I am so mature.

Crying into the sink with my grandmother the night before the phone call, telling her what I don’t tell many people, especially those I am related to, about how serious I feel about Chris. She said something that called him a “boy-man”—and that struck me.

We aren’t complete man and woman yet. I am allowed to be upset for his carelessness, and he is allowed to be careless. There are a lot of loves left in my life, and there is a lot of time between when I would ever expect me and Chris to have mastered this love thing.

This does not mean I forgive him. I am going to refuse to forgive him until I forget what I was upset about.

To remind myself: I called him on (what I thought was) his birthday, (the 14th) two days after mailing a birthday present. He said he would call me back that night. Not only did he not call me back, but he didn’t call to thank me for the present, or call to say goodbye on the day I was leaving the country for 7 months (the 19th, 5 days later), a date I have used in conversation on many occasions. This was the last time he would hear my voice, and it was going too be an angry voice.

Okay, so he didn’t know the date, he didn’t get the present much sooner-- but if I was an important person to him, if he thought about me on a semi-regular basis, wouldn’t he have wondered to himself: “I wonder when Andrea is leaving? Oh yeah, I meant to call her back, I should call her now and find out, and in the meantime thank her for my lovely gift.” That is such a natural thought process. Who am I kidding?

Almost everyone in my life who cares about me said goodbye, in some way, it just means that I am not an important person to him anymore.

I can’t stay in love with someone who doesn’t feel the same way about me.

So, fuck him, until I take my girlish time to get over this, he is off my buddy list, I will not respond to any e-mails (if I am lucky enough to be graced with his attentions) and I, most definitely, will not be giving him my new address or send any postcards in the near future.

Am I punishing myself more than him? I’m afraid so.

--I wrote this on the plane on the way to Germany, mostly convinced that I would receive an apology e-mail from him in the near future. I never did. While everything in Germany is amazing and overwhelming, this is still eating away with me. I am sleeping with a new guy, which is going to stop as of right now, simply because I dislike him. Yes, I cannot stand anything about him, the sex is terrible and I have no feelings for him at all (which is rare with boys I have kissed).

Why am I doing this? I think in response to the most intensely emotional relationship I have ever had, I had to live the least intensely emotional release of hormones possible.