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Dear Breakup Girl,

I need help getting some perspective. Something really wonderful happened to me, but the subtle wheel of time and events has made that really wonderful thing feel imagined, tarnished, and, um...dumb.

I met a girl...but only for a little while. She was living in the city for the summer (between years at grad school in another state) and was also in the process of getting over a guy she had fallen in love with but then separated from shortly before moving out here. When we met, I had one of those eye-to-eye contact flashes with her that left me feeling, "Uh-oh, here we go. I'm had," before I even sat down at the table with her and my friends. The girl has brown eyes you could meditate in.

So we met, flirted in the most delightful way I've ever had the pleasure to flirt, and, down the line, wound up in bed. All of this with the complete knowledge on my part that she was getting over another guy, that she was leaving, and that what we were indeed having a fling. Needless to say, I fell for her. The girl was so present with me -- so sweet, so honest, so intelligent -- all of the things a guy such as myself could ever ask for. Hell, she was even a poet. So the Brown-Eyed Poet spends her time with me, a few wonderful days were had (as well as some very in-the-moment, not trying to be sexy, just purely delicious, sex). Every now and then life gives you a present, it seemed.

I take her to the airport; we say goodbye. When she's gone, I realize I fell for her. I admit as much via e-mail and get the "I can't date you" response. It was a little harsh, so I call her on that and on all of the things you just can't expect not to happen when you hop into bed with a guy: he might fall for you; he might just want to know it was special for you as well; he might be prone to wishing something could happen long distance between the two of you. I'm a pretty levelheaded guy these days, so I didn't read her the riot act; I just told her the truth. She received my response to her "I can't date you" e-mail well. She had been thinking about what she wrote, had realized it was harsh, and apologized for it. She did, however, need some time (due to her return to school and all of the stress related to that, as well as entering the arena of her ex). We would be friends; we'd do the e-mail and keep in touch thing, and that would be that. End of chapter.

That's the relationship in a huge nutshell. But the really great thing that happened happened after all of that went down. I realized something had opened up inside of me. A blossoming of the heart -- good Lord that sounds funny -- but seriously, that's a good way to put it. I opened up to someone for the first time in four years. I hadn't even done that with the girl I dated off and on for a year last year. The good stuff inside of me, the gooey stuff, was touched. I had opened up to it again. I suppose past relationships had wrapped it up pretty tight. But there it was. I realized that, though the Brown-Eyed Poet was out of the picture, I stood with this enriching thing living right in my chest because I had opened it up not only for the girl (without realizing it), but also for myself. Pure magic.

Here's where I need the perspective: I just found out she wound up back with the boyfriend she had been getting over this past summer. Now, it's one thing to be a part of a girl's getting-over-her-ex process, but it's another thing entirely to be a speedbump on a lonely road in a dark part of a relationship. What happened between us doesn't feel all that important anymore; it feels sort of empty. Whatever I might have shown her about herself and the guy she complained about the whole damn time appears to have been nothing more than a time-passing device. To her credit, she didn't hide anything for me; she wrote me to tell me she had gotten back together with him and even acknowledged that her actions with me seem selfish now. She's a great girl, but the situation is what it is. I feel a little used and a little juvenile. Really, I'm just plain unhappy about it.

So this great thing I had from the experience. This feeling like I had been touched -- and had touched someone else -- just got squarshed. In fact, the physical presence it had inside of me has suddenly vanished. The opening up appears to be saying, "See! That's what you get!" and has wound up tight in my gut again, only to be seen in slide shows of memory. It's horrible. I liked that feeling and looked forward to being able to share it with someone down the line. Now it's gone, like a scared kitten. Help me coax that feeling back out into the light.

--Nathyn

Dear Nathyn,

Here, kitty! I know Brown Eyes made you blue, but it's like I told J.B., and as you started to sense yourself: girlfriend stopped by to give you the magic beans. She was actually the mysterious maiden -- okay, the heinous two-faced hag, if it makes you feel any better -- who approaches you partway through your story, holding out the plump little velvet bag. You take them, and you thank her, and you feel ... a blossoming of the heart. She leaves, off to do who knows what? Marry the evil prince she hates because the King has decreed it so, or because she has low self-esteem, or something? Follow those still-swirly boyfriendy feelings back to that stablehand? Who's to say, Nathyn? I say whatever happened after doesn't necessarily negate or sully what happened before. You had that very special blossom -- you said it yourself -- even though she was out of the picture. You had it -- you said it yourself -- for yourself. Sure, a cloud may be passing right now. But if you plant those beans right, they remind you not of what you lost, not of what you suspect you were somehow duped into feeling, but of what you have finally felt again -- albeit briefly -- and what you've thus proven you can have yet again ... with some poet princess who's sticking around. See, that's what you get.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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