Did I Ever Have the Self Respect to Say, "It's Over" Before? So Why Didn't You Believe Me?

I finally cut college boyfriend out of my life. I know that I've already told a few of my friends, and I don't know whether or not they believed me, because I didn't believe me at first. When I talked to my mother about it, I was calm and rational, so she believed me, but we also used words like "for now," and "until a better time."

I don't think I need him any more, even though I thought I did for a while. He was a good friend sometimes, but more often than not, he was selfish and just plain mean. I know he didn't mean to be, because he's a "nice guy,"* and all, but he was pretty much the worst specimen of ex-boyfriend I've ever had to deal with (*nice guy, not only in the way that most guys can be described as a "nice guy," but also in the way that means that he's afraid of conflict and will be an accidental asshole rather than have the balls to do the right thing if it means being "mean" in the conventional sense).

I've had ex-boyfriends tell me that the only reason I was at MIT was because of affirmative action (when I knew their SAT scores and class rank weren't as good as mine). I had a boyfriend use the last leg of our relationship as a means to hit on one of my friends. I had another boyfriend who borrowed money from me on a consistent basis.

None of them were remotely as bad for me as college boyfriend; none of them hurt me nearly as much as he did.

And he had the audacity to parade around pretending to be my friend, sending me music and calling me when he was bored. He doesn't have time for a relationship right now, but if he did, he wouldn't call me to talk about useless crap like cars and music and how work is going. He wouldn't even think about me.

And despite knowing all of this in the back of my heart, I took his calls, like the lonely, scared little girl I was [because of him]. I reached out for the scraps of friendship he was tossing in my direction. And I was grateful! How pathetic! I didn't want him back. I don't ever want him back, but still, I thought I could "rise above it." I thought I could be "bigger than this." I thought that I was cool.

It turns out, dumping his ass made me feel so much better than hanging on to his pathetic excuse for a friendship. Publicly calling him names on this blog got rid of him! (yes, it was deleted right after he saw it, and if I remember correctly, no one who reads this regularly saw it before he did) I know it was kind of mean (but not really, because the way out last conversation went, he probably did think that he was the guy I was talking about), and even though I was pissed beyond belief at him, it wasn't out of anger that I called him out, but out of genuine desire for him to finally comprehend that NO, I DON'T WANT TO BE WITH YOU. EVER. EVER AGAIN. JESUS CHRIST, DO I HAVE TO TATTOO IT ON MY FOREHEAD? DO I HAVE TO WRITE IT IN BLOOD? I DON'T FUCKING WANT TO BE WITH YOU. EVER AGAIN. Seriously.

The funniest part of all of this is that if he had been a man about dumping me, maybe in some alternate universe we could have been friends, even though I know it was the worst possible thing in the world for me.

So thank you, college boyfriend. I guess. It took a whole year, but the idiotic "friendship" spell I had over myself was finally broken.

*And I only write this because I'm so happy about it I want to scream it off the rooftops. I know there's still anger and resentment, deep down, and it will probably always be there, but I'm finally in a better place about the whole thing. A less bitter place. And I only waited a few weeks to talk about it because I wanted to make sure I really felt this way.