The Break Down of It

The past few days have been really rough, but not in the hysterical agony kind of way it usually is when it seems like hope for a crush is winding down. One of you, singedsun, mentioned in a reply that I haven't gotten to replying to that maybe I had fallen for the idea of the crush more than the person. I don't really know if that is true. Maybe.

However, I think that I really do care about him as a person. I am going to miss him, even more than most of them, and I do think that if somehow everthing had worked out that I could have loved him more easily than most poeple in the world, even most people that I have ever caught Feelings for. But I'm just... not sure that it would even be fair at this point to try again, even from a far less hopeful and more platonic perspective. Because I do feel like... maybe for a moment there, there might have been something mutual and real that was trying to happen, but I feel like I missed the moment, or he did, or something. Not even one moment but just a pacing issue that is representative of the major obstacle. Is it a difference of maturity? Of personality?

I guess it is a blessing, in a way, that it isn't sticking or festering the way that some Feelings have before. In the most bizarre way, that makes it feel even sadder because somehow that was like a confirmation that it was a little closer to the real thing. It burns, but it burns in waves, and then mercifully I am able to breathe a little.

For days on end, I have waited for the last class of the day. They are usually pretty sparsely attended. I longed for those handful of times that he would be the only person who showed up. A couple of weeks ago, he asked if I had had a boyfriend (as a part of the taking turns asking past tense questions that we were doing in class). I have been told by multiple people that this is one of the key questions that a person from this culture might ask if they were interested. It wasn't a surefire indication, but it was definitely a good sign. And so for a few more weeks, I was riding a high and hoping, counting. Then I tried... finally, not wanting to wait for the last moment in case there were logistics and negotiations that needed to take place. And then he just... didn't pick up on the cue, or I didn't say my line fast enough. Something. And maybe it isn't even that it went wrong. The painful part is that I don't know, and even if by some miracle he were to turn it around and ask me, I dunno what I would say or how I would respond now.

He is just a couple months shy of meeting that half your age plus seven rule that I have heard some people say is some rule of thumb about age gaps. I don't know how much stock I put into that. I'm not crazy, though. At least not in this way. I know that age gap was pushing it a little.

And so it makes me question myself, what I felt, and worse, what I perceived. As a way of looking for validation and filling up my extreme communicative lonelieness here in Japan, I have spent a lot of time talking to people and asking for their help in analyzing our interactions. From several very different perspectives, I had gotten positive indications that maybe he was expressing mutual interest. However, the one thing that all those reports had in common was that it was through my narrative lens that my friends were reading the story.

I'm not a master writer, and some of my turns of phrase and moods are more inspired than others, but I have always been good at watching characters and then absorbing their voices. That is what I am good at in terms of writing fic, and it is one reason original fiction is not particularly entertaining for me to try and do. Anyway, sometimes I wonder if I just wrote the prettiest story I could about this boy and myself because of the vague romance of his panicked not-wanting-to-let-me-down jogs across campus that happened twice early on in the semester.

The first day after I tried to drop a big hint or establish a line of communication with him after all of this is over, he had to come to the first class of the day. I was relieved that I "got it over with" in terms of seeing him and was then able to readjust my expectations. And sure enough, it was a good way to quickly pop any bubble of awkwardness, and I was really not able to tell whether or not he felt one at all. Whatever awkwardness there was, I managed to defuse it, even if it was only in my own mind. Then he returned to his regular class slot tonight. For a moment, I thought we might be alone again. This time, I was filled with dread rather than any thrill of hope. I was relieved when one of my other students showed up - a girl, incidentally.

I like all of my students, and some of them have more winning personalities than others of course. This girl took a while to make an impression, but she has a pleasantly but unusually round face and a happy smile. I remember reading her profile card that indicated that she was pretty good at reading and writing English but wanted to get better at speaking it. She loves chocolate and other sweet foods. I remember more things about some of them than others.

The boy that I have suffered a crush on was chief among these students I had learned a lot about. Of course, this was partly because he came armed to talk about his most niche interest from day one, long before I had any notion or inkling of attraction to him or anyone. He is very interested in starfish and came to class knowing the word, which is not exactly in the usualy set of vocabulary that even my higher students know. What is more is that he has an excellent grasp of the structure of the English language, so he can talk to me about anything even if he has to pause to look up a word. He is invaluable when I want to help a student understand a concept. He can teach between the two languages, even if it isn't his particular interest. And even typing now, I can both see and feel how much I still just... admire him.

On the night before my attempt, I had him and a different girl in class, and they were giving short presentations. In order to give a more represntative adience, we combined with one of my coworker's classes, and one of the things that gave me the most hope - the height before the fall as it were- about my connection with this guy was how comfortably intimate I felt with him around people I didn't know as well. Of course I have become somewhat attached to most of my students, but at a couple of points he leaned to whisper a question or statement to me. We were communicating with others about each other. We know each other, better that I know most of them.

But then again, the night that I tried, when I was trying to be subtle and not to bulldoze him, he couldn't pick up on the personal nature of it at all. He dutifully reported about his study habits, and he REALLY wanted to share his starfish in person that he had told me so much about all semester. I wanted to see them because he cares about them and out of mild curiosity. And I guess the pessimistic viewpoint is that maybe our relative closeness isn't a total illusion but that the proportions are reversed. Maybe for him, he is mildly curious about me as a person but for the most part is interested in me as a conduit of consenting interest for him to gush about his hyperfixation on his pets.

I mean, it wouldn't be the first time someone was guilty of that with a casual friend. I had just been hoping that maybe I held a higher station, but I tried not to expect it of him.

Tonight when he was with his female classmate and we were going through the lesson, I noticed him looking to me far more than some of my students do during their speaking. For validation, maybe? I hope it wasn't cruel, but I made less effort to meet his eyes and hold his gaze.

I typically have difficulty holding eye contact with people for long periods, but I have gotten better at it. However, it still feels pretty personal to me. And for the first time, it felt oddly selfish to give him all of the eye contact he sought. I didn't let him rope me into the conversation as mcuh as he usually does. I talked with them both, but I tried not to let that sense of speial personal knowledge show at all, and this is a very, very subtle change. I have tried to remain fair and open to all of my students, and I would say I have a good rapport and a lot of random personal knowledge about most of them.

It felt tense for a few moments, and again I don't know if it is in my head or not. Then it began to flow more naturally. He was talking to his classmate. I was doodling a pattern on paper and listening. I didn't interject for a few minutes, and then I would help when they asked. Toward the end of the class, I allowed it to become more of a three-way and casual conversation once I was satisfied that they understood the pattern and had practiced it a lot.

And the things I noticed as I just sat there and listened like the frindly robotic language siphon and conduit I was hired to be, I noticed that he had a good conversation with his speaking partner. Turns out, they both like fish a lot. They both had an interest in visiting a tropical island on vacation. Two interests that are not particularly egnaging to me beyond enjoying another person's enjoyment. She is a pretty girl, near his age, and has no culture or distance barrier to reckon with. I have no idea if they are each other's type or if they'll ever happen to cross paths again. However, it felt like that the picture looked much different once I was finally looking at it from the outside rather than trying to figure out where I fit within it.

And that is the hard part. Feeling like I fit nowhere and that I never really have fit anywhere except wit my parents from time to time. And that makes me feel malformed, like I am a terminal node in the machine that isn't needed anymore. In my worse moments when I have intrusive thoughts and have to talk myself down from really dark places, it is primarily my parents that stay my hand. And it isn't that I don't have friends who would care about or miss me. It is that I don't feel like I am a key part of any picture except that of my parents' picture of the rest of their lives on this Earth, and I don't know if I will ever be.

Another thing in processing this crush that is the closest thing to optimism I can manage to muster out of this apparently not working out is that maybe, while there was a certain kindred calm and care between us perhaps, we didn't have enough of or core interests or values or drives or whatever in common. I don't feel the need to have a partner that mimicks every viewpoint or moral belief that I have, but some of those kinds of personal drives are pretty key to who one is as a person and what one wants to do with their lives. I remember that one of the times I was disappointed with my crush was with, during a class discussion kind of thing about personal questions, he sort of indicated a very strong negative reaction to giving money to a homeless person becuase of how precious a commodity HIS money was to him. But I mean, it was obviously pushed through the lens of the fact that he is entirely supported by his parents and does not have money of his own and has been taught to be penny-pinching and a bit miserly by his parents for the sake of not "losing" or "giving away" the money they give him. I feel like that is an immature belief, but it is something that one could grow past. Besides, I have not given to the homeless at every single opportunity I have had either because of feeling poor, even if I was not as poor as that person was. Not to mention the myriad of societal prejudices we are taught to have about giving to beggars. I get the impression that the last mentioned point is an even bigger societal prejudice in Japan. It almost feels like the homeless are seen as pitiable but also as at fault because they are standing out as a flaw in blending into the system or whatever, but that is an off-hand observation about a culture that I cannot intimately comment on.

Last night, when I didn't see my crush person but instead had a single-person class with another boy - incidentally probably the most objectively cute boy in my opinion among my students, but that never developed beyond an observation. He and I talked about his ambitions for the future, and for the second class in a row, he expressed an interest in going to Indonesia to volunteer with a school program. His major is about helping people in developing countries. He is a tutor at a cram school. And while I doubt that I will ever do longterm volunteer work in the developing world, that particular ambition is far more emotionally resonant with me than studying deep sea creatures, you know? But I don't feel like everyone is obligated to be a champion of justice to be a just and kind person. Anyway, that is just a quandary that I am faced with in trying to deal with what I felt, what I still feel, what I value, and what I want.

But back to the bottom of the barrel as I typically go, I cannot help but feel like what I want is of very little consequence. I feel like I was only ever meant to look at the picture, not to be a part of it, wherever I go.