acting on an urge

The other day I acted on a darker urge of mine that had been creeping up on me. 

There’s a boy I’ve been obsessed with on and off since high school. We briefly “dated”, if you could even call it that, and I lost my virginity to him at age 19. A few months after our break up I found out that he had a new girlfriend. (Thank you instagram soft launches!)

This totally messed with my process of getting over him. I like to believe that while I’ve totally moved on, whatever guy I was just seeing can’t get me out of his head. Him having a new girlfriend totally fucked with this fantasy. 

I started obsessing over her instagram and how different from me she seemed to be. She was a total sorority girl, with tons of girl friends and a “bright and shiny” look that the Meredith in me couldn’t stand. The comparisons started, and my joy was indeed stolen. Me and my best friend came up with all sorts of jokes centering around my new obsession with this girl, luckily not too many at her expense…. But I knew it had gone too far when I knew all of her roommate’s names. 

This went on for a while until one day, I was back in the city he lived in. I’d been wanting to reconnect with him for awhile anyway, as my previously described obsession reveals, and when I got drunk all of my inhibitions left me. I debated texting him but didn’t know what I would say, and wasn’t ready for how I would feel if he never texted back. So instead, I followed him on instagram. (This is what I call a “don’t forget me” action.)

By the next day, I had regained my senses and was debating unfollowing him when I got a notification. He had just followed me. This reignited my delusional thoughts. That even though he had a girlfriend, it was me who he wanted. (The more rational explanation would be that’s he’s a man and men suck.) 

The other rational thought that finally helped me move on, was that this girl didn’t deserve my knowing contribution to her man sucking. It had been unfair of me to interfere in an innocent girls relationship. Whatever happened to girls supporting girls Chloe!!! 

On valentines day, two months later, he reposted her story, and I took my cue to exit stage left. Luckily, by acting on this darker urge, I got a sick sense of validation and a reminder of what kind of guy I was idealizing.

I don’t know whether this is a cautionary tale or an encouragement to do what’s been in the back of your mind. On the one hand, what I did probably wasn’t the best idea, and could’ve hurt more than just my feelings. But on the other, I received just enough validation to move on a little further and managed to snap myself out of the mindset I’d been in before. If I hadn’t have acted on that urge, I might’ve been stuck in that headspace for a lot longer.