Conflict in Relationship

J had thrown around the phrase "I love you" fairly early on in the process, and I had explained that while I was okay with her saying that, because the word "love" has many levels of meaning, I wasn't ready to say it.  When I said that phrase, it was going to mean something more than she was saying with it.  She didn't seem to have a problem with that, and regardless of that word being used by her in the context our relationship, it wasn't very emotionally deep from either of our perspectives.

Unfortunately Lindsay transferred to a school in Seattle at the winter break.  No more Lindsay Translation.  We broke up two weeks into the next semester, although that was not the only reason.  Over Christmas break, J had been on a biology trip on a boat in Hawaii.  My ex-roommate Alex, from Russia had been on the boat, and upon their return, she talked constantly about how annoying he had been.  But I was conscious of the fact that it was a prime focus for her.  Anyhow, she broke up with me one evening, shortly after we got back from break, which was not as surprising as it could have been.  It was unexpected, but in the same way that everything else that happened in that relationship was unexpected, because it was all new to me.  It was hardly heartbreaking, because we didn't have a strong emotional attachment.

I was definitely going to miss J’s constant presence in my life, but I hadn't been under the illusion that we should get married or anything.  We did have certain things in common, but very different personalities and backgrounds.  Her stated reason for breaking up, was that we had been absorbed with each other to the exclusion of all others.  There was no denying that was true.  So I accepted the change as I had each of the other steps in our relationship. 

Then two weeks later she was back, saying that she wanted to be together, but in a more balanced and less extreme relationship.  From my perspective, it was like: "okay, so we are still going to hangout together, just not as much, that's fine."  And then two days later, she changed her mind again.  At that point even I knew that things were getting ridiculous, but what do you do?  So we returned to being "broken up" since we had hardly even started to tell anyone we were “back together.”

Shortly thereafter, she and Alex became a couple.  At one level I didn't care, because I didn't prefer J in particular over other girls around.  But it was implicitly obvious that she had chosen Alex over me, which doesn't boost the ego any.  Ironically I didn't see what they had to offer each other.  I have no idea what she saw in him, because in her words, both before and after, he was "an annoying jerk."  And I didn't see J as anything particularly special, worth the effort to "steal" her from me.  It is strange to look back now, but I remained friends with both of them, and we usually went out to eat on Saturday nights.  But Alex had a car, and it is amazing what a guy will put up with for a chance to get some decent food.  And I had a lot of other stuff going on that semester anyway.