Letters to My [Many] Exes From a 32 Year Old Me

Draft started 6/17/2025 

Newly single at nearly 33 and a middle school friend's wedding approaching, one wonders to oneself "is the problem me?" It makes you look back at your own dating history to see what happened there.

Dear G1, (c. 2010-2011)

I had been infatuated by the idea of you for three years because we actually got to know each other. You were the perfect first boyfriend. The first person I said "I love you" to and said it back. Even though we weren't able to provide for each other in our lack of age and lack of funds, I would have needed nothing more for a first relationship. You were supportive in just the right ways and took me places that a sheltered me would have never visited. Places that were right next door but I never knew about.

Dear G2,

You were there at the right time. You were so gentle and loving and so wonderful. I know we would have never ended up together, although you were fine with me being a good person, the lack of religion would not have been enough. I'm sorry that I did not have capacity in my heart to keep you after my loss. I wonder how long we would have lasted. I'm so happy for you and your beautiful family.

Dear G3,

You were the right person for me to meet in that transition period. We were both graduating and figuring out life after. I'm sorry I didn't stand up for you, but I'm incapable of denying the truth. I did say those things about you didn't matter, I'm sorry that you weren't okay with yourself to accept that at the time.

Dear c,

We were non-romantically involved for a year and spent all our free time together in that time. We were best friends for 10  years, I felt so much love for you in our friendship. But you broke my heart when you decided to date her. She was one of my closest remaining friends. By dating her, you were showing me how little you cared for how I felt. I had been literally pushed to the backseat of your life and then to witness how you treat her, in my presence, I don't know if we'll ever be okay. I don't know if I'll ever approve.

Dear C,

I pined for you for so long, I fell into such depression when we were apart. It was amazing when we finally got together. But the world shut down. I thought it was so amazing we got the opportunity to move to a new place and live together. I thought I was finally starting the "grown-up" chapter of my life. It was so disappointing to discover that someone eight years older than me would not be able to be the "man of the house" and I was relegated to doing not only the typically "woman's chores" but the typically "man's chores" too. I'm so excited that you're engaged now! Hope you are everything each other needs.

Dear M,

After what I had just gone through, you were exactly what I needed. A manly man. An intelligent manly man. I guess I had to find out the hard way that our economical statuses would be a chip on your shoulder the entire time. Things like that don't bother me, I had enough to take care of both of us, but of course that's what someone who comes from privilege would say. I was your arms and legs when you hurt yourself on my birthday. To take someone who was so loving and caring and accepting of everything you were, and tell them that you wanted better different...I was lucky that this was the first time in my life I would be with someone who did not treat me well. Unfortunately, it would not be the last. (With you, I finally found out what being with a narcissist was like)

Dear r,

We didn't start anything romantically, I'm kind of glad we didn't from the way you reacted after I let you down. I'm sure we would have had a lovely time together, but as I said, I couldn't be your therapist and your partner at the same time. You had to heal before you were ready to have someone in your life. Hope you're good now. 

Dear M,

I miss you! I hope you and the fluffy baby are doing well! I'm glad our friendship became what it was. I'm glad you apologized for how you ended things with me because it was truly mean. I would like my Ready Play One and Two books back!

Dear R,

Emotional manipulation doesn't even begin to cover it. That chip on your shoulder will never go away. I supported you in everything you did, I helped you in every way I could. But like clockwork, you broke up with me every three months because of something I did. I was the dumb one for going back every time. You kept asking me to change and I kept changing, but at no point did you change. Aren't people supposed to grow? 

Dear D, (2023)

The first person I'd been with whom I called "partner" instead of "boyfriend." Unfortunately for me, you found more value in keeping your six pack than having someone who loved you back. I wish I hadn't been your experiment into finding out whether you wanted a lifelong person or to remain single forever. You truly broke my heart. (P.S. Who breaks up with someone on new years eve eve)

Dear A, (c. 2024-2025)

"I promise I won't get mad if it was you" plays in my head any time I think of you. When I think of a person I want to be with, they wouldn't even think those words. Because in my mind, the correct response was "why would you be mad ever?" 

I Stayed Too Long

 

I was with this person for a year

I should have left months ago. But you know when you really connect with someone and your heart goes to them, it gets hard to break it off.

What a Way to Start 2023

 My boyfriend broke up with me at 2am on new years eve.

I guess it was closer to midnight right after new years eve eve.

I spent the evening with my friends and afterwards, hopped online to chill with his. I hopped out of the online call to go take a shower and settle in for the night. He sees me jump out and calls me so I pick up. 

Obviously, I'm excited to talk about my evening. My friends and I went out to eat and then came over to my house to do our late xmas white elephant exchange. I wanted to tell him what I got and how silly we were during our girls night.

I let him talk about his day first, because I usually let the other person go first. He told me he had a long day and his foot is really bad. In the last day or two, one of his feet started having foot fungus (again). I asked him how bad it was and if it's really really bad maybe he should go see a doctor. He said the doctor would probably prescribe an antibiotic and maybe a topical cream - which he was already using.  

He had 3 theories of what could have caused it. One of his theories was walking barefoot by the hot tub that his housing community has.

There was a second theory I no longer remember.

But the main one that set it all off...."my sweat". I didn't even get to hear the rest of it. He started listing these theories and then started talking about the fact that I sweat a lot when I sleep. And I had enough of it at that point. I will not have fingers pointed at me for someone else's misfortune. If you have a foot fungus, you have a foot fungus. Take care of it, that's it. 

I immediately get heated and defensive. He said he's done, didn't want to talk about it, and hung up on me. I took that time to shower and wash up for the night like I was intending to.

See Note 1 at bottom of page for context.

In that time, he tried calling me, which I was unable to pick up. So he decided to just write in the messages 

"i dont think i wanna be with you :/

like im rly not happy

and i dont wanna be ur bf"

And other stuff like that.

He ended up calling me back after an hour of back and forth messages like that, we talked on the phone for 2 hours. Most of it was him saying "look, now we're talking at 2am about this thing" "now it's 2:13 and we're still talking about this." (BRO you spent more time complaining and talking about something than actually talking about it) He decided that he was going to drive over at 3 in the morning with all of my stuff.

When he arrived, I met him at his car to grab the stuff, he walked by me and put my stuff right by the front door. So I took them inside and handed him some stuff for him. (His empty box to hold magic cards, some card sleeves, extra cookies I made last week that both his friends and family loved, and some apple cider to warm him). He opened it, said none of that was his, and I was like well, if you don't want them, I'm throwing them out. So I threw out the bag of cookies. A little guilty about the wasted gallon sized ziploc but I was doing it for dramatic effect.

I threw out the cookies, said "bye" and walked towards the door. When I had one foot inside, he called my name. I turned around and threw my hands up like "what?" He comes out of the car, and I get under a tree closer to him to hear him out (it was raining). 

He stays and talks for who knows how long. About how bad he felt, trying to rationalize. 

He spent the whole day of new years eve calling and texting me. Saying he felt bad (for breaking up with me) and that he missed me and wanted to still talk about the problems we had during the relationship. He even said we could probably be friends or play digimon together still since I was saying that I have nobody to play with anymore, I just got new cards. (see end of post for more context)

The one time I picked up I had to be firm. "What is the point of this call? Do you want to take it back? Do you want to get back together? I think it might be too late for that."

He was trying to make himself feel better. And less guilt. Of course he was feeling bad. He broke up with someone the morning before new years eve!

I learned from my experience - it was probably just my last post. That when a guy breaks up with you, you could try to get back together to mend your heart. But they're going to do it again.

On New Years Day, he messages me in the afternoon and says that it's better for him if I leave him alone and not text me. He blocks me on discord, blocks me from his discord server for his twitch stream, and blocks me from his twitch chat (I was previously a moderator).

<Note 1: This upset me greatly because earlier in the year, I had shared food with my mom when she had a cold sore on her face. Neither of us knew cold sores were at the time. So it spread to me. And I now have the HSV-1 virus; if I had it before, it has been activated. And I got super self conscious about it because bf was super "dramatic" would be the best word I could think of about it. And he made me feel super bad and guilty for having it. That if I touched him, I would be infecting him. So I've been super careful ever since. If there's anything remotely uncomfortable on my face or skin, I would tell him immediately so he was in the know and we wouldn't face touch. 

Additionally, we discovered that when I sleep, I sweat A LOT. Like my whole body gets drenched in sweat. And him having grown up wrestling with friends and stuff, he had a lot of experience with ringworm. So he wanted to say that theory #3 was if my sweat got on him while we were sleeping and he didn't wash it off very well. Why wouldn't I be offended?>

What a fantastic way to start the new year. During Christmas weekend, he had gotten me into the digimon tcg. And I've spent a bit of money since December 25th on accessories and new cards for my deck. Now I have nobody to play with and a bunch of money spent. 

As usual, I'm making my list of "why it didn't work out with this guy" to prevent any repeated heartbreaks from the same person.

Burning Fast and Bright

 It only lasted 3 months

The guy I mentioned in the last post and I dated for 3 exact months - minus a day.

We fell in love pretty quickly and enjoyed most of our moments together. He lives a 50 miles/1hr drive from me. So instead of commuting often to meet up, I stayed over at his house for half our relationship. 

First Date After a Breakup

 

 Yesterday, I went on my first official first date. I guess it's the second first date ever in my life, but this one was a successful one. I was thinking about it, and all my previous boyfriends have been friends hanging out and eventually becoming more. 

This one however, was met online through Bumble app. I originally only had the app downloaded on my throwaway phone (aka second phone that's about 8 years old). But with this guy we had such a good initial conversation that I took a pause to download it on my main phone. And out of all the other people I was messaging, he was the first that I accepting a video call with (yeah, Bumble has video calls in app. How cool is that!) And from the first moment the call connected, he said hello, and brushed his hair back....I said in my head "Yes, him." He was the guy I wanted to spend time getting to know. 

We ended up having a 3- almost 4 hour- phone call after playing the ice breaker trivia game provided by the app. After the call, we moved to off app and continued chatting and getting to know each other. I had wanted to wait 2 weeks because I was getting my second dose soon and I didn't want to risk contracting anything before getting the shot and wanted to wait until symptoms were over before meeting.

The date itself was fantastic. There's not much to talk about, we met around 2:30 at a Korean cafe. Formerally a tea lounge but now a chill coffee and milk tea place. Sat and talked for a long time while we finished our drinks. And then walked around the few blocks of downtown fullerton. We stopped into a music store which he immediately disappeared because he got extremely excited by the guitars and all the instruments that they sold there. Honestly, seeing a date or anyone you might potentially like, getting all excited and in their own world about something is one of the cutest things ever. Of course we become the background, but in that moment we get to observe them in their element. 

After finally leaving the music shop with his small haul, we walked around some more and found food. The good thing about a downtown area (and with outdoor dining thanks to covid regulations) is that we don't have to eat the same foods. He got some poke because I've been recommending it for two weeks and I got a burger...from a vegan place (accidentally but too lazy to walk farther). The "bac'n" was horrible and threw off the taste of the rest of the burger even after picking it out.

With the disaster of my poor choice of food behind me, we went to Craig Regional Park. Drove in there for 3 dollars and walked around for a few many hours. We even ran to a playground and went on all the things. Yay for no kids around! All in all, it ended up being a 7 hour date because it was 9pm and neither of us wanted to leave but he had to go home to feed his dog. The sad part of ending the date was that it would be two weeks before we saw each other again. As he has to go into his hobbit hole and study for finals. Thankfully, it's the end of the first year of med school and we have 2 months of summer to hang out.

Here's hoping things go well, and if not, this was a wonderful first date experience that left me infatuated and smitten. 

A successful first date after a failed 3 year relationship

Woohoo Lockdown!

 The title is meant to be received as sarcasm.

 Been officially in lockdown since March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Recapping in case I stumble across this in a few years and wonder what I am talking about.) A majority of my friends have been working from home although some in the food and medical industry are still going into work. One of my closest friends had to get stomach surgery to reduce the risk of developing genetic stomach cancer that her brother died from earlier this year. Lastly, I've gotten into gardening this month!

 My sister bought a basil plant last month from Trader Joe's. It started wilting pretty quickly but we are not sure if it is due to too much water, too little water, too much sun, or not enough sun. Can we get a basil plant doctor over here please? Anyway...I started looking up a lot of videos on what to do and learned that it is (supposedly) very easy to propagate basil. You simply cut stems underneath where leaves have grown out - called the leaf node - pluck off the leaves so they don't rot in the water, and stick the stems into the water. Roots should start sprouting in about a week or two.  Ours have not grown any roots. I regret not writing down when we put them in water so I could keep track of it. The leaves looked greener and stronger than the ones still in the original pot but other than that there have been no developments. After chatting with some friends who have also gotten into gardening, we removed some of the larger leaves and the stems from both the plant and the water have perked up. So much so that in two successive days one stem went from 18 degrees to about 75 degrees (angles are fun) and on the second day two of the stems were standing almost 90 degrees straight up! First day I had removed the large leaves from the plant and the second day I removed the medium-sized leaves. It was so satisfying because these changes happened within two hours of the leaf removals. I was in the kitchen with my mom the entire time and when we looked over the plant was basically a different being. It was exciting for us!

Photos:

May 18 Progress

May 21 Medium leaves removed
plant perked up even more than previously

May 20 Larger leaves removed
and the plant started perking up

 I also did more work with the compost bin. November 2019 our city had hosted a gardening seminar and that one was focused on composting. My mom wanted me to go to pick up a bin so we could start one - she had heard from her friends how great it is. (Most interesting thing about it is that I won a shovel in the raffle for attending! I wanted a free bin though) We built the bin but didn't have much to put in. I had to forage on the trail by our house for dried leaves as our whole backyard is just pine needles. It was a slow start for months. I tried to dig up the top layer of dirt where our grass used to be but our soil is so hard and dry that it was impossible to get anything more than just a few specks of sand. Eventually we figured out that it would be pretty smart if I took the gopher mounds from our front yard and dumped that into the compost bin. Up to that point it was just a plastic box with a bunch of rotting food. The gopher mounds were loose, moist, and soft dirt. Completely different from anything else I could have dug by myself. Fast forward to this week when I was going through the compost and found some worms in there. I finally figured out where the worms came from! I originally forgot and only remembered trying to dig the dry grass dirt. There were at least 10 tiny, baby, white worms squirming around. And I spotted two nice, pink worms while digging. I did my best to go around them when I saw them as to not injure them and covered them back up so they weren't exposed to too much sun. Granted it has been 80 degrees and sunny this week and I haven't been putting on sunscreen as I was hoping to spend most of my time in the shade. I will eventually take some huge buckets and turn the entire compost heap upside down by literally scooping out everything in there. Wish me luck as that could take half a day. Unless I dismantle the thing so I don't have barriers to dig around * thinking face emoji *



  Lastly, things I have been enjoying/watching. Might become a daily/weekly thing on  here:


-Minecraft videos. More specifically, a multi-player server called Hermitcraft. I don't know if it is the biggest one on youtube but it is the one I found and the one I watch. They have a lot of members and have a dedicated website that tracks when each member uploads. Link HERE. My favorite members have been Grian, Mumbo Jumbo, Xisumavoid, ImpulseSV, and Keralis. They all have their own unique personalities and playstyles and are extremely entertaining in my opinion. Impulse and Xisuma both have second channels where they currently upload their twitch live streams and I currently use them to fall asleep to. I highly recommend Xisuma's streams as he is very articulate and talks about topics with a lot of understanding of both sides backed up on research and an open mind as well as giving plenty of health tips. The most mind-blowing thing that he likes to reiterate that I never considered is: it doesn't matter if you are not motivated to do stuff (i.e. exercise, eat healthy, do work). You just need self-discipline!  --- Isn't that the most obvious thing in the world once it has been said out loud?


-SebastianSB aka Keith playing Phoenix Wright. He is the gaming Youtuber that I have subscribed to the longest and puts out 4 to 6 gaming videos per day. I'm usually watching at least one of the six games he is playing.

-Taskmaster. A game show of sorts from the land of the Britain. It is hosted by two comedians and they have five comedian contestants do a bunch of tasks (previously filmed) and they react to it on stage with one live task each show. As of right this second they have uploaded 5 whole seasons and one episode of the 6th season. I binge-watched all of these and have many late nights.

-All The King of Random videos. They upload many days of the week and I feel like intelligent people might enjoy this type of entertainment.

-Chateau videos! There are two chateau channels that have recently popped up in my recommended. The Chateau Diaries and Doing It Ourselves. Doing It Ourselves was launched March 20, 2020 and it popped up on the home page for a lot of people. The editing and the content was what drew me to stay and subscribe. The channel is run by Michael Petherick who has moved into a chateau that his brother and wife bought in France. They do much of the renovations and restorations themselves. The channel uploads once a week and currently has 11 videos up. The Chateau Diaries is run by Stephanie Jarvis who purchased the chateau in France15 years ago (I could be wrong) with a friend [genius! I should do this with my friends!]. And has been running the channel for about 2 years with hundreds of videos already uploaded. She currently uploads around 4 videos a week due to having more time during lockdown and I have enjoyed seeing the videos in my subscription box every day. The videos are uplifting and so calming. One of the recent videos has Stephanie showing us the vegetable garden that her mom and residents have been growing, some canapes that she has whipped together, and a simple dinner with her and the residents. Yet I was so interested and felt even happier after I had finished the video.

-Lastly, art restoration videos by Baumgartner Restoration. He is a professional art restorer who films some of the art that he has worked on and narrates on the process that is being done. The before and after really allows you to appreciate art in a new way.



Enjoy checking out some of the stuff I have mentioned. I want to post daily of the videos that I watched from that day which I enjoyed. But it might all be minecraft videos. It is something I have been considering. It will probably just be a post titled with that day's date, and a small description saying who the video is by and the title of video at time of upload with an embed of the video.

Interested or not, a digital diary is for me to look back on and see what I was into at a certain age of my life.

Still Missing You Cake Walk

 We are far too young to know anyone who has passed away other than our own grandparents - from old age and naturally. One of my friends from high school just lost her older brother to cancer and he was only a little older than us. And one of my close friends passed six years ago in 2014. It's strange that I don't think of her often but every time I do I would burst into tears. I truly miss her. The only thing I can be grateful for is meeting her twin brother through this tragic event.