The Last Email (Again)

My Dear Little Boy,

I am writing to you from the highs of Castle Village.

Yesterday was my last email with him, the BiPolar Bear.  (Again).

There will always be another last, another final, another complete and permanent Good-Bye.

The circumstances are as follows:
He was alone in his apartment all last week, and the week before.
I had gone to the party, thanked him and we began writing (again) with some regularity.

Him:

I immensely appreciate all of this, I really do.  I read your e-mails carefully and sympathetically.  I guess I sometimes just don't understand what you want from me.  I don't know that I have any great insights or whatever to impart during any discussions.  The past year for me has been the worst in my life.  I have largely avoided people, even some who are very close to me.  I'm slowly recovering, but very slowly.  Mom's passing was a hit of the most imaginable sort and I've been concerned with getting my OWN head together.  I have had no energy to devote to other people.  Please understand that.  If you had met me first a few years ago, you wouldn't recognize me now.

I subscribe to your views about humans' being social and all that.

The next party?  No idea.  That one last week took a huge amount of preparation and effort, which is probably a big part of the reason that it rolled so well.  And it DID roll well.

Now that's a pretty long e-mail from [last name}, no?  : )

Me:

That IS a long email, THANKS!!!!

I guess all I want from you is  . . . this.  Words.  Conversation in person, when you are up to it.

No offense, but I don't expect that you are really especially brilliant or have any great insights.  And that's fine.  I expect you to be  . . . human.

He responded:
It will happen. I PROMISE.  In good time, it will.

Twice a week.  And then he wrote on Thursday.  And then on Friday.

I wrote him a note, asking to see him in person.  How, after all these emails, it would be better.  (More "normal", although I know he hates that word.  Maybe I was provoking him.)  Regardless, he did not answer.  He also did not tell me he was going out (which he usually DOES when we are in the middle of an email conversation).  He simply did not respond.  He writes back the next morning (happy cheerful) that he was out all night, left at 6am and was just returning.  And that he needed some sleep before going to the opera with his piano teacher.

As always, I am glad you are going out and socializing.  But you must see my side of things.

You tell me to be patient for our friendship; however, I simply don't believe you anymore.  Nor have I any reason to trust you.

This email thing is not normal or healthy; I must exist as something to bolster your male ego or something.  And the idea of that hurts me tremendously.

In fact, here's a challenge, a DARE. 

If you are sincere in your efforts, then *call* or *invite* me somewhere. In person.  Like normal people.  Invest some of this marvelous social energy in our friendship.

Otherwise, let's please stop this charade.  I have no interest in being friends with a computer.  Or an uptight robot (which you appear to be)   ;P

Last night, I came to the realization (again) about what a stupid game this is.

Very Sincerely,

Me

Then he wrote:
Oh, stop it.  I've really grown cold to these neurotic things.  This pisses me off.  Stop this, OK?

And I, fed up from the night before, decide I've had enough.  That the emails are not what I want.  Either a normal relationship or nothing.  And I choose nothing.  Because he is making me crazy.  And I have no room for that.  

It sounds like he intends for us to be in-person friends, no?  Granted, I'm a girl, but I've done everything I can to strip away sexuality from the equation.  

Humans are complex.  Conversations are as well.  I am recording this as much for my sake as for yours.  

PS Last year, something similar happened.  I walked away, almost relieve to have him gone.  And he wrote to me a few months later.  And invited me over (!!!) for two hours.  We listened to music.

And we had a normal conversation.  (And we have rarely had one since.)

PPS  I do count the relationship in HOURS.  As of this moment, maybe 15 hours total conversation (all the talking in the street-he ALWAYS shakes my hand and greets me with a warm smile) and easily 3000 emails.

PPPS If you are questioning me, don't worry, I question my own judgment.  What if he just does not want to be friends with me?  What if he is normal and I am "crazy"?  Yet, is it crazy to want to talk to someone in person?  I cannot use him as my point of reference.