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Dear Breakup Girl,

She was my ex's college roommate, and was dating someone at the time I fell for her. And fell I did. Wow. After some initial uneasiness, mostly due to her "other" relationship finally falling apart after some months of inevitability, she decided that she wanted to be with me, and so, there we were.

Things were great. I mean, great. Fireworks and everything -- I had never been so in love, and I think she was pretty damned smitten herself. We dated for almost 20 months, but then... the grad school thing. She lives (well, lived, since she has since moved) about 8 hours away from me, and about a month and a half after graduation, things start getting weird. She says she'll call, but doesn't. She doesn't sound too interested in talking to me. Finally, one night I call her (after she had told me she would call the night before, but hadn't) and tells me how she was out, by herself, with a male coworker who bought her drinks, paid for the evening, etc. (To my knowledge, nothing was "going on," but even so...)

Things as they were, I took this as a "not good" sign, and said that if she wasn't happy, wasn't willing to put the time in to make the long-distance thing work, she needed to reevaluate. She did, and I was single and heartbroken. I mean, I had (literally) just come to the conclusion that this was it, this was the girl I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. (I was justifying the having to work before grad school thing by telling myself that I could afford to buy a ring.)

I didn't get anything resembling an explanation until about three months later when, in a caustic phone call, she told me that she hadn't been happy for the last four or so months we were together, that she had concluded that I wasn't the person for her. I don't believe all of this, given how our last months together went, but certainly there were problems. We just never gave ourselves the chance to work them out, and I think that's what bothers me most. The woman of my dreams slipped through my fingers, and I'll never have the chance to try and see what could have been again.

Of course, I tried calling her, sending letters, even a "Dear Santa" letter in which I told "Santa" that all I wanted was to see her again. Eventually, I took the hint, and just dropped contact completely. Time passed, and no matter what I did, I could not move on. I mean, everywhere I went, in everything I did, I was searching for her, hoping to find a way to make things right again, to be happy again, to just see her smile one more time.

A few weeks ago, I got a letter in the mail. Nothing mind blowing, just a "hi, I'm alive, how are you" sort of thing. From what I've managed to put together, she's been keeping tabs of sorts on me through a mutual friend (her former roommate, my ex) just to keep tabs, but even so... the little progress I'd made just fell to pieces. I wrote back, of course, being the sap that I am, but haven't heard a peep since. I didn't really expect anything different, but hope is a dangerous thing indeed...

I guess I'm writing because I know that I have to move on, but I just can't. Today, for example, is one year since I graduated from college, and one year since I last saw her -- as I crossed the stage, and saw her sitting with the honored guests there (she was a smart one), I took her hand and just looked at her, burning that image in my mind. I've been thinking about it all day.

I've tried to meet other women, but due to a number of factors (i.e. my reluctance to open up to people right now, my lack of social outlets in the area, and the fact that I'm putting on some weight due to my quitting smoking), it's of little or no use. I'm not an unattractive person, I'm at least moderately intelligent, and I know how to "play the game." I just don't want to.

All I want is her -- but I know that's over, and no matter how much I (still) cry over it, it's done, it's final, and I've got to move on. Alone doesn't bother me; lonely does, and right now, I'm about as lonely as I think I've ever been.

Please, throw me a bone here. Anything will do. I guess what I need most is that glimmer of hope, the promise of a better day, of better things to come. I'm not sure that advice is even necessary; just tell me that things do work out eventually, and that "the sun will come out tomorrow." (It's hard when the only person in the world you truly trust is lost to you, despite getting a letter from her... there's nobody to just unload on.) Thanks...

Dear M. Proust,

Things do work out eventually, kiddo, I promise; instead of Annie, how about:

• "The bonds that unite another person to ourself exist only in our mind. Memory as it grows fainter relaxes them..."
• "There is not a woman in the world the possession of whom is as precious as that of the truths which she reveals to us by causing us to suffer."
• "We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full."

It's time.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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