Dave's rants and musings

Bit of a venting post here, just wanting to get stuff off my chest.

For my followers that don’t know me very well personally: Hi, I’m Dave. I’m a University student in Aberystwyth, Wales. I like gaming, NERF, some roleplaying, Homestuck, Dr Who, Star Wars, Marvel Comics, Star Trek and many, many other things.

And the reason for writing this post: I just ended an almost two and a half year relationship under a month ago. And I feel shit about it.

When I say I feel shit about it, that’s not to say I feel all bad, that I regret the decision completely, or anything like that. But my feelings are just conflicted, as in the title.

Everything started really well. Met this girl quite randomly, and we hit it off instantly. Got to know each other over Skype and whatnot, confessed feelings for each other, yadayada. When we saw each other again about a month or two later we made it official.

Very important point: This was a long-distance relationship from the very beginning. She was from Switzerland, at that moment part of a travelling theater group. I was living in Poland, then moved to the UK. So our relationship was either me in Poland and her travelling around Germany/Poland, me in the US and her in Switzerland, me in UK and her in Switzerland.

So for about a year everything was going well. Yeah, there were things that I knew we disagreed upon, such as her being more religious than me, her dislike to alcohol, which resulted in her not wanting to kiss me after literally a sip of anything alcoholic. I was young (18+) and in love and figured everything would be fine.

Then, stupidly, since we had talked so much about marriage and a future together and blah blah blah, I proposed about a year after we first got together. I was happy, she was happy, there were congratulations, etc etc etc.

Things continued to be fine for another 9 months or so. Over that summer, so summer of 2012 she stayed with me in Aber, and after some issues at first we seemed to have found a compromise and everything was going OK. Then she left, life began again and we were back in the world of Uni and work and shit. Then I got close to a female friend of mine, and all hell broke loose.

My ex was always socially awkward. She has very few friends, and I was the only person she really talked to. I felt burdened by that in a way, and smothered. We chatted constantly, which was fine when I had the time. But 2nd year of Uni, shit kicks off, degree gets more intense, I was part of two society committees, for a while I had two jobs. She thought I was ignoring her, despite the fact that I texted her all the time when I had any free time, and even when I shouldn’t have been texting her, like during lectures, society events and meetings, or on nights out with friends.

November is when it all went really downhill. The cycle of misery began. We were making each other miserable but I especially felt really bad. I felt disrespected, that my emotions, wants, dreams and likes weren’t important, that it was all her and I took the sidelines. Additionally, jealousy became a real trouble on her part, with her freaking out whenever I mentioned a female friend, particularly Emma. Of course, that just pushed me closer to Emma and further from my ex. And thus for several months.

My friend Emma, the aforementioned close female friend was there the entire time to support me. Never have I been so thankful to have someone there fore me and helping me through a tough time.

I had semi-frequent thoughts of suicide. I was growing increasingly close to Emma, in a way I knew I shouldn’t have been, and my woman, whom I thought I was destined to marry was killing me. The last straw, the part that killed the relationship for me occurred in March. We were having a Question and Answer session before the election for the new committee for the Aber Gaming Society. She basically said she hoped I didn’t win either of the positions I was running for because they would take my time away from her. It crushed me. I was barely able to walk up onto the stage when it was my turn, put on a brave face and answer the questions and banter like everything was OK.

I almost literally died that night. I was emotionally destroyed, nothing left to feel, not pain, not anger, just a barren landscape of emotion.

So, after 6 months of misery, broken by some very few good times, I ended it the beginning of April, a few days before my 21st birthday. The day I ended it I felt so shit, my heart nearly broke when she handed me her ring and closed my hand around it. I knew I wanted that, and yet it was the most miserable I had ever felt.

Now, several weeks have passed, and I want to think I’m over her. And yet, on occasion I get these weird feelings, like I’ve made the wrong choice, like we were meant to be together. I have no idea what’s going on. Couple that with the fact that I have strong feelings for Emma, ones that I know are reciprocated, and I am in agony. I don’t know what to do. I just want these feelings to stop, so I can move on with my life and hopefully, a future with Emma.

What do I do?

Hey all,

This is my first post in a long, long time, and it’s going to be quite lengthy. I don’t want to label it as a “rant” or “vent” post, but there will be elements of each in those. Mainly it is a “I want to get this stuff off my chest” post. I will try to keep it clean, but as I get to delicate stuff my tongue might loosen. Now, where do I begin?

The most sensible place would be my back-story and a description of me. So let’s start at the most obvious place, my birth. I was born in the Santa Cruz area of California on April 10th, 1992. I would write down the exact place, but I don’t feel like going through the papers I have with me/messaging people to find out what hospital. It’s not important, so anyways – moving on. My parents are some of the most amazing people ever, and I love them very much. I have grown up in a Christian household, but politically/morally only just to the right of the centre (no fundamentalists here, thank you very much). So, the first 6 years of my life, more or less (if I am to be exact, 5 years, 9 months, 3 days) we lived in Santa Cruz, California. I don’t remember much of this time, but I have some scattered images of church and sunday school, our drive way, the inside of our house, one of my birthdays, various family members and friends.

As stated earlier, my parents are both Christian. My father grew up in a Christian family, my mother converted/found faith/[insert preferred term here] when she was in her mid-teens (most of her family are not Xian to this day). They have wanted to be missionaries for a long time, so when they felt called to Europe and especially Poland, they raised the funds, packed the boxes, grabbed us kids and went. We arrive in Poland on a dark, cold wintry night, January 13th, 1998. I’m going to assume we landed in Warsaw, so we still had a long trip from there all the way to Lublin in the easternish part of Poland. We lived there for two and half years. Again, as I was very young, I don’t have much recollection of that time. I barely remember anything of the first 9 months, before I started kindergarten. I have some scattered images of a really scary episode of Scooby-Doo giving me nightmares (don’t judge), people teaching me how to count and say other basic things in Polish, to name a couple. That September I started kindergarten and enjoyed it a lot. As far as I remember, I never had any issues “fitting in” – the positive side of being that young, kids haven’t really learned how to judge people on superficial details. I hung out with the guys no problem, avoided girls and their cooties, you know, the high life of kindergarten. After that, moved on to the first grade. As far as I can recall, I had quite a few classmates that joined me in the same school for actual primary school, so I already knew people, etc. I remember being really proud for being praised as being one of the better students, as far as maths and handwriting were concerned. It felt really good to excel in a “foreign” environment. I easily fit in and was doing well.

Next came the move across the country to Poznan. Completely different place, the language was slightly different, the little things. Almost impossible to believe it was the same country. Fast-forwarding, 2 years in primary school, all is good, enjoying the academics, feeling good within the class and fitting in just fine, especially as 90% of them were the kids “from the neighbourhood  and we would always play ball together, etc. Then came the move to the US for the year. I liked it fairly well, though there were times I felt I didn’t fit in – at first it was cool to be “the Polish kid” and have people point at objects and say “what do you call that in Polish?” and the like, but after a bit it began to grow tiresome. Over time, except for my best friend Braden, the only people I felt I fit in with were ”the outcasts”, at least if we were to label ourselves like stupid teenager films do. Thus began the feels of “I’m a third culture kid and I don’t fit in”.

After the year in Cali we moved back to Poznan, Poland. In some ways it felt like I had never left. Then the school year started. As it turns out, about 10 people had joined my class the year I was away and the dynamic changed completely. Any feelings of fitting in went right down the shitter. I still enjoyed hanging out with a lot of my friends, but I was no longer really “part of the gang”, at least not the whole gang. At best, very specific subsets.

The best part of my life, or should I say “academic experience” (/sarcasm) began in middle school. I applied for and got into “the best one in the city” and was very happy about that. Then the school year started and I realized that the class dynamic left my high and dry. On top of some academic failings (as my “village” primary school left me woefully unprepared), I was smack in the middle of the two groups of guys. There were 20 girls, 10 guys, and the guys groups naturally split in two, with me in the middle. I was completely alienated, since I was that “Christian” guy, the one that didn’t party and drink, the one that didn’t do/enjoy/excel at one thing or the other (for one group it was heavy metal, D&D, etc. For the other it was sports). The only thing keeping me sane was GEM-K conferences, semi-annually, since I could go there and be with other MKs, people who knew what it was like, and understood me at a level I had not encountered anywhere else. I shudder to think what it would have been like without those brief week-long respites every 6 months.

High School! Actual fun times – everyone in the IB was weird, so overall felt OK, since I had a group of friends I could relax around and not feel bad because of what I did/didn’t like. Not much to say, except that. It’s also when I met my now ex-fiancée, Flo.

Anyhoo, fast-forwarding yet again. Present day, Aberystwyth, Wales, UK. My new home. And the cause for writing this whole post, really.

My main question – why is it so hard for people when I say Aber is now my home? Could it be because this is where I have continued to grow and become an adult? Maybe because it’s a place I feel I have truly excelled and grown? I have found people that really love me for who I am, don’t judge me and treat me as an equal? Or best of all, maybe it’s because everyone is exactly like me – young adults living away from home, 99% of us having lived and grown up in a different place, all coming together and trying to figure out what the hell we’re doing with our lives? That is why it’s home for me. I pity the people that cannot simply understand that. Every time I go back to Cali, or back to Poland, it’s really frickin’ weird. It’s like things are familiar, but actually aren’t. I’m no longer part of the group. I don’t understand how things work. Most recently I had a minor panic attack when doing the grocery shopping. The fucking grocery shopping. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out if I was buying the right stuff, if I was paying a good price for them, etc. The fact that I was “supposed” to know aggravated it. Then the cashier practically yelled at me because I started putting my stuff on the counter instead of leaving it in the shopping basket. Jeez, put up a fucking sign instead of yelling at me cause I didn’t know. That was the last straw and left me kinda depressed for the rest of the day.

Why is it so hard to try and understand and empathize with people? Most of my close friends do not fit in with the “norm” and would not be considered “normal” by most standards. They are bi, gay, lesbian, asexual, gender-queer, trans-gender, trans-sexual. They are nerds, geeks, they obsess over fandoms, they cosplay, they enjoy the shit out of things most people wouldn’t even admit to knowing about. And so-fucking-what? These are my friends, they’re awesome people, and despite not always quite understanding why they like something or how someone can be gender queer or transgender doesn’t make me love them any less or make me less inclined to empathize with them and try to understand them. Hence, I ask why it is so hard to do the same for me? It’s not that hard to at least try. Simply know this: I am not American. I am not Polish. I am not Welsh, I am not English, I am not Afghani, I am not anything. My passport may be American, my upbringing Christian, but that doesn’t mean I am either of those. I am a third culture kid. I simply am.

For the love of all things good, try to understand me or at the very least not judge me because you don’t understand my point of view. Aber is now my home. I am not American, I am not Polish. Accept that.

For the second part of the osCommerce assignment, I followed the directions outlined in the PDF. I added two new products, both of them games I like very much, Borderlands and Too Human. I simply added them and put in a few details. Also, I changed the banner to display “Not a webshop”, to avoid people accidentally ordering stuff of my site.

Dave “exon” Haenze