edit: typo in title. He was 39M.
Hi everyone. Throwaway account for this post.
A few years ago, I drove an hour and a half to meet a guy from tinder for a hookup. We talked for 5 or 6 hours that day before we even slept together. I called in sick to work the next day because we were up all night (this is not like me). Because he lived far away, and also because I never say what I feel or want (even to myself sometimes?), we kept things casual and repeated this a dozen or so times over the next year. He visited me and took me out once and we had plans to go to a concert a month or so later but in the interim he started a relationship with a woman who lived closer to him. I was bummed, but I'm not one to a) say that or b) try to send any animosity into any relationship. He did express a bit of dissatisfaction with her at the beginning, but I didn't say "hey--don't date her. date me." I only thought it. I think that's what I wanted, but I also think I was afraid that he would reject me, or that he would dump her and then I would be worse, or I wouldn't want a relationship anymore and I'd have ruined what he had with her. I have lived alone for my entire adult life and have never had a "serious" relationship. I am terrified of the prospect but also deeply want to change that. This was the case then and now.
Anyway, we stayed friends and continued to text intermittently since then--sometimes extensively for hours, sometimes not at all for weeks and weeks. He is one of the smartest, funniest people I have ever known.
We hung out once this year. before we met up, he told me it was too bad that we couldn't have fun like we used to, but that he had to avoid "questionable behavior" around me because I was on his "might marry her someday" list. I responded by telling him he should have told me that when he was single, and then laughed it off with some joke about which celebrities might be on his list as well. I didn't tell him that he was on mine. I didn't tell him that I always just kind of assumed they would break up and we would hang out again, or date, or I Don't Know. I just felt like that was inevitable. I filtered every date I went on through comparisons to him.
As I said, it wasn't terribly unusual for us to go weeks or even more than a month without texting. Last week, I texted him (we always talked about music, and I asked his opinion on a new song) but he didn't reply. This wasn't strange--both of us are like that, and take time to reply sometimes. It was one of the things I liked about our friendship: no pressure to reply immediately. But after a few days I got a very bad feeling. He would have had something to say about what I sent. Because of that feeling, I googled his name and city.
I found his obituary. He died last month. I have no idea what happened--the obituary says unexpected and natural causes. It's a beautiful obituary--full of things I loved about him and some I didn't know.
The world is a worse place without him. I am so overcome with sadness that I at first couldn't sleep and cannot stop having crying fits. I keep needing to re-open his obituary to confirm to myself that it is real and has happened.
We have no mutual friends. There was no one to tell me when he died and if I were less inclined to google EVERYTHING I might have just gone on thinking he just stopped talking to me. This also means that as supportive as my friends may be right now, none of them knew him at all. I talked about him some over the year, and my closest friend mostly replied by warning me to stop talking to him (which is fair - he had a girlfriend! and she didn't quite believe me that we were just friends--even though as I said, when I saw him early this year he made no attempt to cheat on the girlfriend other than a bit of flirtation that it was a shame). But this means there is no one for me to talk to him about him who understands who his was and what is lost now that he is gone.
I just don't know how to grieve this. I know every type of grief is different, and I've been lucky enough not to have a ton of it so far in my life, so I may just not have the frame of reference. But I feel so completely alone. There were no services and I can find nothing on those find a grave sites (I know he was cremated but it seems he would have a memorial of some sort?) and I don't know anyone to ask. He had absolutely no social media, although I did find his girlfriend's facebook page (her name was published in the obituary) and it is mostly private. I cannot imagine the grief that she is experiencing, grief that dwarfs mine, and I would never want to reach out to her and burden her, so that isn't an option at all. However, it would be nice to talk to someone--anyone--who knew him, even just to ask if there is a memorial I can visit. I did send a goodbye text to his phone number, but it's not enough. I am considering contacting someone who worked with him.
I keep regretting things I didn't say. It seems silly -- of course the thing I actually regret is that he died, and I have no control over that. So instead I pick apart every way I failed to express to him how important he was to me. This is all compounded by the fact that I have a very hard time getting close to anyone.
I don't know what I expect to get out of posting this, but I am hoping maybe someone has advice or can relate or will at least hear what I'm feeling. Thank you.
**TL;DR**: A former friend-with-benefits/current friend with no mutual friends died. I found out a month later when I googled him after no reply to a text. I don't know how to grieve and I am overwhelmed. He was smart, funny, and kind, and the world is worse without him. I am worse without him. I am sad. I am so, so sad and I don't know what to do.
Submitted July 29, 2020 at 10:53PM by differentgrief https://ift.tt/2D0iYnC
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