Evolving

Boys: Part Two

Boys. Once again, I'm bringing up boys. That's because no matter how hard I try to stay away from them, they'll always be there right around the corner in my life. And that's not always a bad thing. Sometimes it's exactly what you need at just the right time.

One person who I considered to be just what I needed was Cameron. Cameron was a friend I had made online in a video game community that I was a part of. It sounds dorky and completely unrealistic, I know, but if you've ever experienced a relationship that began online, you know that it's as real as any other relationship. Your feelings develop just as quickly, and they're just as forceful. When I met Cameron, it seemed like I had dreamed him up in a storybook and he had come to life (you should probably watch the video I posted, I thought it fit, ironically). He was everything I had wanted for the longest time. He was very tall, which is a must for any guy I date, I hate dating guys who are shorter than me. He was athletic but wasn't a meat head, so I didn't have to feel bad about the fact that I wasn't the most athletic girl in the world. He was cute, had a face that seemed like it was completely out of my league, but he was also modest and always told me how much he believed I deserved someone way more attractive. He had aspirations that were different from mine; I never dreamed I'd fall in love with someone in the same field as me, because I always believed we'd be competing, so it matched up with what I wanted. He also understood my love for video games and being a child, which was important, because I had never fully lived my childhood due to my nephew being born. And something that was probably the most important of all, when I explained that I wanted to adopt my nephew, he told me that it was a lot to think about, and that he wasn't sure what was going to happen in the future, but that he would try his best for me if we were still together when that happened. I hate broken promises more than anything, so the fact that he didn't immediately promise without knowing the full ramifications meant a lot to me; it showed that he wanted to try, but was going to be completely honest and tell me he had reservations and wanted me to know about them.

Overall, it seemed like we matched up perfectly. We quickly fell for each other, but we were halted by the fact that we lived so far from each other. That, and I was in college, so my schedule varied everyday and the only times we could talk I was usually in class, so we'd end up texting under the desk while I tried to pay attention in class. It went on like this for months. We flirted and talked and got to know each other for at least a month or two before we moved any further; we wanted to be sure that we both knew what was going on and how this could end. He also understood that I wanted to go slow, because I had explained to him my history with boys (briefly, anyways) and he knew I wasn't someone to jump into another relationship right away. We did eventually start dating, and it was an amazing time. We'd stay up all night texting, and sometimes talking, and we'd always talk about how I'd sleep in his loft bed next to him if I visited him, and he'd sleep in my bed in my dorm room if he visited me. We loved telling each other about how we'd take the other out on adventures when we visited; he told me about how he wanted me to explore Sacramento with him, and I told him I wanted him to visit Cleveland with me. It was day after day of just us getting to know each other in the best way possible. We'd talk about things that used to make me blush but now just made me eager; I wanted to be with him in every way. It hurt a lot that I couldn't. That caused a lot of our problems, actually.

Since we couldn't be together until the summer, when we were out of school and would be free to drive or fly out to each other, we had to constantly talk about how much we wanted to be together, followed by a serious crash when we remembered that we couldn't be together for a few more months. Eventually, we started fighting over tiny things that seem so irrelevant now. I'd tell him that I felt like I wasn't important, because in the start of our relationship he'd text me when he woke up, which was usually 6-7AM his time so about 9-10AM my time, and I always felt so special when I was sitting in the middle of class and he'd say "good morning beautiful" or something else random that made me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. Other times, later on in the relationship, he'd tell me that he had trouble sleeping or he woke up and was upset by a dream; I'd feel lousy because he wouldn't bother to text me when he woke up feeling that way, and all I wanted was to be able to comfort him in his time of need. It felt like he didn't need me, and that hurt. Of course, he had told me later on that he didn't feel needed by me, either, but we both had missed the mark on that one.