I hate the game and I don't want to play anymore

It can’t be love if it hurts this much, right? Love shouldn’t hurt, should it?

I knew the rules going into the game. The problem is, the rules were written by a man and a woman can not play a man’s game in a man’s way and win. Besides, the rules sucked. They were stupid. They were there for a reason, and I ignored them. Stupid. It was a stupid game with stupid rules. A part of me knew I would never win, but I thought I could handle playing for a while. Wrong again. I know the best way to win now is to stop playing, but a part of me won’t stop playing.

LadiBug says “Tell him to F@#k off. Walk away. Screw him, he’s being an ass and you’re better than that.” Yeah, I know that. At least in my head. Tell my heart to tell him to f#@k off. Not so easy.

If I push him away, hoping he’ll push back, I lose, because he won’t push back. If I push him away, he’ll just walk away, and never look back, and never miss me. If I build walls between us to see if he cares enough to knock them down, the walls will be there forever. I will be the one who tears down the walls, only to find he’s gone.

Isn’t that answer enough?Even as I write this, I find myself telling myself ‘Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe he’s just blowing smoke. He’s done that before. It doesn’t mean anything. Don’t do anything rash and drastic just yet.’ And yet, sticking around doesn’t make it easier, it makes it harder to accept the truth, whatever that is. I don’t know any more.

I’ve been lying to myself all along. And letting everyone around me help me believe those lies. Recalling things he said or did, editing for content, so that it was a bigger deal to me, and sounded more like the real thing, than it really was. Building high the pedestal I put him on. Building it out of hopes and dreams for a tomorrow that would never come. Ignoring him when he said and did things to rip the rose colored glasses from my eyes and made me face the cold hard truth, that his heart was off limits and would never be mine, no matter how hard I wished it otherwise. After all, didn't he tell me from the very beginning, "Don't fall in love with me?" Didn't I go and ask other people's opinions? Didn't they tell me to believe what he said? Didn't I have fair warning, and I chose to ignore it. That means, I've got no one to blame for this pain but myself.

How do I find the strength to walk away now? How do I find the courage to once again admit I fucked up and lost? How do I deal with the fact that I have managed to find yet another one who can’t/won’t/doesn’t love me? How to settle this in my head, that he was wonderful, amazing, and everything I thought I wanted? I thought, I finally found what I deserve, I finally found a good one, only to wake up and realize Nope, I didn’t. This one is just like all the rest.

I can sit here and make excuses for him. I can sit here and rationalize everything away. I can sit here and convince myself he didn’t mean what he said, after all, he’s done that before. He’s said things that could have hurt me if I had let them, but they turned out not to be true. Maybe this is just another example of that. But if it is, why should I have to play that game at all? Why does he feel the need to push me away and hurt me? M aybe he's not playing games. Maybe the only games being played here are the ones I'm playing with myself. Maybe it's the fact that I've built everything up in my own head that's the game that's being played.

And that right there is the reason to walk away. The games he wants to play with my head and my heart aren’t worth playing. I'm not even sure he's playing games. Maybe it just seems like games because of my expectations and my hopes and dreams. Maybe it's the way that I look at things he says and does. Maybe he's been nothing but honest from the very beginning and I just read way too much into way too little and pinned too many hopes and dreams on something that's not really there. It’s not love and it’s not good, and it’s not healthy if there are sick and twisted and painful games being played with my head and my heart.

Please, whatever you do, please, please don't send me an email telling me how sorry you are that I'm hurting, again. I know that you mean well, but it doesn't help. It just makes me feel like a bigger idiot, a bigger fool.

I'm beginning to think love doesn't exist, and it will never be a part of my life. I'm beginning to believe that I'm destined to be alone and I should just start getting used to that fact. Maybe I should get a cat, or two or ten. I don' t know how to play this game! I don't know how to win. I don't get it. I don't understand.