Waiting on a Fairytale

It’s been three months now. I look back and wonder why it hasn’t been longer. Why I didn’t see earlier that you were never going to come knocking on my door, that we were never going to be a couple. It was so obvious that you were trying to push me away… to let me know that there was no point in trying to earn your love. But then again I was infatuated. First love at eighteen… you were the first guy I had ever seen in that light and everything was all so new and wonderful. Eighteen, nearly nineteen, so late. I was wondering if I would ever feel that way. Now I’m just wondering if or when I will feel that way again. I had reached university and almost everyone except the very nerdy had had a boyfriend or girlfriend. Why did it take me so long? Then I came here and met you… and I knew that I loved you. For so long you were all that was on my mind. Your smile, your laugh…. every time I heard it I wanted to make you laugh again and again, just to hear that laugh. I could watch you forever… the way you moved, and the way the expressions played across your face, each one so different. Then when you talked. You were so sensible, intelligent, good humored, and your opinion would always be important to me. And then finally I realized. There wasn’t any hope and I was a fool for thinking it. A small thing, you probably didn’t even realize… but once again you pushed me away. And I saw clearly the past three months or so. You were keeping your distance; you knew that I wanted you, and you had made up your mind. It was never going to happen. Occasionally I wondered if I had misunderstood, but I hadn’t, that night it was clear, it was obvious, there was no doubt. I remember walking back to my room pushing the tears back until I had reached it. Desperate that no-one else noticed, I cried the whole night long, muffling tears in my pillow, silent tears… in case you walked back past. And then I was fine. By the morning I was happy. There would be someone else…. you were not the only guy that I would fall in love with… it would happen again… all in good time.
And now three months later it still hasn’t happened. I got desperate for a while… thought that as long as a guy wanted me he would be alright. That lead to the kissing at clubs. Any guy was enough for me, someone to make me feel like I wasn’t completely undesirable, like maybe I could be the light of somebody’s eyes. It didn’t work. All that happened was that I went home in the holidays wondering what the hell I was doing. Wondering what I was changing into and not liking the person that I seemed to be becoming. I was trying to convince you that I was actually over you. I convinced myself… I did it so well that I was even happy for a while, until I began to wish that I could feel the mixture of the hand around the waist (from the boys at the clubs), the man’s touch on my body, and the feelings that you aroused again. I now just want it to happen, to be real. So I am waiting. I know that there is no point waiting for you. So I tell myself that I am waiting for someone else to come, displace my feelings for you. I am waiting on a fairytale, waiting for prince charming to come and sweep me off my feet. Waiting for someone to take me somewhere wonderful, to show me the things that I never knew about life and love. I am waiting for the perfect man. So I look, I look at all the guys I pass at uni, at parties… I see everyone as potential, but every man’s face just passes by, not even worth a second glance. I now know why. It’s because I am looking for you, because I just want another you, a you who actually loves me. Everyone gets compared to you and fails the test. Will it be like this forever? Will I ever be able to find the one for me? Why is it that when I see a guy I think of you. I wish that I wouldn’t. But you won’t let me be. Sometimes it feels so ironic, I was wondering if there was even a guy for me, then I found the perfect guy, and I wasn’t good enough for him. Is that even irony? Or is it just depressing? I tell myself that there will be another perfect guy for me, but how much longer will I have to wait? Eighteen years is a long time. The saying goes… “Sweet sixteen and never been kissed”, well that doesn’t make for a good nineteenth birthday. Congratulations, you are nearly twenty and still alone. I used to dream of being married at twenty-one, like my mother, now I just dream of going on a date by then. Look how silly that sounds on paper yet it still reverberates around my head, leaving imprints to pop up at inconvenient times (am I just not good enough?). It worries me… it took me so long to find you, how long before I find someone who will even go out on one date…, how long until I find the really right guy? I don’t want to be 40 and still alone, alone at 30 is a depressing thought. Sure most people aren’t, but most people have actually had boyfriends by now, most people aren’t nearly as naive about life as I am, most people aren’t like me. Most people don’t look at guys, every guy and think wow, none of them stack up. None of them are good enough.