Hall Of Shame's Journal (original) (raw)

'You do it to yourself you do, and that’s what really hurts'
ch you how to get to purest hell
Three months ago I made the worst, most stupid, embarrassing, hurtful, pointless mistake of my life.

Sorry to get this journal of to a neurotic start, but it’s one of the reason I created this one, to vent my feelings on things I just couldn’t say in the last one.

Ofcourse this story involves a girl. Here’s the story, written for Jen. If you must comment, don't tell what an idiot I am, I tell myself that every day.

That weekend with you was great, looking back on it one of the best in my life, I only wish I had let you know this at the time.
Then the weekend after I found out that Gemma liked me. I nearly didn’t go for it because of you, but then as far as I knew we weren’t going out, so it wasn’t cheating.

So I ended up kissing Gemma and staying the night. Gemma lived in my home town rather than two hundred miles away, so it would be more convenient. There was also another reason I thought there might be more chance of us working out, but that’s a different issue. Then I wrote up about it for my livejournal, on which you’re one of the friends who can read it. Here’s the thing about livejournal. You write what you feel at the time, and no ones really meant to take offence at it. Opinions may change later, I know mine definitely did.

We had never discussed how our relationship had changed after that weekend. I guess I believed all I’d heard about how you weren’t the sort of person to fall in love, how you got bored with people easily, how people who fell in love with you got messed up. I believed that all you wanted was to have me for a weekend every now and then, not a relationship, and didn’t care about what I got up to for the rest of the time. You admit yourself that its true that at times this is all you have wanted from some people and give out this impression, it’s what you were using an ex-boyfriend for just before me, indeed, it’s what you have gone back to wanting now.

So I wrote that’s what I thought the deal was between us, that I wasn’t in love or we weren’t co-dependent or anything, and that suited me fine. Looking back I don’t even think I even believed that at the time, I already had feelings for you and I was kidding myself, thinking ‘oh look, clever me, not falling in love and getting messed up’. Looking back at what I wrote, it’s something I’m less than proud of.

Originally I wasn’t going to let you see that entry, but at the last minute I made my one and only mistake, I thought ‘she won’t really mind’, Jen’s the sort of person you can say anything to and she doesn’t take offence.
I let you read it.
WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING! What really made me think you could read that and be fine? It’s like I was possessed by some bad luck spirit that thought ‘Hey Tom, you’re life’s on the up right now, why don’t we mess it up!’
There was really no point to letting you read it. There was nothing to gain, yet ultimately everything lost.

You put a brave face on, said you were jealous, but it didn’t really matter. It’s a shame I went on holiday for a week soon after, keeping me away from the internet where we’d always communicate. It stopped me from finding out sooner how you really felt, from writing another entry to correct what I now realised wasn’t really true.

Then I returned from holiday and you showed me how she really felt.
‘I don’t want to mess this other girl around? Well, god forbid that HER FEELINGS get hurt. You knew we weren’t in some exclusive relationship, we hadn’t got as far as discussing that, but did I have to make it so crystal clear. You felt cheated on. You felt cheap, easy and used. You used to adore me, now you felt I was heartless and cruel.’

I felt sick. Never before in my life had I hurt someone that badly before, apart from Qui, my psycho ex, but then she was nuts and upset by pretty much anything and everything. People who know me know that I am usually a kind person, someone who thinks before they say things that might affect other people, and yet at the most crucial moment in my life I had acted so out of character.
You had been in love with me, it’s very rare that you fall in love with anyone, especially so fast, but this time was different, and looking back I really should have noticed that. For once in your life you hadn’t been independent, a lot of things in your life had been going wrong and you had needed someone to depend on, someone stable.
It’s such a shame, because I’m usually someone you can depend on, Qui had been the most dependent and clingy person I knew, and I had been fine looking after her.
And yet when you needed me most I wasn’t there for you, I let you read an entry that had instead left her you tears.

I had spent so much time looking at nice girls with guys who didn’t appreciate them, weren’t nice to them, didn’t deserve them, and thought why does this happen?
Then I met someone nice, and I did the same thing to her. I know that’s not what I’m like, that’s not who I am.
But for that moment I was.
And I payed for it.

Ofcourse I apologised profusely, I was jolted instantly into realising how much I really liked you. But after what you had read in that entry, how could you believe it? ‘You don’t have to pretend that you like me’ you said.
I was confused over what to do, I told you you were far from meaningless. I wanted to say ‘Hey, I really do like you, let’s meet up soon and carry on as we were’ but after I had upset you that badly I was ashamed to, I felt I had lost you for good.

So I said that next time we’d meet up just for friends because I didn’t deserve anything else, afterall, I still hadn’t worked out were I was with Gemma and I didn’t want to mess you around. I learnt later that back at that point all you had wanted to hear was that I loved you and when I said ‘let’s be friends’ you had taken it that I didn’t want you anymore. So desperately upset, you turned to an old boyfriend for comfort, someone for whom you were their favourite, someone who made you feel adored.
‘Braden’s coming over soon’ you told me, ‘won’t you be glad I’m over my obsession with you?’
Well not at all, but I felt too guilty to say so. It seems everything you thought back then was so horribly ironic. So I held my tongue, knowing I had no right to interfere with your life. The one time I tried to say I still liked you and wished you weren’t getting back with Braden you angrily responded ‘YOU rejected ME, have you any idea how much you hurt me, have you ANY IDEA?’

A week after I realised how badly I’d hurt you I finally got to see Gemma again. She’s still a friend of mine, but it’s clear now that we’re not compatible; we don’t have the connection that I felt with you.
‘What happened to that other girl?’ Gemma asked.
I told her I’d let her know about us two, making sure I didn’t let on how messed up the situation was getting, there was no point to making her feel guilty, it’s not her fault, she had no idea I’d be so stupid as to tell Jen what had happened.
‘Oh, why did you tell her? It sounds like you really liked her. You know I’m only messing about with you don’t you?’
And the bottom dropped out of my world, I knew at that moment I’d made the biggest mistake of my life, I was in love with Jen, perhaps always had been, I’d lost everything.

Looking back, there’s several ways I handled the situation wrongly (apart from the obvious not letting you read the entry).
I should have pushed harder to let you know that I really did like you even if you didn’t believe it first, instead of just giving you up as too hurt to continue with.
I should have phoned Gemma immediately to see where I stood instead of waiting for a week till I saw her in person again.
And I definitely shouldn’t have postponed visiting you again by one week just because I had a couple of other social events coming up for the original weekend.

And so next time I visited you I finally told you ‘You’re one of my best friends and I love you’ and you told me ‘have you ANY IDEA how much I wanted to hear that two weeks ago, I was in love with you then, I would have done anything for you’.
It was too late, you can’t fall in love with someone twice, not after I had hurt you and made you feel second best. But by then you were already in the process of getting back with someone else, you’ve never had a problem pulling anyone, and I can see why, you’re gorgeous.

And so I’ve been in love with you ever since. I’m not sure how to communicate why this is bothering me just so much. It’s basically because I know it was all my fault. I’ve been messed about badly by other girls before, but I always got over it, because I knew it was something to do with the other person, it wasn’t my fault. Had it been you who stopped things abruptly after just one weekend, then sure I would have been gutted, but I could have accepted it as not my fault. Had it gone on for longer before you got bored and things ended, again I would have been gutted, but I would have known there wasn’t really anything I could have done. Either way I could have accepted it and got over it.

What makes me unable to let go of these feelings is that I know the reason the whole thing ended abruptly is because of my actions. It’s not so much the what happened ‘You becoming more interested in people other than me’ as the why it happened ‘I did this, I screwed up my very own fantasy’.

For me it has always been the things that I do myself that I can’t get over, knowing that the blame lies with me. No one has the power to hurt me, not you, not any girl, as I have the power to hurt myself.

Am I sounding way to melodramatic for what has happened? Maybe from other peoples viewpoint, but right now I feel I’m at the lowest moment of my life, I’m losing sleep, not eating much, blanking out and my mums beginning to ask what’s wrong. I’ve been trying to think what else could have happened that would actually have affected me worse, killing a child due to careless driving perhaps, but other than that, nothing really.

If a few month’s ago someone had told me that you would be desperately upset because you believed I didn’t want you I’d have said how is that possible? Does Jen even like me? How could I not want her?
Hearing ‘I hate myself for liking you’ from the one person I adore and love, and not knowing how to make you better is probably the most horrible feeling I’ve ever had.

And I know all this is down to one single mistake. I let you read that entry. Had I not done that I would have soon realised nothing was going to happen between me and Gemma, I would have known you were the one I loved, and you’d be none the wiser that there had ever been a chance of anything being different.

Had I not done that single stupid thing we’d probably be going out now, I’d have a lovely girlfriend who adored me back, yet with a single click of a button I destroyed everything, we were both hurt very badly, and I have nothing but a friendship nearly in ruins.

You used to always be the first to talk to me when I signed into msn, you used to love talking to me, now I can hardly get a word out of you. I’m giving you space, I have enough control not to become obsessive and ruin what’s left of our friendship.

You were the best thing that ever happened to me, you loved me more than any other girl I’ve known, and yet I made you feel rejected and put you through hell, and now that hell is returning to me, and I’m not sure how long before it will fade. I feel guilty and ashamed, but most of all depressed and incredibly frustrated that with one single senseless mistake I turned what should have been my dream into a living nightmare.