On Sunday the 20th I received a blessing from my dad. I had a horrible date that Friday and was just about fed up with the whole dating experience. I was told not to worry, that my experiences were to teach me how to communicate with the opposite sex. I was then shocked when I was told to focus on moving. I hadn’t planned at all to move before! Why would I need to move? So I did as told and started to look for apartments.
Thursday night my ex and my room mate’s ex came over to play games and watch a movie. During the movie my room mate’s ex kept texting me… “jokingly” about how he wanted to kiss me. I told him we needed to talk. After the movie he waited around to talk to me, but my room mate wouldn’t leave. Eventually he left but called and asked to meet me around the corner. My room mate had called him moments before I got his call and demanded yet again for the umteenth time since they broke up 3 months ago to tell her why they’d broken up. He’d told her several times but it was never the answer she wanted to hear. She asked me to talk to him and find out why she and he had broken up.
When I met him we sat in his car and I waited for him to talk. Folding my arms awaiting the “I was joking, I don’t want to lead you on” talk, I was shocked when instead I was told “Everything I wrote you was true.”
I asked how long he’d felt that way and he announced “For a while.” I had no clue as to what to say. I sat there and couldn’t even look at him. Eventually I did and he looked extremely scared and worried as to what I’d say. At that moment we leaned in and kissed. There are no words to describe it. It then started to seem too fast so I pushed him away and asked if we could walk outside. We got out and then made our way to the back of my parked car to talk. “Why did the two of you break up?”
“That’s really complicated” he announced. He started to apologize profusely. I kept telling him to stop but he couldn’t. I asked for some time to think about what had just happened.
When I got home I couldn’t even walk in the door, I knew my room mate would be waiting for me to report on what he’d talked to me about.
I punched the wall then opened the door and made my way to my room. She had left her bedroom door wide open - my room is right next to her’s. She woke quickly and asked what happened. How could I tell her I’d just kissed her ex? So I lied. “He wouldn’t talk. I asked him why you broke up and he said it was complicated and that was it. We just sat there.”
I went into my room and cried. I’d just lied to my friend! That week I was plagued with the idea of her ever finding out. I talked to him on Saturday and asked if we could tell her and he said he didn’t ever want her to know, no matter what. This weighed even heavier to me that him. 
Wednesday we spoke again and I’d come to decide that I didn’t want to be in a relationship just yet. It was too fast. He came over and I spoke to him in person. My room mate had left to do laundry at her parent’s house. We decided to go out onto the balcony to talk, it’d be more private. We spoke for a good hour or so. Apparently he had come up with the same idea as well. He took my hand in his sadly and we went back inside. We sat down on the couch and started watching a movie together. He kept poking me and I’d playfully poke him back. He grabbed my hand and held it. He then looked to me and I at him and we watched each other. I didn’t move. He leaned in and kissed me. When I started kissing back the front door swung open and an excited voice said “Hello!” glad to be home… It was my room mate. We quickly pulled apart and my room mate ran with her laundry basket to her room. A few seconds later she dashed down the hall and out the door, slamming it behind her.
We sat there stunned. She was angry. I knew she was and I understood why she’d be. I didn’t know what to do. We tried calling here but understandably she wouldn’t answer. He was scared and so decided to leave. I followed him outside and announced to him how this was a horrible situation to put me in which I don’t think he understood. I was her friend, we lived together, she confided in me about their relationship, and now caught me kissing him in our living room. She’d told the world he never gave her a reason as to why they broke up and now it looked like I was the one who ended the relationship or I’d cheated with him. He quickly responded back that it wasn’t true and I told him that it was easy for her to say that now. He told me “I’ve given her the reason. She knows why. But it’s not what she wanted to hear.”
We said goodbye and he left. I quickly went to my room and locked myself in. I called my mom and she told me that I shouldn’t feel bad because they’d broken up and she had no claim on him. Yes, that was true. But I was now worried that I’d become the mistress in the whole affair. The idea of moving was now making sense.
He texted me a few minutes later and reiterated how he didn’t want to be in a relationship. I was annoyed! Why would us being caught change my mind about us being in a relationship!?
Yesterday I was chewed out by a guy in our ward who knew us and was best friends with my room mate’s ex. I was brought lower than the dust. I was told he’d lost all respect for me which upset me because he didn’t know what happened! We yelled and screamed and then finally he started to cool down after I told him what happened. He encouraged me to write a letter explaining what had happened and leaving it on her door. If she wanted to talk, eventually, I was there to talk.
I wrote the letter then put it on her door. She had taken it down this morning and left the house.
I guess where I stand is very different from a lot of people in this culture. As an adult you let go of someone once you break up and understand that they will find someone new. I had NEVER thought of dating him while they were together and didn’t even ponder the thought until he’d told me to think about it last Thursday. I don’t feel badly that he and I were thinking about a relationship or that we’d kissed. It wasn’t like I was his rebound and make-out buddy which seems to happen a lot more than you think. This was actually two best friends discussing possibly evolving a friendship into something more.
Yes, I understand her view point. She feels betrayed, hurt, humiliated because she’d confided in me all this time and then to catch me kissing him. She didn’t know how long this had been going on. He imagination could go wild at that moment! And obviously it had.
But my point is, it was only 5 days! And out of those 5 days, we’d kissed and spoken in person twice.
She wanted to marry him - he didn’t want to marry her. The poor girl smothered him! This happens in the “LDS” culture. A 19 year old girl will think her next step is marriage and quickly flock to any man who gives her the littlest bit of attention. A lot of these couples marry purely so they can have sex. A lot also marry because that’s what their parents have ingrained in their brains since infancy. Marriage comes before sex. Yes? Anyway, she smothered him. She tried TOO hard and eventually had her heart smashed when he announced though he thought she was a wonderful girl, he couldn’t marry her. They weren’t right for each other. He’d prayed, gone to see his bishop, and really thought about it too. To her, it was out of the blue. But because he’d confided in me several times while dating her that he was worried that they weren’t compatible, it didn’t shock me. I even tried to impress the idea of slowing down on her… It didn’t work. Everything they did was a sign of marriage. Look also at the fact that she was 19, he was 25. They dated from January 1 to mid May. I’m 23. I never dated him but talked to him occasionally. The only time I hung out with them was when she invited him over.
So now here I am, stuck in the middle of all this jam and I really don’t want to be. But I’ll be here if I have to. I feel sorry she found out the way she did, but I don’t feel sorry I thought about dating him. I’m sorry if that sounds cruel, but it’s the truth. I’m not in a relationship with him.
Management at my complex have moved me a building over. I’m in a different ward now, which is good. I really don’t mind either way now… Well Heavenly Father… I’m moving.