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Natalie continued...

But. BG, when we talked later he said, "I don't think you should come to Pennsylvania." I was shocked. I started bawling. He told me he thought it was a waste of my time, my money, and that I wouldn't like him as much I thought I did. I thought that was ludicrous. I knew practically everything about him.

I didn't really tell him how upset it made me. But after that, Ryan started to seem really mad at me, but if I confronted him, he denied it. Finally, I asked him if he loved me anymore, and I begged him not to say yes if he didn't. He said, "I do, but you being so bummed and pessimistic all the time just turned me away." I told him I was sorry. I tried to explain that the sadder I was, the more he avoided me. But then the more he avoided me, the sadder I got. It frustrated me that he couldn't see that.

At first he didn't want to talk about it. But finally, I convinced him, and he was just like, "Okay, fine... it's hard to keep our relationship when we're not close. Whenever I talk to another girl I feel like I'm betraying you." At this point I was bawling. I told him that I didn't want him to feel like he was betraying me. He told me he still did. I didn't want to suggest that we just be friends, but I think he wanted me to. So I did...I said it as more of a question trying to sound unsure as to what he was getting at. He said, "Maybe we should try it." I told him that it didn't really matter because it is not just my decision, but I told him that I wish we could be more.

He said, "good bye." I said it, too. He said,"sweet dreams." I said it, too. And I cried then because I knew he wasn't going to tell me that he loved me before he got off-line, and I wanted him to so much. Instead, he said, "e-mail me." I hated those words so much! I was so hurt that I thought that my heart would burst from swelling. It felt like there was a hole in my chest letting cool, unbreathed air go up my burning throat, and it stung. And I cried, and I cried, and I cried.

I e-mailed him about eight times in the time period of like five days. He never replied. Some of them said they were read, some of them weren't, and some of them were deleted. He told me later that he read them all, but I don't know whether to believe him or not. Mostly I cried in my room, and read every e-mail he sent me.

Now, sometimes when I read the e-mails, I stare at the word "love" and wonder if he ever meant it. To make matters worse, I have reminders of him everywhere. I have his poem above my bed, a survey that he filled out about himself taped on my wall, almost every e-mail he wrote me and I wrote him, every pic he sent me saved on disks, his name on my book covers, and a million poems about him.

Why can't he just love me? I have all these feelings for him, but he doesn't care. It's a really major difference when you have someone go from being your best friend and talking to you every night on the computer, and on the phone on weekends; to walking on eggshells as friends, talking to him but once a week, and having to force yourself not to write him e-mails. I can't bring myself to spend the six hundred dollars, or throw away the e-mails and disks.

We are pretty good friends now, though. I talk to him a lot more than I did before; we've talked a lot about the things that went wrong and stuff. It still kills me though, and it was February when he said he didn't want to be anything more than friends! Argh.

Okay, here are my questions: What things can I learn from this relationship? Do you think that I'm obsessed with him? Do you see anyway I can get him back?!?

-- Natalie

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