It Doesn’t Mean That Much to Me, To Mean That Much to You
The Phasing and Ideas Series - Entry 20
The Phrasing and Ideas series elaborates on the thousand-plus entries I’ve collected in a document by the same name. These entries have been scavenged over several years through plenty of different situations and mediums. Every article visits one of the entries and gives it additional context, from where it was taken from, what it means to me, who I was when I found it, how it has grown with me over time, etc. For more information on the ‘Phasing and Ideas’ series, you can click below.
Foreword
This phrase represents an equation that I’ve experienced both sides of. The figurative deliverer and recipient. A phrase that ultimately elucidates an imbalance in feelings between two parties in a relationship, whatever type.
I can’t recall how I found this entry, but I think it was through another Reddit comment section. It might have been a song lyric, alternatively. Regardless, it was one that immediately found resonance in my life, reminding me instantly of the first time I had been a part of such an equation — as the deliverer.
The Deliverer
In my early 20's I had a very close friend that I knew was romantically interested in me. I didn’t have the same feelings for her and it was a mutually agreed unspoken rule that when we hung out, we’d keep things platonic and have a great time. She was my best friend at the time and we were always game to do things together from going to shows, eateries, movies, and all other kinds of adventures. It’s embarrassing to think back on now because I did her so wrong selfishly, indulging in any fantasies she had that we could one day be something more by spending so much time together and making so many memories.
We’ve all been in a situation like that, where we spend so much time with someone we’re attracted to, bend ourselves backward to be made available to them, but who doesn’t see us in the same light that we see them. We hope, fruitlessly, that perhaps one day their feelings will change — one day they’ll have that epiphany and see us for the love interest we truly can be, the lover we truly are. But in reality, they simply enjoy spending time with us because it’s fun and they benefit from the relationship. Sometimes it’s more than just the conventional fun-having though… sometimes it's having someone around you who you know has a crush on you — that feeling of being desired. It certainly wasn’t the dominating contributor to enjoyment in my case but I am sure I would be lying to myself if I didn’t say there was a little of that there from time to time.
As the desired party, at your worst, you might even lean into indulging the other person a little and playing with their emotions… because you know how good it’ll make them feel momentarily that their delusion might become reality. You know it’s wrong, but you enjoy stoking it because you see how happy it makes them feel (again, in the moment) and you like that or are just too emotionally unaware that this is a net negative thing to do to someone because of all the long-term consequences.
These indulgings could come from anything like a conversation about how you both would raise your hypothetical family together, or hypothetical baby names, or your arm around their shoulder when they’re feeling low, or cozying to one another when you’re both cold. These can be normal friendly things, but it’s disingenuous to think it to be when one person in the dynamic has romantic feelings for the other, and especially if the other person knows that and still does it. It’s never a good thing to indulge in someone’s emotions like that and play into them for any reason whatsoever. It’s an awful thing to do and I know that now. As much as we all think we were just being friendly and nice and enjoying our time with our friend… in reality, we were being emotionally manipulative when convenient for us for our own benefit, self-indulgence, and ego, and it is wrong.
Reader, if you ever find yourself in a situation adjacent to this, and haven’t figured this lesson out for yourself yet, please, do not walk that path. Do not be the person who scars another being and gives them the impression that no matter how much chemistry and fun they can have with someone, they will never ultimately be loved by them… causing them to question whether they will actually ever have the love they deserve themselves from anyone. You do not want to be responsible in any way for someone going down that dark road.
The friendship I had in my early 20’s ended with her sending an extremely vulnerable text to me detailing how damaging it was for her and how awful it made her feel that I didn’t see anything in the two of us beyond friendship, and how I saw attraction in so many others sans her. It was a tough read then to know how much damage I had done her, and in my developing emotional maturity I thought the only solution was to break off all ties with her and let her move on with her life without me… so I ghosted her. I didn’t even send a reply back.
Had I known then what I know now, I would have conducted myself differently. But I didn’t, and it’s awful to think how shitty that empty instance of closure was for her. No closure is closure by the way. Remember that, even if it is shitty.
In the end, my lack of effort to give her her deserved closure was an echoed microcosm of the entire dynamic: it didn’t mean that much to me, to mean that much to you. When I look back, I think about how for a lot of the relationship, I was only a friend to her when it was convenient to me, and when I knew I was getting something worthwhile out of it. She didn’t deserve that, and it’s something I dearly regret. It’s a hard lesson I learned through the avenue of guilt and embarrassing retrospection. The stuff that makes you cringe at the actions of your past self.
That was me as the deliverer in this equation of a phrase. Me as the recipient came several years later at the tail end of a relationship with a woman I loved so well.
The Recipient
It catches you off guard, being the recipient. Or perhaps it just caught me off guard because I was naive in my younger days and blatantly ignored the many warning signs. Yeah, it was likely the latter. I was in a relationship with a wonderful woman and I can remember those final months of the relationship well. Our conversations grew more scarce, their topics grew more surface level, intimacy tried to keep afloat but struggled to do so, and you could feel things more and more growing apart. There would be fragments of our old sparks from time to time, and I would personally find refuge in them to keep the delusion alive that we might make it through this. We both knew we were doomed, two people at different points of their lives trying to envision how they could make the two distinct points overlap. Two people who knew there were too many external variables not in their favour.
I was aware of all those things but carried the delusion as best as I could. She held for a while too, but I knew she had let it adrift much before I would. Even amidst my delusions I could feel her emotionally disconnecting, and the biggest signs were when we’d speak of our plans for the future. Once upon a time, there’d be dialogues where we’d go back and forth and argue about classical things lovers do: where we’d live, how we’d raise a family, the animals we’d have, the names of our children, etc. Those warm, sparkling conversations that make one blossom inside.
Eventually, those conversations grew sparse, practically dormant. And should they ever come up, they became one-sided. I could feel her retreat away and her mind recoil at even the prospect of indulging. She knew the ship was sinking, she didn’t even want to pretend to imagine a life had it not I understand this perspective now years later, it would have been a voluntary act to make things hurt worse.
I understand things now a lot more in the years after the ruin. and it took me every one of those years to process things and come up with the intrinsic dialogues I have now on why the relationship failed and how to move on. Two people at different stages of their lives, failing to envision how those two points could ever become one. We simply couldn’t find where one another fit in the current trajectory our lives were heading… it wasn’t meant to be in that present (and perhaps ever). As much as I knew this was the objective truth of the situation, I held onto the alternative view as long as I could, the one where we somehow worked out.
I held it long after she let go of it herself, long after we officially broke up, and even a bit longer after that. These days I believe I’ve finally gotten to the point where my perspectives might match how she had felt, as the relationship saw its sunset. A perspective that aligns with that objective truth on the matter years ago.
I can still remember that final chapter though. Her retreats away from conversation that spoke of our future, her unwantingness to debate any potential name for a future child, her distant responses to topics of new interests and avenues, all of the above. I understand why she was how she was now, and accept that she had dissociated. She didn’t want to passenger the sinking ship any longer. Her actions spoke the concept I would only understand years down the line,
It doesn’t mean that much to me, to mean that much to you.
It hit me like a ton of bricks when I figured that out. To be on the recipient end of this phrase’s equation always hits like a ton of bricks I imagine. My sample size is only 1 however, but I suppose I’m in no hurry to gather more personal data.
Concluding Remarks
After all this, the anecdotes, the analysis, the retrospectives, and the word count… I see this phrase as a raw representation of the individuality of feelings between two people in a relationship — romantic or not. Having been on both sides, that asymmetry of significant feelings is something neither party can control the other on. That individuality on how one governs their emotions is a black box from the perspective of any sans the operator and why love and these significant feelings we have for one another can be such a risk to take and express and hope for reciprocation. It’s also why it can be so blindsiding when the tides eventually change, or the sun sets on what was once symmetry in emotions and situations between two people.
Few things hurt worse than being unloved by the person you made your world. More succinctly: unrequited love sucks.
Epilogue
Eventually, you come to a place where you accept how things unfolded, like anecdote two. I haven’t spoken to the woman from anecdote one in years but I’d hope she found a better place too, a kinder place for herself internally.
Perhaps I think that selfishly however because I don’t want to acknowledge just how awful the damage I did may be, so selfishly I choose to believe a delusion that creates a softer, kinder environment for myself internally.
I guess we’ll never know.
To read the next entry in the Phasing and Ideas Series, click below.