me by his side. From there on, I didn't want to meet anymore of his friends. They all seemed interesting, cool, and social. The girls he hung around were also incredibly fit and skinny. I also didn't enjoy going out for drinks as much. I enjoyed activities that involved some amount of productivity rather than sitting back at a bar and just 'chilling'.

"You never want to meet my friends anyways," he solemnly said as he lit up another cigarette. I did, but I was always so nervous and shy to meet new people. He just discovered what an emotional wreck I could actually become and he was not into it anymore. I kept quiet. "I'm going to go watch Deadpool anyway," I chirped bright with fake confidence. "By yourself? Right now?" He sounded concerned. "Yeah, that was our plan and I plan to stick through with it. Because I'm committed." My heart slowly breaking into pieces as I decided to end the night and leave him. "Let me walk you to the station," he put out his cigarette and walked beside me. He felt guilty for putting me through this emotional wreck.

"We can still be best friends," he tried to comfort me. He took a hammer and just helped speed up the process of my heart breaking. "It's just a break--a pause in our relationship until I'm ready again," he continued. I didn't want his pity and I felt like a fool for believing in what he was saying. He was saying all the right things to help me feel better as I left. But I knew better than to think that a 'break' was anything but a pause and we would pick up right where we left off. Thoughts of him meeting someone else during this 'break' flooded my mind and it tore me inside. I descended the stairs to the subway not wanting to turn around and see his eyes. "Please give me a hug before you leave," he asked kindly. I held onto him one last time. "Goodbye, best friend," I bitterly said.

The unfinished foundation cracked and whatever first floor we had started to build on top fell underneath. Time to look for a new property to build something new enirely on my own.