The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
Your Rejection Was The Best And Worst Thing That Happened To Me
You rejected me. Sort of. It was never an actual rejection which complicates my thoughts and makes me play scenarios in my head that probably don’t exist. You had your reasons for doing what you did. I didn’t understand why you couldn’t like me more but maybe at the time, I didn’t say the right combination of words to make you desire me, want to spend time with me, want to spend your life with me, make love to me, or even have our beautiful children together. For whatever reason, it did not work out, and although I made several efforts to let you know I liked you and wanted you, the signs between us were not getting through to each other.
Part of it is my fault. Despite not saying the right combination of words, maybe I didn’t say enough or anything at all to you that would make you think that you were and will always be the girl of my dreams. Maybe you didn’t reject me at all and I misunderstood your signs that you were giving me. I took your “busyness” and your never really wanting to be around me longer than a few hours for granted. I always treasured the time you allowed me to be with you and the time you gracefully bestowed upon me out of your busy schedule.
As I was with you, I dreaded how fast it would go because soon, I always knew it would be over, and we would be strangers again. With you, it seemed that once I was out of sight, I was out of your mind. And to even get there again required a lot of work and effort to get you to notice and pay attention to me. All I ever wanted was to be someone to you because you were always someone to me. My heart remained open to you and forever yours for the taking and loving. Unfortunately, you didn’t take my heart, and someone else managed to at least pick up the pieces you left and mold them into something that helped me have a relationship with someone else who was not you, and while I love and loved that person dearly, that person could never be you.
You would call me to hang out. I’d call you to hang out. Something made you do it. I know what made me do it: I wanted to be with you. I wanted to be yours. I wanted you to be mine. I wanted to make love to you passionately. The love I have for you would have been a love you would have never experienced with anyone else. I wanted to take you anywhere you wanted to go. I just wanted to be with you. You were my drug, my magic, my reason for living, my reason for doing all that I did. And yet, you didn’t want me. We became friends, if you could call it that. More like very distant acquaintances, as we have known each other for a long time, and we do, for some reason, keet in touch. For me, I love you. There is no other choice of words. I want to show you. I can’t just tell you. But you won’t let me show you. So the words meaning nothing if the actions cannot justify them. I’m not sure why you keep in touch, but it makes me hopeful when you do.
All these years passed and while I moved on and dated other people, not a day goes by where I don’t think of you and what we could have been. I see children and I don’t want them because there is no way I could have children with anyone but you. A few years ago, I lied to you. By simply not going after you or being true to myself. And I’m sorry for that. I can’t make up all the years we missed together and the time we can never get back, but doing all that I have done has made me who I am and I am proud of that. Yes, I have had other relationships, and I noticed you did too. I wanted them in my life so I could experience a normal life of relationships and because they were good company and provided a sexual relationship which, at the time, having decent to good sex, or even having amazing sex, will make you forget about any woman you wanted in your past. In reality, I always knew I just wanted you, and I still do. I will never ask you what you’ve done with your past sexual partners because I don’t care. I care about you and being with you and that is all that matters.
You might have thought I was the nice guy. In fact, I was nice, and I knew it. You told me so. Why would you say something else? But I am far from your definition of nice. Sure, I was the nice guy because I wasn’t going to try and sleep with you on the first date. I wanted to. Believe me. I wanted you to spread your legs so I could have my way with you. But you mean more to me than just sex. There will be time for us to ravish each other. But to call you a sexual conquest would be an insult. To call you a potential soul mate, yes, that is an honorable title to bestow. I mean, it doesn’t mean I wasn’t going to be horny for you and not let some of my animal instinct to take over. But I was the “nice guy” and walked you to your door and gave you a kiss. A kiss that changed my life forever, but maybe it did nothing for you. Sure, you agreed to another date, and a few more after that, but for some reason, my feelings for you were not being reciprocated, and so you found another man to go out with. And another. And another. Were they men who would do anything for you? Or was that just me? And with each new relationship I saw you in, my heart only broke more. It did not make bitter, but I supressed feeling.
And yet a decade later, as I keep up on the small details of what you may be doing in your life, as you call me to get together, or I call you just to catch up. I realize that no man, except myself, was willing to do anything for you. Unfortunately, you didn’t want me. At the time, I was upset, but I had to move on and make my life the best way I knew how. And so I did what I do best: I focused on working and making money. Anything to keep you off my mind, really, because it was and is still painful everyday. It drove me to become so good at my work that I started my own business, and I made a million dollars.
Instead of focusing all my time and energy on trying to get women who would sleep with me and mean nothing more than a one-night stand. Instead of being the crazed obsessed fool who doesn’t know what no means or what a lack of interest means, I know full well what it all means. So I decided I would focus on making sure my business was done right. Yes, I did date a few women here and there, but instead of making them my sole focus, making money became my focus.
When I reached my first million dollars in the bank, dating women who are not you seems to be a waste of my time. It was you. It is only you. You were it. You were not a waste of my time. You were the one I wanted. The only one I wanted to make love to and a life with, the only one I wanted to call the mother of my children, the only one who I really would ever feel comfortable being vulnerable to, and yet, you didn’t want me, as anything more than a friend.
Am I to blame? Sure. Blame me. I didn’t make the moves I was supposed to make or say the things I should have said. Not communicating with you the way I should have and hoping that you communicated with me the way you should have was going to be enough for us to realize we were meant for each other. Instead, I watched you go on dates with other men and fought everything against my being jealous toward them, because I knew that there was something special about you. You were not mine, so what say did I have? I was not special, but I had hoped I could be your special one. Unfortunately, as time passed, and I got older, I realized I was far from such a unique opportunity for you — a real chance to live my life with you and love you.
Yes, I know I say all this with a sense of entitlement, but how many men in your life will truly be yours? You were everything to me, and to not be the jealous type or be upset with you for being you and doing the things you were meant to do, I willingly accepted my life as the way it was: a life without you. And because I didn’t have you, I became a millionaire. I made so much money that I could have shared with you, and yet, it’s all mine, as I don’t have any children or anyone to share it with, because you aren’t in my life the way you need to be in it.
You called me the other day to “catch up” and “hang out”. I agreed. You actually cancelled on me a few days before, telling me you had to work over the weekend. I graciously understood and accepted, and we re-arranged our plans for another weekend. Another weekend of a new decade that I’ve been waiting for you. Waiting for you to be with me, to want be with me, and to make your life with me.
To overthink and overanalyze the situation as I did so many times before means I am already more into this relationship than you are. I can only assume your avoidance of me means we’re growing even further apart, and no matter what I do, even the slightest expression to you about how I feel about you again means losing you, and that might just be worth it. What would you have me do now? The fact that we both realize we missed an opportunity. Or maybe I am the only one who noticed? Or do I just come clean about the way I still feel about you and risk never hearing from you again? To make this decision is probably best, as the last time we spoke was a year ago. We are hardly “friends” now that I think about it.
To be considerate, after we concluded our lunch, which I didn’t want to put you on the spot, so we talked about our not-together lives, and then you offered to cover the tab. Honey, I know I didn’t tell you how much I am worth now because I’d want you to love me for me and not my money, but I could buy the business and the entire building if you’d like. I could buy the entire lot if that would mean I get to spend my life with you. Trust me, I have the tab covered and would love to cover your tab for the rest of our lives together. In exchange, all I would ever ask for is your loyalty, love, and your time to be with me. I know that might be asking you for too much, but we’re all after something. I’m still after you.
Now that I’m a millionaire. I wonder if you would only want me now because I have money? Or you secretly desired me depsite a decade of us not happening. My love for you would make others call me an idiot, for the fact that I worked so hard to make my first million dollars, thinking that maybe, just maybe, if I had that money, I could at least forget about you. But forgetting about you is impossible. It’s not something I want. And while I did the work, I made my first million so I could take care of you and not struggle to make sure we both were living our best lives.
I struggle to understand my feelings for you, because despite all that I went through without you and all that you went through without me, I still want you. I can only hope that you forgive me for not being there for your big moments, but it does not change the way I feel about you. Maybe others might say I am obsessed with you. However, I let you live your life, just as I moved on and lived mine. I didn’t stalk you. I only answered your calls, or occasionally made a call to you, in hopes to reach out, thinking that maybe this time, this meeting, this catch up, would make you see the one for you, see the man that you caused me to be, a man still in love with you.
With you, I wouldn’t have focused all my time and energy into becoming a millionaire. I would’ve focused on you and making you happy, making our children happy, and making sure your parents and siblings were happy. Yet, now if we changed things, and it did happen, I have become so busy with my business that I’m not sure I am the same man you once knew. I know I am still the man who wants to please you and make you happy, but I often struggle to find time even for myself.
Others may call me stupid, but I’d give up all the money in the world, just to spend another minute with you. I could easily tell you that you were responsible for being my inspiration to become a millionaire, but all you really did was not want me beyond being anything other than another human being in passing for the few times we were together. You didn’t want me by not wanting me in your life anymore than being your friend. And maybe, just maybe, that was the way it was meant to be so that I could become a millionaire, even if it meant living my life without you.
I wonder whether I would have still been a millionaire had you accepted me and allowed me into your life. I know that I had to take a lot of time out, a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of years with almost no sex or any human intimacy at all, or allowing it into my life sometimes just so that I could keep you off my mind, as I worked diligently to do what I was good at doing. Having you in my life would have probably made me realize quickly just how much money can easily buy you happiness, but it can never buy the things that matter most: time and love. Two of the most precious things I will never get to have with you.
I didn’t get much time with you. I didn’t get to love you the way we should have loved each other and while I can boast about my millions to my friends and family or hang out with other startup millionaires who only continue working hard to make more millions, it does not ever compare to your smile, your laugh, your eyes, or your presence. I miss you everyday that you make no effort to communicate with me or be in my life. I miss you when you don’t respond to my texts and act as if you don’t understand technology, knowing full well if it wasn’t me, you’d probably respond immediately. I miss you everyday that you make excuses for why you can’t see me or be with me. It hurts even more when I realize I will be dying without you in my life.
I’d trade my first million dollars just to have the opportunity to be in your life, to be with you, to go through life with you, to take lavish vacations with you, to spoil you, to love you, and to have those feelings reciprocated. I know, however, that I am asking you of too much already. I know that no matter how much I dream, no matter where I’ve been or where I go, no matter how much money I have, had, or made, it never brought me any closer to you. Accepting that I’ll never have you is a harder reality to face than realizing I could reach a million dollars.
