I miss her. Ok, I’ll admit it: I miss her. But not as a lover, as a friend. She is in fact a wonderful, kind, and intelligent human being, it’s just that she was too young. And there was a huge culture difference; she was very needy. I hadn’t learned how to set boundaries yet. Things progressed way too quickly–after dating less than a year we were making plans to move in together. It didn’t hit me how daunting it was until just weeks away from when we would start looking for apartments. I wasn’t ready. She had been spending so much time with me already; it had steadily increased from maybe 2-3 days a week to 6 days a week. It was too much too soon, and I knew it was not meant to be. She had forgotten her independence. We both had forgotten why we were even in love.

So I ended it. And in doing so, ended a great friendship…but now that I write this out, I think our friendship ended the day we first made love. I wasn’t her friend anymore. I wasn’t someone she cared about without condition. I was something she owned now, something she wanted to shape into her own idea of an ideal image.

I couldn’t let her do it. God created me for a different purpose, and I couldn’t let her or anyone else stop me. Her love cost too much.

She was never my friend, because she never loved me for being me. And I never loved her for who she was, just who I wanted her to be.

I still believe in love, but next time I’m going to take my time.