My 222: Part 1
The beginning.
I’ve noticed my essays have recently been very sombre, so I wanted to focus on something a bit more dynamic. This story was the first thing that came to mind.
My last love story.
So I’m afraid this love story doesn’t start with how we all wish our romance started, in a vintage bookshop, as you're both browsing the same aisle. Or when strangers bump into each other in the street, and a conversation sparks up. It isn’t a classic storybook love, but although corny, I wouldn’t change it.
Our mutual hobby of gaming placed us into a lobby together, in none other than the popular FPS game… Valorant. Although I wouldn’t change our story, I wouldn’t say I proudly go around telling everyone we met on Valorant.
This was 4 years ago now, so the details go a little blurry, but I remember his voice. It was soft and kind, it was confident and warm. He sounded like someone you could go to for anything, and he would try to help. His voice calmed me and excited me; it drew me in to want more.
As a woman on games, you often play in silence to avoid the abuse of men, but I remember that game, I definitely spoke.
I don’t remember who added who; I think I probably waited for him to pick me. If he didn’t, I would have added him.
We spoke in a group… then we spoke in private… then we spoke some more. We spoke on messages, on calls, at night, at day. Through laughter, through sadness, through desire.
We couldn’t get enough of each other.
I laid in bed and journaled about him a week after we met, expressing to the paper how much he drew me in. How his energy was intertwining with mine, we didn’t meet in person, but we danced together in the astral realm of my mind.
I signed it,
222.
A synchronicity I kept seeing the moment we met, on clocks, on cars, on books. And what I didn’t even notice at the time until later on was that our first ever message to each other was on 23/02/2022, which makes me wonder if we actually met on 22/02/2022.
It was everywhere.
It was us.
It was a fast, ‘dumb love’ at first. His energy enthralled me; just talking to him gave me more energy than my morning coffee.
She came in and she... she was like a shot of espresso. She’s like being bathed in sunlight - Andrew Garfield
His texts were enough to spike my serotonin, and his time was all I wanted. I went from enjoying attention from anyone to not needing anyone’s eyes but his. I fell for his comfort, his charm and his kindness. I didn’t even know what he looked like yet — and I didn’t need to.
The reason I call it ‘dumb love’ is because I realise now that it was innocent. It’s what I love most about it, and hate. To know someone is to know all of them, the good and the bad.
And we didn’t have the bad.
Nobody is to blame except innocence and attachment; every rose has its thorns.
But I was in a position where, because of this, he was my Prince Charming. He was the light in my dark, the saviour of my sorrow and the energy to my tired, tired body.
I saw the clashes, the moment he would say something that didn’t quite feel right for me, or when his texts seemed infrequent and distant.
I thought that to be loved, I needed to be easy, not difficult; I can’t lose him. But although this sounds sad for little me, I was so, so happy.
It was blissful ignorance.
I want to clarify here that he wasn’t bad. It wasn’t toxic, giving other women attention, ignoring me on purpose or calling me names.
It was innocent clashes, not updating me, being honest about his feelings, and me having a desperate need for reassurance at the time.
It was all fixable issues — if I brought them up, which I didn’t. I was scared back then, 4 years ago, I was in a very different position than I am now. I was really struggling at home and with my mental health. Just a lot.
Bringing up our issues was the uncertain. I knew how much he made me happy from our many conversations; I didn’t know how he would hold my vulnerability.
Would the person my heart is seeking refuge in dig me into a deeper hole or bring me out of it? It wasn’t something I was willing to test.
This was just a nagging thought I didn’t dive into, but mainly, our love was fun.
It was naughty texts and innocent needs.
It was giggling on the phone until 3 am and falling asleep to each other’s breathing, fantasising about our life together and making promises of:
‘‘If we’re both single when we are 30, we will get married, deal?’’
It was the kind of love where my mum never met him, but she knew through the walls who was keeping me (and her) up all night.
Sorry mum.
It was learning a new language so I could say ‘I love you’ in more ways than one.
‘Ik hou van jou, schatje. Slaap lekker.’
Became our little intimate nighttime routine,
and the 7 words I didn’t need Duolingo for.
Our love never abruptly ended… it was just put on pause. We call this moment now ‘us not being on the same page’, and to be fair, we really weren’t.
That thought I’d been ignoring at the back of my head grew louder once things got harder for me.
I was stalked.
Not in the tracking down your location by an angry ex type of stalked, but more… an old man perving through your window at 2 am… for an entire month… kind of stalked.
It was weird at the time because I wasn’t really sure how to take it.
It was just a normal morning. I did some home studying, and I went out to get food in the kitchen when I saw my mum and stepdad huddled over a phone, acting very quiet and confused.
The only way they knew was because the new CCTV camera they installed only a couple of months prior caught it.
When I saw the footage, I didn’t really feel anything. I thought about what he could have wanted to see or what he had already seen, and that was concerning for me, violating even.
But as for my feelings, nothing changed. I wasn’t scared to leave the house; I often still went out. I was given alarms and important talks, but I remember having this unshaking feeling that if anything happened to me, I could fight him off anyway, so I really wasn’t afraid.
I still have that delusional confidence sometimes, but I think it comes from trying to take the control back, after it was taken from you.
When this happened, 222 and I were a bit off.
I had to be properly open about something to him, something alarming and scary. Why I had to leave calls midway through to talk to the police, and why I’m anxious about talking late at night.
I don’t think he knew how to take it — of course, nobody trains you in dealing with something as crazy as that. But his responses didn’t feel caring enough to me. He could have had the biggest amount of urgency and care, but to me, it was just looking at words with no meaning.
It wasn’t connecting.
He was still distant at times, busy with life, but I was in dire need of something to hold me up, and it felt personal.
All of this turmoil was internal; this is why we call this our ‘not on the same page’ because we communicated nothing. I felt alone and uncared for. He was worried and didn’t know what to do.
I made the personal decision not to talk to him.
My mindset?
If he will be distant then so will I. It was like refusing the invisible hurt it was causing me and trying to give it back to him. He — being a man — was unaware that any of this secret strategising was happening the whole time. His side of things was that I was creating distance to regulate due to the stalker news. I needed time alone to think.
Gradually, our nightly routine turned weekly…the responses got shorter, the love got quiet, and we drifted quietly onto our own paths once again.
There was no big fight, no discussion of what we felt or didn’t feel; it was just left, paused in time because two people were too scared to open up.
But paused doesn't mean over.
Sometimes you just need time to find the same page again.
the way you write really had a way of hooking me in. it’s not a big book romance like you said but the way you wrote it somehow made it interesting ✨
i can sense form you writing that you’re a lot more mature have possess more clarity now !!!
222, what a beautiful story. Not just any story tho, not something made up. No, this is real.
I love the way you wrote about this certain person and your own experience with both a stalker you had back then and your emotions.
You’ve grown so much since back then, so mature, so smart, so sparkling (and so much more). En ik ben zo trots op je schatje, dat dit ons begin was. Ik hou van jou❤️❤️❤️