The Girl Who Attends Funerals For Things That Haven't Started Yet
Two dates in and I've already dug the grave.
Two dates in and I've already dug the grave.
My brain is prepared for people to leave me before they've even earned a place in my life.
Every goodbye feels permanent.
Every silence feels like abandonment.
Every morning after feels like a funeral.
And somehow I'm both the mourner and the body lying there in yesterday's makeup, not yet able to shower.
I don't even know if I like him. I don’t even know him, really. We've been on two dates. And yet here I am this morning, in bed, unable to do basically anything except lie here and check my phone and then check it again and put it face down and then check it again. Constructing an entire ending out of a few hours of silence. Convincing myself I was too much. That I was weird. That I showed too much of myself and he saw it clearly and made a quiet internal decision and that's that; it's done, pack it up. Because when someone sees me — really sees me — they would never want to stay. And the worst part is I know I'm doing it. I know I’m self-destructing, I know I’m over-thinking. I'm doing it right now. And I still can't stop. This isn't unique to him. It happens almost every time. A few dates in with anyone and I'm already catastrophizing all the ways they could hurt me. Convincing myself every time I see them is the last time cause it’s only a matter of time until they realize they don’t want me. Cause I know that no one ever will actually want me.
This is what it's always been like for me. At my core, I believe I am unloveable, so I don't get the excitement, the giddiness, the lying in bed replaying the good parts. Instead, I wake up the morning after something that was actually, genuinely fine — maybe even lovely — and my nervous system has already written the eulogy for a relationship that hasn't even started.
I just spiral.
I can't even pronounce his last name but I've already thought through every possible way he could hurt me — every way it could end. The lying, the cheating, the abuse, the leaving. I go through every possible scenario, and none of them end well. Next week, next month, in 30 years. Of course he's actually already engaged to someone else, and this is his last hurrah. Obviously, he's just using me and jokes about how dumb I am to his friends. Or maybe I'm a placeholder and he's actually in love with his ex-girlfriend. And what if he gets hit by a bus tomorrow and no one tells me, because I don't even really know the guy and I'll just be left wondering forever, thinking he ghosted me? This city is small, so I better prepare for the scenario where he breaks my heart, gets a way hotter girlfriend, and I see them both at every single social event for the rest of time. Or maybe he's fine, actually, and we date for two years and then he leaves calmly and reasonably – and that's somehow worse. Or we get married, have children, build a whole life, and he leaves at 58 for someone he met at a work conference and I have to explain to our children what happened while he posts sunset photos with a woman named Jenni — and of course it's spelt with an i.
My brain has already written our divorce settlement. I don't even know his parents' names.
The thing is, it’s not just being scared someone will leave. It's knowing they’ll leave, it’s wanting them to leave so I can stop being scared they'll leave. It's self-sabotage to make sure they leave. It's desperately wanting closeness and being terrified of it at the exact same time, simultaneously, in the same body, with no off switch. It means my brain doesn’t let me trust the good moments because there's always this other part of me sitting slightly to the left of the situation, just watching and waiting for the thing that confirms what I already believe. That this will end. That I will get hurt. That I was right to be guarded. That the real me is inherently unworthy and it's just a countdown until they figure it out. That all of this catastrophizing was justified because it kept me safe in the end. In some sick way, that's what this all is — no one ever protected me, so I had to do it myself, and this is the only way I know how.
It’s not a matter of if the other shoe is gonna drop, it’s a matter of when.
It's not really about him, though. It's never really about them. The guy isn't relevant. It's always the same cycle. I go on a few dates, get comfortable, and suddenly my entire self-worth is wrapped up in whether they want me. I wake up after an evening where I felt like myself, where I showed someone a part of me, and my brain is screaming that I ruined it. And on top of that, my brain is screaming that this is my last chance. That I'm so unloveable that if I don't hold on to this new person — who, again, I don't even know — no one is coming after. So I'm left lying here, again, convinced I've ruined my one chance at love. Terrified to lose someone I'm not even sure I want. Which is its own kind of unhinged when I write it out like that.
And the exhausting part is that this isn't the first time. It's never the first time. I've been here so many times I've lost count — different guy, same spiral, same ending I've written before anything has even begun. I don't know what it feels like to just date someone, to just like someone and see what happens. By the time anything has a chance to become something, I've already lived through the whole relationship in my head. I've already grieved it. So when it actually ends, and it always does, I'm not even sad about him. I already moved on in my head three months prior. But I am sad that I couldn't just let something be. That I ruined it before anyone else got the chance to.
I'm holding a funeral for something that hasn't even started. And I've done it so many times, I know exactly what to wear.