Dating : He Froze When I Told Him I Wanted a Future

I wrote my thoughts down in a letter.

I do better on paper. The thoughts are clear. The words aren’t jumbled. I say more truth when it’s in writing.

Two nights ago, I went over to his house. I had to say things. I had to bring up points I didn’t want to bring up. More on that here:

We hugged awkwardly. We kissed awkwardly.

He was expecting for me to bring up “the talk” we needed to have. I didn’t know how. Big conversations seem so much bigger as an adult.

Truth has bigger stakes as a grown-up human.

And so we pretended everything was fine until we couldn’t anymore.

“Can we talk about what I want to talk about?” I asked.

He turned to me and said, “Of course.”

I pulled up the letter from the notes on my phone and he offered to read them to himself.

The words in there said things like:

I’m scared that you’re not ready for something real with me.

I don’t want to keep walking down this road if it doesn’t lead anywhere.

I don’t know what the right answer is here.

He paused before he said anything.

There were hearts stopping in that pause. Futures crumbling in that pause. Lives being flipped in that pause.

It was like a thousand years frozen inside of that pause, like one of those ships stuck in a bottle.

And then he said, “You may be right.”

I may be… right?

I don’t want to be right.

Fight harder, I wanted to say.

Give me something to fix this, I wanted to scream.

I saw the life that I was planning wilt in front of me. The house. The ring. The nights on the couch watching serial killer documentaries.

All of the dreams that I’d imagined for us were dying.

“It’s not that I don’t want those things,” he told me. “I do want that with you. I just don’t think that far ahead. I think about this weekend. I think about what I’m eating for dinner. I don’t think about a year from now. I’m just not wired that way.”

It’s something I can’t understand.

I’m a big picture person. I’m a down-the-line person. I’m a writer who wants to pen my life into a tight-knit narrative.

I want to know the ending before I get there.

“You don’t think about our future?” I asked, stunned.

I’m 32. I’m not the floundering 18-year-old that I once was. I know what I want. I don’t have to deposit years into a person to know that anymore. I’m settled. I’m sure.

“No, I do,” he said. “But I see it in glimpses. I see it in the quieter moments. It’s hard to think that way in the day-to-day.”

I did what any sane person would do… I tried to box him into a personality type.

And, in doing this, I discovered that Boyfriend is an enneagram 7.

I’ve done the research. Apparently, this is a normal response. Apparently, they are go-with-the-flow people. They are let’s-have-a-good-time people.

I know he doesn’t want anyone else.

I know he wants a future.

He just doesn’t know how to think to put the steps together.

“Just give me a few days to think,” he said. “I just need to sit with this for a little while.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

So, what happens now?

I wait. I discuss with my people. I decide what to do next.

It’s an ongoing discussion. It’s a one-step-at-a-time situation.

Maybe it’s a happily ever after. Or maybe it’s a thank you, next.

I don’t know yet. But I know I’ll keep following my instincts. I will not be afraid to make tough choices.

I will go on.