An Ode to Good Men.
This is a moment of recognition for all the nice guys that are or have been in my life. Some I have personally encountered and built relationships with, while for some of them, I was blessed to have met them for a brief moment in time.
They will all remain anonymous.
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X1: I stomped my feet against the warm summer’s concrete, wiping and throwing away my tears, cursing at his name. I started to walk away, drunk, appalled and hurt by his behaviour tonight. How can somebody that says they love me, act the way they do? I don’t understand. His hands were all over other women.
Then he caught me, the stranger. He pulled me to the edge of the street curb under the street lights and spoke with no walls. He was a stranger. And still is to this day. I just happen to know of the woman that he is madly in love with.
“You know how he is to begin with.”
”Yeah so? Is this what you call love? Is this what you call respect?”
”Do you like him?”
”Yeah.”
”Then you should be happy that you are with him. Do you know how it feels like to wake up every morning knowing that the one you love is in your life but you could never call them your own? I wake up sometimes wanting to cut myself because she doesn’t want to be with me. Every day I am just so happy that I know her, that I could see her, that I get to spend what little time with her.”
He looked intently in my eyes and at that moment, I swallowed my tears and accepted my fate. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I am lucky to finally be with the one I love. Maybe I had nothing to complain about. And if it weren’t for him, my relationship at that time probably wouldn’t have lasted for another few months. But a few months was all it could stretch.
I don’t know why he told me the things he did. After all, he was a complete stranger.
To this day, I hear him (X1) still chasing the woman of his dreams, still taking care of her on those drunken nights, still crazily in love with her. Unfortunately, she is now taken by another man that doesn’t nearly know her worth.
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X2: He waits for me to go inside the house before he drives off. Not many guys would do that – even when I ask them to. Too bad we clash.
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X3: He loved me like no other. He gave me the world. I think I’ve said this more than enough times, but what I have done to him was uncalled for, and no matter how many sorries or things I say I will do, will never ever be good enough to right the wrongs. He loved me. He really did. I felt it in so many ways.
I just didn’t feel the same way back.
And I couldn’t give him the love he wanted.
To this day, I wear his jewelry that he gave me not because I have lingering feelings, but because it reminds me that I was once loved unconditionally. It reminds me how great it feels to be loved, and that I hope to find that love again in somebody else.
That clean, pure, honest, love.
I hope.
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X4: He calls her princess. She was his baby. He gave her the world. But she cheated on him. She broke up with him because her feelings are now deposited in many other men and not just solely in him. He still doesn’t know she cheated and probably never will. He drives her to school and everywhere else. They still hang out.
He’s hoping she will see him one day and come back into his arms, just like before.
She’s sleeping with all these guys while he’s waiting patiently alone at night.
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Having two people fall in love at the exact moments, having two lives intertwine with such confidence, is actually quite a miraculous feat that we take for granted everyday. That once we have it in hand, we must not forget that it is a fragile commodity guided by our actions. Love is not granted. We must work hard for it. But sometimes, working hard is just not enough. So we leave it up to fate…
There are good men out there.
