Hey Jamie,

I shall be careful with my words because I think you need to be in the place you are right now and the last thing I want to do is make it any worse.

I would like to point out a couple of things though that are my opinion and life experiences:

Everything I can think of that reminds me of him is gone; I've efficiently and thoroughly erased his existence, and the only sign that he ever was is in my memory.

Unfortunately that's really the only evidence that matters in the first place. Without memory and emotion things are just things. You can get rid of something that reminds you of him, and that may even help a bit, but just look at the word 'reminds'. The object itself holds no objective significance about you, him, or your relationship with him. It only reminds you of him, and as long as he's in your memory and heart all your doing is trying to 'hide' him or shove him to the side.

Personally speaking I like to keep things 'to remember someone by', but I only like to keep the happy things, because happy times are always worth remembering. I've done my share of ridding myself of objects that hold exclusively negative memories, but really those are few and far between. Why let the bad times pollute the good? You might say it's unavoidable, but personally (or perhaps just for me I'll concede) I don't think it is. I want to remember the time I cuddled on the couch with my ex boyfriend for hours, making out and talking. It was nice. It was a happy time. It didn't work out between us, but that doesn't poison the happy memory.

at the moment I can't even truthfully consider him a friend because he's too distant in every meaning of the word. I can't be friends with someone I never speak to or see; those are acquaintances, not friends.

This I would disagree with most of all. I've developed VERY close friendships with people from several different, distant geographic areas. I still love them and I still consider them among my closest friends. Often I only talk to them one the phone for a few minutes once or twice a month. Actually that's an overestimate. Sometimes it's two or three months, or longer, without communication shared between us, but there have been times in our lives, mine and theirs, when we've needed each other and we've been there. Sometimes driving long distances because we were physically needed for a hug or just the comfort of presence, sometimes talking on the phone for many hours each day for several days. Whatever it was I've often experienced needing them and turning to them, and I've often dropped what I was doing to be there for them when I suddenly hear from them out the blue.

Friends don't have to be proximally close, they don't even have to be frequent communicators; they just have to be people who mutually care about each other and will 'be there' as needed for each other.

I expect that one day I will walk past him on campus, and I will keep looking forward with my head held high. I expect that he will keep his eyes straight forward and continue walking. When he does, I will know that he has been erased. When he does, I will know he never loved me.

 

When he does, I won't cry for him.

How very beautifully and powerfully put. Unfortunately I'm not sure if you can ever count on that. For my part I can't think of a single person I know whom I would recognize and not react to. Off-hand I can't think of anyone I would at least smile and nod with; however, I can imagine not wanting to see someone and trying to avoid them, or force myself not to acknowledge them, but either way they still have an affect on me. I can't imagine thinking 'or I know this person' and then neither looking away nor toward them. I can't imagine merely looking straight forward because it honestly doesn't occur to me to give them acknowledgment as opposed to forcing myself to do that because I know it's for the best for one/both of us. Perhaps we mightn't acknowledge each other for this reason, but I don't think that indicates that the person is insignificant; indeed I think it acknowledges that the person is so significant you must act in a very deliberate, conscious way.

Again, the only remedy would be to not recognizing the person; the only remedy would be to truly forget.

If there's one thing I've never been able to do it is to forget something on command. There is much in my life that I've forgotten, but I don't remember it.

Anyway, I'm proud of you for making the decision to move on and for holding together.

As I said, I'm sure you need to go be where you are right now, so I don't mean to question, and certainly not to criticise, your stance. Only to give you more to think about.

You're an amazing and beautiful person, Jamie, and I know you'll be just fine.

-Kevin

You're right, Kevin. Friends don't need to be proximally close. They do, however, need to be emotionally close. I can't do friendships where it takes me a year to find out anything personal about a person, and then I only find out anything by sheer intuition and logical prowess..... meaning if they don't tell me, it doesn't count for shit when I find out myself. That's just how I am. You can't be my friend if you don't trust me or need me or are untrustworthy or never accepting of my help.

He's truthfully not a terrible person. If he were, it'd make it a lot easier to just hate him and move on from all of it. However, I can't be around him.

Jamie,

We've talked about the whole situation. We learn from our mistakes, and, in the end, we grow stronger as people as we learn more about ourselves and human nature in general. There really are people who are not what they appear to be. Thus we have to learn to take things slowly and figure out the best course of actions, ones that will be better for us in the long run. You're still young, and, even though you are a really smart guy, you still have much to learn about life. Hell, I'm 25 and still in need of learning. Anyway, anyone who would hurt such a sweetheart like you should be kicked in the junk really hard and punched until face so hard that his nose is broken.

Hell, I'm 25 and still in need of learning.

Hell, I'm 34 and still in need of learning