Although he had been my neighbor for about five months, I had never really hung out with Matt before. Of course we saw each other. We'd run into each other every so often which makes sense since he was my neighbor after all. He was always polite and always offered assistance for most things, if I ever needed. Do you need help carrying that? Do you need a ride? I found out later that he always sort of had a little crush on me and that pretty much explains all the offers. Unfortunately, I've always been wildly independent and so I've always answered, "Thanks, but I think I've got it." I'm bad at accepting help from others.
I started to warm up a little more to him when Dora, my old computer, died and he offered to take all the stuff off of my old hard drive and put it on my new computer. Even though I didn't let him help me, we began talking a little more freely after that, exchanged numbers and started to become friends. Soon I discovered that Matt was the kind of guy I could talk to for hours yet, it felt like minutes. We had so much in common that it seemed he was the male version of me. Not long after we started hanging out, I developed a crush on him. The only problem was...he had a girlfriend. Although this obviously bothered me, I decided to try to make the most of it anyway and accept him as this great new friend in my life.
One night, after having hung out with him for hours, I finally decided I was getting sleepy and should retire to my apartment. When I got back, I
went on Facebook and pretty much stalked his profile. Because girls are super creepy like that. He had never
mentioned anything about his girlfriend and I was wondering how long they had
been together. I didn't want to ask because I didn't want it to seem like I liked him. So I kept going back, back, back into his wall
reading the things that people had posted. When I discovered that he
and his girlfriend were flirting on each other's walls as early as 2007, I
started to cry. I realized that obviously they had been together for almost
three years and that meant there was no chance for me. I was devastated because it
was that night that I realized I really, really liked him and that I
was falling in love with him. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I just knew it.
I ended up crying myself
to sleep that night.
The next day, I woke up and tried to pull myself together. I took a long shower and decided while the hot water was hitting my skin that I would just have to deal with the fact that someone else had found him before me. As hurtful as it would be, I would suck it up and accept that I would probably never get over him but would have to keep on living day to day as just friends anyway. After all, that was better than not having him in my life at all. It was like I was mentally preparing myself for a lifetime of feeling empty inside knowing that there's this perfect guy for me but I'll never be with him.
How lucky I was that he must have been feeling similar things because a week later he broke up with his girlfriend and made the moves on me. I was so happy and even though other people's feelings were at stake, I knew it was right.
From the beginning, I felt that there was something more there than had ever been with any other guy. And it scared me. I told my friend, Sarah, that I was going to force myself to take things slowly (as much as I didn't want to) because I can get caught up in emotions pretty easily. Turns out, you can't force yourself to do anything. Two months later, and we're getting married. How's that for taking things slowly?
Matteo likes to say that he "tricked" me into falling in love with him. He definitely did. That bastard. But I'm so grateful to have fallen into his trap.
