not a good title

my girlfriend and i are broken up.

it is my fault. i am a man and men, i am learning, are bastards. the real men aren't, but then i'm not really a real man -- i'm a 25 year old boy, and i haven't figured out how to grow up yet or take care of myself, much less someone else who is relying on me to be the man i presented myself as. but i am not him.

i didn't cheat; technically, i've never cheated. i've broken trust with girlfriends before, and those situations involved other girls, but it has either never gotten to a physical point, or it has gotten physical only after a girlfriend had decided we should "take a break." but when its all said and done, its just a technicality, isn't it?

somewhere in my heart i cheated. i'm a bastard for doing it, and i think i am aware now that it was all about ego. i had been texting another girl, a girl from work, who was not my girlfriend; but she was young and attractive and flirtatious and devilish, and i don't know if she directed all those things at me or if i am just especially weak, but i fell in love with the sexual tension and the idea that i was good enough for it. and we had texted some things we shouldn't have, each of us being in relationships. it was nothing too outrageous -- we kept it PG-13, and i kept all of her texts, and my girlfriend found them and i have never felt so bad to see such a look on someone's face: she never deserved that. and as much i wish i could take it all back, my ego still hides those texts close in its heart, and i can't be someone like that in a relationship, and i can't figure out how to make it go away while i'm in a relationship.

it is probably the most dangerous thing i've ever done, letting my amazing girlfriend go, even after she was willing to forgive me. but she would not forget, and i wouldn't blame her, and as long as i am the guy that i am, it would only happen again -- and i need to not be that guy, and i have to figure out how to do that.

this other girl was in greece for a month; she just got back this week; she just texted me ten minutes ago.

the same curious buzz of my phone-on-vibrate, the familiar message icon, blinking with urgency; the thrilling ripple in my ego:

"how was buffalo while i was gone?"

changed in all the wrong ways;
just the same, in all the wrong ways.

sun, aug 14, 7:00 pm