A ''love letter'' to the last guy I liked.

An essay exploring emotional honesty and self-awareness.

I was wondering if you deserved a letter. After all, this is my love language. Write letters. Something I haven’t done for more than 10 years. Not letters that I sent, at least. I learned to burn them instead. After burning the bridges.

I met you last year around this date. In the second time we met, you got me flowers and a book about cats. On the drive from my house to Laguna Beach you played Taylor Swift in your car, because you paid enough attention in the first date to know the important things that I liked.

I always got betrayed somehow. It started with my parents bringing me to a world without teaching me a thing. Then came my first boyfriend, where unfortunately I had to spend a year in anguish living in a small city and seeing all our common friends, until I took the decision to leave to another state. Then, the ones we least expect. Some friends. So you have to understand where I came from when I was putting walls between us. Not to mention the fact that I was a tourist, still thinking about extending my visa, still lost. I am not playing the victim, but at a certain age we start to doubt other people’s intentions and you were too good to be true. You never gave me a reason for me to doubt you. Not directly. I had gut feelings mixed with fear and anxiety. I did not know at the time, and I will never know, which was which. Did I save myself or did I sail my fate into another ‘‘what if?’’

The girl who followed on your Instagram the day you took to long to send me any signal of you being alive was just a friend or something else? You said once that ‘‘I was overthinking’’ when I mentioned your delay, yet you did it again. We went to a LGBT club that I really had fun and I warned you I could cry if I got too drunk. You were just fine when we spent hours dancing and then I broke down. You told me ‘‘I already knew’’.

You don’t know that, but I found your ex’s Instagram and TikTok on a random night at 3am when I could not sleep. I was still in California. I saw the video she posted about dating you for eight years and arriving at her apartment with all your things, furniture and personal belongings: all gone. She was crying. You both took the decision to end it but still follow each other in your socials. It is weird for you, right? That I took this whole social media thing too seriously. It should be. I’m not mentally healthy and you knew that.

When I found out about your ex I thought: Good for me. He would never truly have gotten into a relationship with me if that girl never had a ring on her finger. I am too paranoid to believe someone that spent all that amount of time with someone could just in three months of break up like me the way you said you did. LIKE. Because we all know that love comes with time, communication, and being honest.

And there’s my confession: I lied to you. I was not completely honest about my life because I am an immigrant. I will always be. You never understood that, always telling me that would be OK to find a job because you live in your American bubble with white privileges and I am not allowed to work. Gosh, I left because your government terrifies me. Instead of saying goodbye like a decent person ,I just left. I threw away the flowers and the book. I never read the book, by the way. I had intense feelings about you that I did not want to have and a lot of rage. That was when we were still together. A lot of rage because you did not understand my roots and I think you would never understand that. But that’s just me jumping into conclusions because I do that.

I also sabotage relationships that are healthy. We had one fight. It was not even a fight. I was angry cause you called too late and I took my chance. The great excuse to end it all with a clean cut and let you wonder why.

I learned this five years ago with my narcist ex. To end relationships without giving them closure. Oddly, I just did it with you. So I think, in a twisted way that my mind works, that I really saw a future for us. I was scared because at the same time that you were a great person with me, you would never leave that bubble that I broke when I was a kid.

It is not a love letter. It’s an apology. Maybe your ex was the one that did not want anything, maybe she was crying because she was used with your presence. I still do not know why you never told me about such an important matter if you knew I always liked deep conversations. We had a lot of meaningful ones. That is rare. That is scaring.

I’m sorry I was a dick. I should have at least tried to know the whole ‘you’ and not the tip of the iceberg.

You were the last person I actually liked. And I am scared of never having that feeling that again.

With love and hate,

Lanna.

Hey! Happy Valentine's day!