Dating : The trials and tribulations of my sex life chapter 2: The one that broke the ice

I remember my first day of college like it happened 5 minutes ago. I walked into class timid and shy, and all of a sudden the first thing I saw was him. He was clean cut, handsome with blue eyes. Something about him gave you the impression that he was one of those guys you wanted to bring home to your parents. I took one good look at him and decided that a boy like him would never be interested in a girl like me. Months would go by where I would sit in class just simply not acknowledging anyones existence. Instead of being one of those girls that gained the freshmen 15, I was one of those girls who ended up becoming a pothead. Yup, I would sit in class high as a kite oblivious to absolutely everything that was going on. More importantly I was absolutely oblivious to the fact that he was staring at me for 4 whole months. Fortunately my pothead friends were also friends with him. He was one of those rich kids that could afford a luxurious life in college. This made him rather popular considering any time you hung out with him you knew it would include endless booze, with little to no regard of how much everything cost. My friends spent the majority of their time hanging out in his dorm room that was decked out with an actual couch, a gigantic TV screen, and a kegerator……thats right the kid literally had a bar in his dorm room. I remember the first time he spoke to me after class, he invited me to his decked out room. Now heres the thing, I was naturally high out of my mind when he asked me this. So I wasn’t thinking this was some flirtatious invitation, instead I thought well….I already know my friends will be there. I didn’t know this guys name for about two weeks. Literally two weeks…till someone said “Shane”. Shane grossed me out in the beginning if I’m being honest. I was completely repulsed by all the invitations to hangout and by how nice he was. I mean holy shit why was this guy being so goddamn nice to me. I couldn’t understand it, more importantly I hated how much attention he paid to me. I once looked sad in class so he brought it up later….telling me that he tried to make eye contact with me but I kept looking at my phone with sadness in my eyes. I couldn’t understand what his deal was. Then one day….I was sober. I wasn’t high at all. And then it hit me….this was the guy who wanted to love me. I didn’t have the appealing image most guys like him were looking for, and he didn’t care. He wanted to know me, and he had his eye set on me for months. Shane and I wouldn’t make it our freshmen year, in fact, we left for the summer agreeing that it wasn’t meant to be. I spent 2 months thinking about him. Falling for him. I couldn’t go another day knowing Shane wasn’t mine. So I took a flight to his hometown to profess my love for him. That was the beginning of the next two years of my life. We wouldn’t be solid for all two years, but even when we weren’t I absolutely loved Shane. When we were together time stopped. When we were apart I felt alone. He wasn’t just my lover, he was my best friend. We took care of each other in a way most people just don’t these days. It was the most unselfish love, just purely two individuals who cared so much about each other. He supported all of my endeavors, and I supported all of his. More importantly I loved Shane for everything that he was, and he loved me for all of my craziness. Shane is still the only person on this planet who thinks I am absolutely perfect just the way that I am. What made our relationship amazing was the fact that we didn’t need to talk about it. He understood that I was not one of those people who expressed emotions through words but rather I expressed them through action. Instead of talking about the in’s and out’s of our relationship like all young adults, we would simply talk about life. We would discuss our goals, our ideal future, we would create a realistic plan for our lives past our undergraduate years. It was mature, and more importantly it was two people who loved each other and wanted each other to succeed more than anything. I truly, fully thought this was it. I thought I had met the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with. Then one day he became cold. We were 20 years old at the time, and I really thought nothing of it. I knew Shane needed his space to be alone with his thoughts. Then a week went by where he didn’t kiss me. My boyfriend didn’t kiss me for an entire week. And we lived with each other. Then something I never even imagined possible happened…..his friend told me that he was cheating on me. Our love went out the door in a matter of seconds. The thing is I didn’t yell at Shane. I didn’t call him obscene things and I didn’t walk out and tell him it was over. Instead, I told him that I wanted him to be happy. I told him that he was 20 years old, and therefore it would be selfish of me to believe that I was his happily ever after. So Shane and I broke up and he immediately began dating this other girl. I mean literally 24 hours after I ended it. I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone. See it’s one thing to get cheated on, it’s another thing to be replaced that quickly. My struggle after Shane and I broke up was not necessarily losing Shane, it was the fact that I was replaced so easily. I mean what did I do wrong in order to be replaced in a matter of seconds? I went on believing that something had to be wrong with me. I lost so much weight I ended up looking like a skeleton. To put it in perspective, I am as tall as the average man and I ended up weighing as much as girl who is five foot two. I would look in the mirror and I would think I wasn’t beautiful. I would wear clothes that would cover my body because what was the point of showing it off? I went down this deep dark hole of just no longer seeing anything good about myself. I would spend 8 months of my life, thinking something was wrong with me. Thinking I didn’t deserve love. Summer rolled around and I moved to a different city for an internship. I remember thinking that I would be able to reinvent myself. No one knew me there, which meant I could be anything I wanted. So…..I started wearing clothes that showed my skin. I ended up gaining 15 pounds. I went on dates with guys I knew I would never see again. I was at every single celebrities after party. I began to live my life free of judgement, and free of any restraints. Then one day something incredible happened. I walked into my bathroom and I saw the most beautiful girl staring at me. I was captivated by her. She was everything I had ever wanted to be. And then I realized something…..there she was. The girl I had lost when I met Shane. Except this time she was even better than the girl I had lost when I met Shane. She was more sure of herself. She was more confident. She had a fire inside of her that no one could blow out. There are some people we meet in order to find ourselves. Maybe it isn’t ideal. Maybe we go through absolute hell on that journey. Maybe they break us and its just so horrifying. See I could have gotten back together with Shane. He sent me multiple text messages a day telling me how he loved me. Telling me how I was the one. And even at my lowest point, I knew nothing would come from taking him back. I knew that I had to embark on some journey to find myself. Cause now when I look back on my experience with Shane I understand one critical thing, which is that I wouldn’t be in this position if I had stayed with him. My life would be dull, and boring. I experienced life at my lowest point. I allowed myself to be free and to make horrible decisions that would lead to some amazing experiences I will never forget. I grew into someone that I am so god damn proud of. Now when I look at Shane, I don’t see a girl who isn’t good enough for him. I see a girl who can get a guy like that and then some in a heart beat. Shane didn’t come into my life to be my happily ever after. He came into my life to teach me how to love myself. If he never broke my heart the way he did, I wouldn’t love myself the way I do now. When I look at the girl who was in love with Shane, I can’t even recognize her. That isn’t me, that is a version of me who was missing out on the best experiences of her life. Maybe I didn’t get the ending that my 18 year old self wanted with him. Instead, I got something far better than that. I learned how to truly love myself in a way I never did before.