Still in love

I am crazy about my ex-girlfriend but stuck in a trial-and-error dating lifestyle. What should I do?

By Cary Tennis

Sep 10, 2002 | Dear Readers,

Last week this column asked you what it was like these days to be young. You -- those of you who are young and many who are not -- responded with an avalanche of tears and rage, introspection and vituperation, wisdom and pain. We received about 200 replies, deeply felt and carefully reasoned, by turns angry, funny, trenchant and kind. It was humbling and inspiring to read them all.

Starting Monday the 16th and continuing all next week, Salon will run a selection of those letters each day. I hope you find them as thought-provoking and moving as we did.

Dear Cary,

I am a 23-year-old guy, I just finished college a year ago and moved out for grad school in San Francisco, and everything is seemingly going according to plan (that being "the greater plan"). During college I had my first serious relationship starting my freshman year, which lasted until midway through my senior year. She is perfect for me in every sense. She is challenging, intelligent, driven, extremely beautiful, and best of all, like me, she is passionate about everything she does, and the combined passion makes each of us better in all of our endeavors. Why did we break up? Well, we both grew a lot in college and there were aspects of the relationship that suffered during this growth, and even though we both could still admit to loving each other, we were in essence driving one another crazy.

Fast-forward one year. She moved away from the town where we went to college, supposedly to go to New York or Europe, I didn't know which. We had each dated other people since this time and moved forward in our lives. I didn't see her before she left, though she had wanted to meet, as there were things that would have made it very emotionally difficult; those things aren't relevant now. A year later I had dated in the realm of 10-15 more people, with varying but overwhelmingly negative results, and never found anything that has really clicked with anyone in the way it did with the ex-girlfriend. Shortly before I decided to attend school in San Francisco she calls from out of the blue and informs me that she is living in L.A. and thinking about moving to the Bay Area. In fact, just this week she visited and despite current casual engagements we have fallen right back into a romantic situation.

Now I am a very introspective person and understand that the thrill of this reunion is largely a result of pent-up emotions and the comfort of being with someone very familiar. However, I can't help but feel even stronger about this than ever before! I feel like I am falling and all I want to do is be around her! I know that I am very young and in a city full of fun, single, interesting people and that I should be exploring new opportunities but I can't help feeling that if I let her go again I may be making a mistake that will haunt me for the rest of my life. I have no doubt that I love her and we are both open about the current impossibility of a relationship. The time is just wrong. She believes in fate and that what is meant to be will be and that in time we will find each other just as we did recently; I am more realistic about the possibility of losing her forever.

Should I pursue this girl who makes me feel better than anyone else in my life has ever done, or should I look for new avenues and continue with this trial-and-error dating lifestyle as we both have done for the past year or so?

Not Quite So Helpless Romantic

Dear Not Quite So Helpless,

Propose marriage. Tell her you want to be with her for the rest of your life and that's that. Get a yes or a no.

By invoking fate, by saying "What is meant to be will be," she may have already tried to signal to you that she has no intention of settling down. It may just be a kind, if somewhat roundabout, way of telling you no. But the only way you can find out is by giving her the question not in essay form, not as multiple choice, but as yes or no.

I'm not saying you'll get a yes. There may be aspects of the relationship, or of her feelings toward you, that you're not seeing clearly. Because you've referred only obliquely to certain past difficulties, it's hard for me to judge. But there's only one way to find out.

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