He Told Me He Loved Me Then FaceTimed His Date To Me

I wanted to write about this hours after it happened, but I knew it would be a reckless piece and I still wasn't sure of the magnitude of the situation; I wasn't sure if the sick feeling I felt was distaste for him, or a knee jerk overreaction. It's been a few days and with every day that passes, every time I listen to 'My Face' by Skegss and every time I talk to someone else, I feel the emotion and thoughts of this slip away. I want to capture this emotion before it leaves my body like capturing a moment of pure pain before the poison evaporates. 

To fully express my feelings and thoughts on this we'll need to examine who I was and what I was looking at when I met this man, my ex, and oh it feels strange to say that. How did I feel when I met him? Did he do what he's done and doing to me, to a girl before him? 

Well he was charming; he still is. And just like the day we met to the moment I'm typing these keys, he knows just what to say. I was firstly attracted to what I thought was emotional maturity, he is 8 years my senior (30 fyi) and the boys i'd dealt with before had always been just a few years older than me and it still felt like I was dating emotionally immature people. 

I fell so damn hard for this person so damn quick that I didn't even stop to see the signs. One of the red flags being distance, that being an important key for later. All of these things are important for later and I don't really want to focus on the relationship between the bread because while it was all good fillings, it's the bread at the end that's gone mouldy and has completely ruined what you thought was in the middle. 

We had a good break up, I thought I had a good understanding of what we were and how we felt leaving the relationship and entering a hybrid between that and friendship. He has told me he loved me at the end of calls almost every day since the breakup (we broke up months ago) and we talked every day up until he did the thing. An extremely important part of this and why I'm mentioning it, is that not 24 hours before he did the thing he told me he loved me and for the first time since our breakup I didn't say it back because it startled me, I still haven't been able to pick up just why and I might not ever find out. 

It's important to know that we facetime, call and message each other throughout the days exactly like we did in our 1-2 year relationship, nothing had changed, still sending 'xo', 'i love you's' and 'i miss you's'. It's also important to note that I have slept with and gone on dates with a handful of men since the breakup, never entering into anything serious and always being honest with them about my feelings for him and understanding within myself of the reality in the predicament. I have never and would never do what he's done to me or to his date. 

So just a recap on everything so far: he told me he loved me, facetime isn't unusual and he knew I still loved him. Pretty simple. 

On Friday night I was sitting on my bed doing some self care, with a mask on my face and a hair mask, well...in my hair. I had bought my favourite Glasshouse candle (tahaa) and had a book ready to read. Usually one of us would have called each other by now so I FaceTimed him and he answered pretty quickly. There he was, such a familiar warm face, but there was a smirk on it tonight and it was pretty obvious he'd been drinking. He waved into the camera and I cautiously waved back. The setting was a restaurant or bar dimly lit and moderately loud. I asked what he was doing, it wasn't unusual for him to be out alone or with friends. "I'm on a date" he said loudly. I felt a bit sick, like when you're going over a speed bump, but I almost didn't believe him. But now the smirk is starting to make more sense. I almost didn't want to see but a small part of me probably benefited from seeing her. She was innocently waving at me, smiling with a glass of wine. She doesn't even know who she's waving to at this point. But she will soon and if she didn't pick up on it then shit...

I asked him why he would answer a call from me, Facetime her to me when he told me he loved me not 24 hours before. "You're going on a date on Sunday so I can do this" he said as if he was a child proclaiming he could do what he wants because his sister got to do something that made him jealous. It's important to note that he said this while still sitting next to her. To that I told him how disrespectful it is for him to be doing this to her and to me, he laughed into the phone and hung up. 

To say I was a little disoriented about the situation would be an understatement. I told my room mates what happened and they were just as confused as I was. We thought we knew him. But everything I thought I knew disappeared the more and more I mulled over it. 

So for anyone out there reading this, not understanding the severity of this situation let me explain the morality of it. It comes down to manners. The core of this entire situation is manners and respect for the people you're interacting with. 

I don't care that he's on a date, it would be foolish and selfish of me to try and restrict his basic human need for the comfort of another human being especially when I'm doing it too. So let me give you a scenario that will bring you in on a non bias angle and this hypothetical situation has helped me realise that my hurting is not an overreaction. 

Example: You are a person, who has a friend who is deeply in love with you. You go on a date and this friend calls you, do you answer the call and proclaim you're on a date and then show this friend your date? 

If you answered 'no' to this then it's probably because you have manners and respect your friend enough to know that doing this would be cruel and completely unnecessary. You would understand that while you can do whatever you want, rubbing it in the face of this friend after telling them you love them would confuse and hurt them and there's nothing real to gain from that. If you answered 'yes, there's nothing wrong with the situation', then I'm sorry but your moral compass can't quite find north. 

When I expressed just this to him in message my hurt and feelings went ignored, literally. I sent him a paragraph of why it was wrong, how it made me feel and all the rest that follows and he texts back 'I hope work isn't too painful tonight'. Most of my friends are sick of hearing about the shit he does to me, someone even told me I deserve it for even being friends with him, another friend said he's a sociopath, says the right things, is the outwardly charming guy but at the end of it has no empathy for the people around him and no understanding of the hurt he inflicts on others. What do I think? Well I'm not completely made up on that one. I know that he's done something pretty unforgivable and instead of remembering what he did to me I choose to chalk it down to the fact that he lacks the morals I look for in a man and a friend. I feel betrayed by the person I thought I knew. 

When I mentioned distance earlier in this piece I said it would be important. It's important because I never thought I'd have to see him on a date, to happen to be in the same place, the same party, the same restaurant or the same movie to feel what I'm feeling now. But because he had the means to show me that feeling so forcefully and so brutally I now know that I will not die if I see him with another woman, he will die in my eyes. The person I fell in love with would never have done this to me. Would never have smirked in my face, laughed into the phone at my pain or ignored my feelings by failing to empathise while changing the subject. 

So to the woman I saw, wine in hand, innocently waving into my screen, regardless of whether you see him again know that you are not my enemy. I'm not jealous nor envious because i've experienced his charm and lived through his love. You weren't to know he was professing his love for me hours before, you didn't even ask for this, that's our common denominator. If your connection with him grows past this point I hope you never know the love we had or that your relationship may have sparked from spite or jealousy. I hope your future in love and romance is as pure and innocent as you looked the night I first saw you.