‘Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.’ Something so profound is often tried to be explained with words. It runs through books, songs, films, any sort of fictional entity has love as the main theme. The characters find their happily ever afters, warming the hearts of the audience a thousand times over. But what about the not so happy ever afters? What about the heartbreak which isn’t made better by the hero getting there in the knick of time? The fiction tells lies, hence ‘fiction.’
My attempted happily ever after involves the most important guy in my life, Shaun. Our ‘relationship’ was not conventional, nor was it normal or accepted. You see I have never met him. It was the 22nd of September 2006 when we first started talking on Myspace I was 14. Shaun’s Irish and he lives in Dublin, I live in England and he’s two years older than me. We hardly talk now after 4 years, but he changed my world. The beginning is probably the best place to start. We started with general small talk, we spoke most days. The days then led to weeks and months, we were speaking for a few hours every day. I started to realise I had feelings for him in a strange way and vice versa. He gave me a sense of security and he made me laugh from the start. He was perfect and although it was through the computer it felt so real. I never spoke to him on the phone or on webcam but it didn’t make it feel any less real. We had personal jokes and a similar sense of humour. He told me I was beautiful and after months he said he loved me. I’d never had that before, and you wouldn’t understand it unless you’ve experienced it. We spoke about what we’d do, where we’d go and how he’d be with me. The way he made me feel was more real than anything I’ve ever experienced, question it if you will. How I felt and how I still feel, makes me sure that however impossible it is, it was love. It lasted on and off for 4 years, there were some issues’ surrounding us, another girl who I knew became involved and was interested in him. She tried to end whatever it was we had by manipulation and lies. Funny really, that we fought over a guy neither of us had met.
It was some sort of vicious circle; the more I spoke to him the more I wanted him. He was meant to visit me in the summer of 2007, but I realised in the months leading up to it that our relationship was idiotic and it ended. It didn’t last long until we started speaking again; he was there when nobody else was. The love and knowledge that somebody actually cared about me was what kept me going back to him. One night we stayed up talking until 2 AM arguing we loved each other more, then we wrote ‘the reasons’ a list of a 100 reasons why we loved each other. It’s embarrassing really, that’s why I didn’t disclose any details about him. Shaun went through a really hard time; his parents were never stable, his dad had an affair years before. Then sadly his dad died in July 2008, I never felt so helpless. I was in Greece when I found out; I couldn’t be there for him, for what he was going through. Not even speaking to him online. I wanted to be with him so much and comfort him, to try and help him through it but I couldn’t and he became distant. He was going to a university about half an hour away from me that September, the night he had a going away party his mum was in a car accident. She was very ill through September and he knew he couldn’t leave her. So he couldn’t go to university, I was devastated but understood.
After my Grandma died in November 2008 he was my comfort, a release and my rock. For someone to be able to cheer you up even when they’re not even with you indicated the bond we had. It was only a short amount of time again, we weren’t as close as before and I felt he didn’t love me anymore. I could sense it; it felt like there wasn’t enough to keep us together, to keep us talking. We both went out more, did other things. Got bored of msn, got bored of the routine we had. We still spoke every so often at least twice a week, until he disappeared. June 2009, he just vanished, I tried to send him comments, send him texts, emails until I finally gave up. A couple of months went by, I lost all hope. The wondering killed me, it wasn’t only the fact I wasn’t talking to him. It wasn’t knowing where he’d gone which was the worst, at points I assumed the worst had happened. I couldn’t get my mind around it, it’s a hopeless feeling and it couldn’t be changed. I’d never felt so lost, it was as though I was grieving him. For someone you speak to every day to just vanish and never get in touch again. It’s nothing you can even try and understand, it’s an endless feeling. To lose three years so quickly it was awful. I told myself to try and forget everything; I wanted to pretend he’d ever existed just to make it easier. I burnt ‘the reasons’ in my back garden when it was raining, so cliché but I remember it so clearly. Trying to forget him was the best plan I could think of and it worked, until he reappeared. Two or three months later I saw he’d come onto Myspace, my heart sank. It was after my holiday, I tried to talk but he ignored me. He deleted his Myspace, didn’t reply to emails, at this point I’d lost all sadness. Just became angry, he eventually spoke to me on MSN. He didn’t want to explain at first, but he sent me an email telling me that it was the anniversary of his dad’s death. He felt like he’d died all over again he properly grieved him. He planned to go to university again in 2009, but I knew it wouldn’t have happened when he vanished.
We rarely spoke after that, and then decided that would be it. We ended everything; we agreed it wasn’t the same and that we had to give up. I loved him, but the idea that we couldn’t be together was too much. It’s an endless feeling of desperation, and I’ve never wanted something so much in my life. It was hard, and to this day I still remain in love with him. I cried for hours during the emails we sent, tears just rolled down my face and my heart just ached. It physically hurt. I still have his email in my inbox, ‘you’re a beautiful person inside and out.’ The words are still implanted in my memory; I could probably recite it I’ve read it that many times. We still speak once in a while, I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, I mean it brings back all the feelings. Most times we get onto what happened between us and I still hope that we’ll be together and ending the conversation with ‘love you.’ I don’t want to believe it’s never going to happen, I want to believe that somewhere in the future we’ll meet and the feelings will rush back and we’ll have some romantic weekend where we’ll be the couple we talked about.
Today nearly 4 years later, I still feel like he’s the only person I could ever be in love with, and I hope that when I go to university he’ll visit me. I just don’t want to believe that we’ve lost, that we can’t ever be ‘us, that desire is all we have left.
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