UNSENT LETTER: To The One Who Played With Her Heart

Pauline Borja, Intern

April 11, 2018

• 

  Think about how it feels. Imagine of a stranger; a woman who doesn’t think very much about you being around. Like a typical person, she doesn’t mind what you do as long as you’re not doing anything odd or suspicious. Why is that? It’s because you don’t know each other.

  Now, what if you became friends with this woman? You introduce yourselves, talk about what you like and don’t like, and what interests you have in common. Sounds fun, doesn’t it? She’ll start to notice the things you do in everyday life. How you speak, how you move in a certain way, how you look at things, how you tell your jokes – that sort of stuff. She can act normally when you’re together. Until, naturally, she’d start to care about you.

  Suddenly, because you’re friends—closer than before—you decide to have fun a little bit. You send her cute texts a little too often than normal. You’re a tad too clingy to her. You compliment her until her cheeks are flushed from embarrassment. You bring her food when she craves for something to eat. You say the sweetest things when she least expects it. You have fun teasing her and seeing her reactions. You laugh together.

  Then she starts to see you differently. You’re no longer seen as just a friend, but as a man. She’s become conscious around you. You showed her that you especially liked her.

  You catch her gazing at you and looking your way then averts her eyes when you look at her. Hyper-aware due to your presence, she pays more attention to you because of the way you’ve been acting towards her.

  But now you see you have a problem. You didn’t want that sort of attention or that sort of relationship with her. So you waited—you waited for the right time to tell her. You stopped your sweet actions and words and avoided to contact her for a while. You thought it would work if you distanced yourself.

  Only it didn’t work that way. One moment, you were caring and loving. The next, you were different and cold. You left her confused, alone and possibly, afraid. She wonders what she did wrong. What made you leave her? Was she conceited to think that you liked her that way? Did you not love her at all?

  All those things you did weren’t from romantic feelings for her. You didn’t feel anything like that. So it took a while when you decided to tell her that you didn’t mean to do what you did. You just wanted some fun and she misunderstood you for it.

  You wanted to see her. When you did, she was different. You wonder what made her like this.

  She could talk to you now and look at you face to face. She was smiling and talking like normal, but the look in her eyes didn’t show the same affection you once saw. They weren’t there. Not anymore. You played with her heart. Say what you will, but you can no longer change how things are. You made her feel nothing for you. Whatever happened was history. You didn’t even have to say you were sorry; she already forgot all about it. It was all gone.

  You felt drained. Your relationship was crumpled, almost ready to be thrown away. What if you didn’t do all those things? What if you didn’t treat her like some toy? What if you took her seriously? You could’ve had fun with her more, had laughs with her more.

  Things have changed since then. You cried, got sad and angry with yourself. You can’t complain. You had no right. You played games with her heart. You should’ve quit before it got worse. Or you shouldn’t have done so in the first place.

  She’s off to a better life now – one without you. She smiles and waves at you as if thanking you for something, and turns around after saying, “Goodbye.”

• COMMENTS