I honestly don't understand this phenomenon. It bothers me to an unending degree that someone would have cowardly behavior and such little respect for a person they profess to still "love." It happens though. I have talked to so many people about this ludicrous excuse for acceptable behavior...and it seems to be on a rampant incline in popularity among the Generation X and Yers. Every friend that I have talked to about this has said they knew at least 1 person who that had happened to.
It was a very exciting Saturday for me. I had a long day of work and was excited about a karaoke competition that I was getting ready for. My boyfriend sent me a "good luck" text message, in an effort to fulfill his necessary obligations as a boyfriend. I looked at it as something completely different. Here I was, prepping for a tough competition and looking forward to good words from the boyfriend. His message was a slap in the face. I had been feeling more and more that our relationship was moving away from being a very intimate relationship to a dry-and-barely-friendly-text message/email relationship. The least he could have done was to pick up the phone to call me and chat for a few minutes before I headed off to my competition. When I asked him if I was going to get a phone call, he asked that I could not hold him to task because he was under so many pressures. A few text messages later came the biggie...the message of all messages. He wrote "I love you, but it's too much."
Personally, I feel if you are going to use the word Love, it should not be followed by the word "but." There is no love in this....there is no love in sending this message through a digital medium. I was hurt and scarred, but moreover I was disgusted by the lack of courage and compassion.
The lesson I have learned from all of this? (There is always a lesson to be learned, and there is no victory as big as the lesson.) Relationships are increasingly digital and less organic. We are moving away from communicating in person, through touch, and telling stories with our eyes. I love little sweet messages throughout the day, this can absolutely be a positive, but when a relationship moves more and more into a digital form, then I must take the advice of both the book and the movie and say to myself he's just not that into me.
BTW: My favorite quote from the movie "He's Just Not That Into Me": “I had this guy leave me a voice mail at work, so I called him at home, and then he emailed me to my Blackberry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It’s exhausting.”
So true...so f'ing true. On to bigger better and more organic things and relationships. I look forward to whatever the future holds, I know there is love out there for me. I have the worlds best friends who lift me up in situations like this. Oh, yeah and that karaoke competition I was in...I still competed and made 2nd place. My life is too short to let some d'bag bring me down into his dark and dreary excuse for a life.
