I hope you read this

I haven't finished writing this blog because I'm not creative enough to come up with what really happened next.  Because in reality, nothing ended up happening.  The woman came to the door, the door was opened, and in Japanese that I didn't understand, she was turned away.  To be honest,  much of these posts are fictitious.  Nothing more than half truths birthed from anger, frustration and hurt. The man I paint is not the man that I really dated, but the man who I saw out of envy, jealousy, and heartbrokenness.  I came to Japan feeling a trapped and withering woman.  In a marriage that was broken, lonely, and without love, no more his fault as it was my own.  Once here I thought I found freedom from it and in the process of breaking free of that relationship, I devastated another.  I pushed the limits, I wrote words that were no more than words spoken from a weak man's lips and then painted him out to be a man that he wasn't. In a time of weakness, I dragged things out of him that he never wanted to tell me.  And out of my childishness in the process I hurt a lot of people.  Making me a truly despicable person.  Unfortunately, this post might come too late as things might be past repair.  But here is the real truth of what happened.

I met a man I could talk to about anything with at Ueno station over a year ago.  A man so smart and so handsome and cute that I was immediately taken in.  By the end of the first night I knew it was something special. Unfortunately, after the first meeting, he didn't want to even meet me again.  I was relentless in e-mailing him and finally got him to agree to meet me.  During the second meeting, I played the shy and naive woman and despite having the knowledge that there was someone else (yes, he had told me from the beginning). Not as a girlfriend but as someone he cared deeply about.  Someone that was so close to him she was like family, that he couldn't live without, but that at the time he was feeling depressed and wasn't sure if he was really in love with her as things were starting to get more serious. I knew he was vulnerable and thought that I could use that to my gain.  I made sure we missed the last train home.  I had no money left, so he had to pay for the hotel and with no place else to go, he had to stay.  Everything that happened was a mistake on both our parts. But in moments of irrationality,  I thought I had found someone that I could spend my life with and I didn't want to let him go.  

The next day, I was the one who told him that I loved him on the train, something that I've never said so quickly to a man (before or since).  Maybe he felt he had to say it in return because despite everything he was a very loving man.  From there I threw everything out the window and lost all sense and morals.  Knowingly, I pursued a relationship with him.  He was hesitant at first, but I didn't give up.  I tried to be as caring and understanding as possible.  I tried to find ways to make myself invaluable to him.  And the more I did this, the more confused he got.  Until everything came to a peak in August.  I could tell he was torn and I pushed him and pushed him to break up with her.  And he did, and for a week I was happy.  But it didn't last.  He was clearly depressed.  Then on my birthday she called and he answered.  He immediately smiled.  He was so happy to talk to her and I...I bit my tongue and fumed.  Like a child, I grew angry and bitter.  Here he was finally smiling and happy and for what?  A cockroach.  She was telling him about a cockroach and he couldn't be happier.  My heart crashed through the floor and the thin string of sanity I was trying to hold onto snapped.  I could see that I was about to lose the first man I had passionately fallen for.  But on my birthday, I knew it was lost.  Maybe when we first got together he was confused, but after a month of not talking to her, it was clear that he was in love.  And like a fool I tried to ignore it.

Hardly a conversation went by where he didn't talk about how much he worried about her.  I sat at countless dinners watching tears well up in his eyes as he said things like, "I can't have fun, knowing how miserable she must be." "I have to call her, I have to know how she's doing."  And I tried to convince him she was fine.  That things would be fine...but they weren't.  They were quickly getting worse.  She found out about him emailing a woman about a threesome...it wasn't his idea.  I was the one who actually wrote the e-mail and sent it using his profile.  I thought that a threesome was every man's fantasy.  I thought that if I did it, he wouldn't leave me...I had become one of those women that purposely tries to get pregnant to trap a man.  I was as ugly as they come. But he only got angry at me for doing it and nothing ever happened. It didn't take long before I too became depressed.  Worried he would leave me, I started pointing out beautiful foreign women and in all honesty, most of the time, he never even saw them he was so trapped in his own head.  

A few weeks later he told me he wanted to meet her for her birthday.  That he had left her alone for so long and he couldn't leave her on her birthday.  From there it all went downhill.  We spoke less, saw each other less, stopped sleeping together, and every time we met did nothing but fight...endless fighting.  And I knew it was because of her and my heart broke at the thought of losing him to someone else.  I would ask about her and he would refuse to tell me anything as he didn't want to disrespect her.   Nevertheless, he talked on and on about how much better she was with money than me, how much more independent she was, how easy going she was, and how laid back.  He talked about how much more responsible and hardworking and I just got angrier and angrier.  He would say things like, "why can't you do this like my girlfriend." "If this happened, my girlfriend would just ignore it because she knows how to handle it, why don't you do that."  "My girlfriend is realistic, why do you have to be so overly optimistic?"  He always spoke of her with a smile on his face and never said anything negative, though I would try and get something out of him as I couldn't stand to listen to so much positive.  From the start he never ever stopped using the word girlfriend.  So what did he call me?  I'm not sure, I don't think he ever saw me as more than a moment of irrational passion. And that's when I again suggested a threesome.  I went online, I found a woman, and I even offered to pay for it.  He kept asking if I was sure, he never said he wanted to do it.  And when that woman came to the door, he was the one that decided he wouldn't do it.

We broke up that day.  He told me that he wanted to go on vacation with his girlfriend.  He told me that he wanted to try to make things better with her, because through everything she had never left him.  He told me that he knew she would make a good mother and that he would always be content with her.  And he did.  He went back to her and I spent a week, alone, in the north doing nothing but eating and sleeping.  But I don't blame him, because by that point I had dropped my hold on sanity and here she was, strong as ever...and there I lay damaged.  

It took months before I dared to contact him again.  I had started dating again and felt like things had calmed down.  I wanted to make sure everything was ok with him because I knew how badly he wanted to make things work.  And it was.  His work was going fantastic, he was telling his girlfriend that he loved her and he told me that he wanted to marry her.  Though I thought I had gotten over it, those words pinched and thus I started writing my post out of spite and anger.  Here he was, a 100% different man than the man I had met a year before.  And here I was...back in the same place as when I arrived a year before, dating aimlessly.  It was in tears that I wrote my original post maybe hoping someday she would come across it and she would leave him and maybe I could have him back.   We were very  similar people and conversation had draw us together and I tried e-mailing, but unlike the last time, he rarely responded.  I sent funny texts, joking about him buying a condo and then renting it out to me 'cause I found the condo of my dreams but couldn't get a loan as a foreigner.  He responded saying no way.  He was as straight as an arrow.  I admit I was happy for him.  While I had cared deeply for him, almost a year had passed and I had learned to come to terms with everything.  He'll always have a place in my heart, but I know that only one women will remain in his.

I know that I will never hear from him again.  He truly is a broken man wanting to do everything that he can for the woman he loves.  And I once again find myself in this city, surrounded by people and yet never more alone.  Right before my eyes he walked, ran, sprinted back to the arms of his girlfriend...the girl who never stopped being his girlfriend.  The woman who will always be his girlfriend.  I was right, he is a very loving man, but he never loved me, he never loved anyone but her.  And maybe he told me he didn't love her, but his actions spoke volumes about just how deeply he cared about her....and just like a few months ago I wrote out of jealousy and foolishness, I now write out of the deepest desire for sincerity, that I hope and pray and give everything of myself and my dignity to let her know just how faithful he has been to her this past year and just how much this man wants this woman to spend the rest of her life with him.