#NerdsUnite: Confessions of an Unwed Bride

<editorsnote>  Julie Wilson recently endured an agonizing break up with her fiancé after being together for 8 years. She is now in her late 20s and confused about what to do next. These are some of her frustrations, and ways she is attempting to heal from her loss. </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's Julie Wilson

The Price Of Being A Loner

He was my everything.

It's saying to the person you are with, "No pressure or anything, hun, but you're my whole life."

I've realized that's a big reason why this breakup has hit me so hard. I let so very few people in. Now that I don't have a lover or a best friend, I'm really lonely.

My ex was a social crutch for me. He was so many things that I wanted to be. Charismatic, independent, funny and very social. I watched the way he interacted with people and took notes. When I first met him, my new social life was exciting. All of a sudden I had a whole new group of friends! Around the same time I met him I started to wait tables. There's nothing like walking up to a table of strangers and pretending to be their best friend to make you learn to open up.

I never fit in as a kid. Other kids just never got me. Summer day camp is a perfect childhood example of my social awkwardness. School was hard but I could usually find one or two people that liked me. Summer camp though? Not so much. (Thank goodness for the existence of books. They hid my face when no one wanted to play with me . They allowed me friends when I had none.) The summer day camp I went to was housed in a local middle school. We would often go over to the gym area and play racquetball . Some of us, either the girly or not so athletic types would hang out in the hallway and make lanyards. One day one of the counselors put his foot down and declared that all of us had to participate, that none of us could sit out making lanyards today. I was really bummed, but I went up to this one group that contained a friend and asked if I could join. The leader girl looked me right in the face and told me no, all with a smirk on her face. I asked around and couldn't find a group to join. I ended up hanging out with the female counselors doing guess what? Making lanyards. I remember being really surprised that they let me, but I also knew that they understood that I was the outcast.

The moment I stopped giving people that much power over me at 14, I was cool being a loner and made a bunch of friends. The moment you don't care, people want to be around you. But back to college. I had just ended my first year at Florida State and it didn't go so swell in that I barely made any friends my first year there. It was a complete social failure. And then I met him. It was like a way out of social rejection. He already had friends to hang out with. So, I let him make the friends and then I got to hang out with them with the added bonus that I didn't have to be the one to maintain the friendship. Perfect for someone who never seemed to get it right. Now, I'm not incapable of making friends and I definitely had my own circle from my restaurant job, but over the years it was just easier to hang with his friends. My ex is really funny and tells it like it is. Which is awesome because it filtered out the riff raff; the assholes and the high maintenance girls, buuuuut if that girl happens to be someone you work with and she is capable of making your life at work miserable because she's besties with the manager, having a boyfriend with no filter might just suck at times. Like I said, just easier to hang out with people who obviously liked his colorful personality, his friends.
 
Compound all of that with the fact that we moved a couple of times. After I finished up college at Florida State, he realized typical college wasn't for him and he wanted to go to an art/tech college in Orlando. Not my ideal city to live in, but I didn't have any sort of plan so I was cool with the move. So we started over, made all new friends. And then left them all and moved to Los Angeles so he could get into animation (again, I was more than down to move to LA. I looked at it as an adventure). The move to Los Angeles crippled me. We were so broke and thousands of miles away from all of our family and friends. I grew up in a very nice suburb outside of Fort Lauderdale. Everything was brand new. And clean. LA is not clean. It's smoggy and local businesses aren’t even allowed to hose off the area outside of their stores because it wastes water, just sweep it (some do anyways of course). It was a lot for me to take in. One of my first days there I saw a bum piss on the back of a bus stop bench. I freaked. My ex laughed and said, "Welcome to LA!" as I turned pale. So at this point I have no close friends because I keep moving away from them. The city intimidates me. Plus, I sold my car and we are now down to one car, a stick shift that I couldn't drive. Now I physically relied on him as well. 9 months after moving to Los Angeles, I got my current job. I just didn't feel like any of my coworkers liked me or were interested in hanging out with me. Plus, massive sized company and I had only ever worked at companies where there were about 50 employees total, so I felt invisible. My social anxiety kicked in at this point. Hard. I was convinced everyone hated me and I made myself miserable. More clinging to my ex. He very literally at this point became my everything.

When we were breaking up, I realized that I really didn't have anyone out here on this coast. There was work to be done. On ME and MY LIFE.

I've had no choice in recent months but to go outside of my comfort zone, drop the social anxiety that had been plaguing me for two years and make friends. And I have. I am very pleased with the way that once I really made an effort to meet new people I did. Once you open yourself to something and your energy reflects that change people recognize it.

Although, there's nothing like having tons of people around you to make you feel alone, like no one really knows you. No one out here really does know me. Except for him, the person who knows me better than anyone else on this entire planet. But I will continue to forge ahead and keep trying.  There is no other option. Sink or swim.

I can't stress enough how important it is in a long term relationship to keep your own identity! It is so easy to just melt together into one person. I've seen so many couples just slowly give up little pieces of themselves for the other person until they don't have their own identity. The tricky part about this is that in a way it feels so good to do this for another person. And who wants to think about the breakup when you're waist deep in love? Well, think of it this way: you are not only protecting yourself in case you and your other half break up but you are actually preserving the relationship by maintaining a level of mystique and thus keeping yourself interesting to the other party.

I was talking to one of my best friends the other week about this. She also just got out of a long term relationship (7 years). We are each other's sponsors, lol, for moral support.

Her: I can't believe how much I just gave up for her.

Me: Yeah, I know, like how do you forget about the most important person in your life? YOU!

Her: Seriously. I would have never gone to that awesome lecture if I was still with her. I would have rushed home instead. But ya know what? I know this is fucked up, but I would do it all over again if we got back together.

Me: Yeah, so would I. And that's what I'm afraid of.

#nerdsunite

 Click here to follow Julie on Twitter