unrequited love in the name of sexuality, maybe

I knew a boy in high school. Milo. We had actually met in 8th grade. He was tall, brunette, medium-ugly. Come to think of it now, he was honestly just ugly. His eyes looked like they were glued on his face due to how far back in his skull they had been. His lips were always curled out in a pout, making him look like he was punched. You may think of me as mean for such a description of a human being, but I feel no remorse for him whatsoever. I wish him well now, but that doesn’t trade my honesty. We were friends, but we also had been right below something more. We were flirts; we were kids. The truth is, we were this way for about three years. I had been utterly devoted to him, and to him I had always been on the back-burner. I was the person he relied on for everything, especially when there was not another girl to give him support. Now, what about me made me the second option? I wasn’t dull, I just wasn’t rebellious. My extracurriculars were maintained in my art and his were maintained in pretending to be someone he was not. He was a football player but had always been benched. He wanted nothing more than status.

 He had a best friend for life who was a girl. They grew up together, and were quite estranged in such a relationship. It was quite foolish, and now at 22, it remains foolish. They are at the point where they drink each other’s blood and force their significant others to watch. There is no world in which that sort of friendship could bring them any comfort. Being in love with him meant I had to be comfortable with their relationship. Quite honestly, it didn’t bother me until I learned that they bring the worst out in each other. Being with them was basically like being a fly on the wall. You watch silently, buzz around quietly, but your presence is enough to annoy them. 

She threw mediocre house parties, with invitations open to the entire county. I felt obligated to attend them. I wasn’t a party girl. I wanted to be in my room at 8 at night on a Friday watching an art house film and deeply analyze it until my eyes were so tired that I had no choice but to fall asleep. But, I owed it to them to be present, even if boredom came with it. Being with people who didn’t know who they were, made me feel lost in myself. They had opened themselves to me in a hard time, which made me feel like I was in debt to them. The least I could do was show up to their parties, I guess. Well, I pined for him for years. They made me believe my 8th grade boyfriend cheated on me, which had sent said boyfriend into a spiral of depression for years, they then locked me in a room with him after our breakup while he was sad and high until 3 am while I just listened to him cry and watched the clock tick. His snot actively being wiped on his sleeve and his sleeve on his pants. I wanted to run. I regretted all of my decisions at that moment. I thought my presence meant something to them, that having me there was honorable, yet every time they set me up. 

Milo knew I had been pining. I had been vocal in my intentions. Yet he would constantly ask me to teach him the art of kissing while also consequently tell me about the girls he was into. He would always keep me interested, yet would never fully invest in me. When I finally started to move on from him, he started to fight back. Now, I was his muse. Now I was interesting, intelligent, the only one who could help him. But he must’ve mistaken me for a fool, for forgetting who I was. I don’t know why boys love to embarrass themselves, yet they do such a good job at it. I had started to lose interest in him noticeably. His way to gain me back was by attempting to flirt. Now, let me be honest, he wasn’t a smart guy, and he did not acquire any actual skills of flirting when he was actually interested in gaining something from it. One night, I got a text from him saying that his d*ck was bigger than mine which I replied “There is no way yours is bigger than mine”, considering I don’t have one since I’ve been assigned female as birth and had no plans on changing that. I grabbed a bottle and shoved it in my pants jokingly, but never sent him a picture. He later replied to my message saying “that’s not true and if you say it again, I will show it to you”. I had no interest in seeing what “monster” he hid in his pants and before I got to respond, I had an unopened picture sent to me of said penis. Even at the age of 14, I was unimpressed. His attempt to wow me just ended up in his own humiliation and my own disintegration toward him. I had lost it all. 

Milo ended up getting a girlfriend in which he would end up dating for 4 years. She would later cheat on him and then cheat on her new boyfriend with him. At one of the parties we attended, he, his girlfriend and I. He told me about struggles with his sexuality and that there is a strong possibility he is into men. I assured him there was nothing wrong with him, yet felt relieved that maybe it wasn’t me that he didn’t want, rather me. That brought me satisfaction, especially now that I was in on a secret that no one else had been. I think he later got really lost in himself. We just automatically distanced. As much as I understood him, I couldn’t help but to grow angry with the entire situation. Leading me on and lying to me about my previous boyfriend was not in the cards for a good friend. I had relentlessly grown spiteful of him, I can’t help but to despise looking at him. I decided to end our friendship by quietly ghosting him, but he was still in an attempt to reach out and had been fully ignored. Years later, my immaturity got the best of me and without my knowledge, I woke up at 3 am for a one long week and sent him the most foul messages a person could ever receive. My subconscious was working overtime and my sleeping anger was getting the best of me. I blocked him and haven’t heard of him ever since. Milo later ended up leading on many girls while actively having an account on Grindr.