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I have been trying, lo these past 36 hours, to be her friend as she requested. [...] But you know what I think? (See, here comes the jerk part) That she doesn't actually want me to be only her friend.
Oh, buddy. Oh no. When a young woman tells you that she only wants you to be her friend, she means it (if she doesn't mean even less than that, but I do not think Eileen wished to be rid of you entirely).
I can assume that the fatal phone call occurred before this, at which point Eileen put distance.
I remembered you accepting her decision better than this entry suggests. You can't argue your way out of dumped. I still reference that axiom, but you never stop giving it a shot.
She want to have the "with potential" title attached, as she only dropped it out of fear of what I felt for her. But more so, what she felt for me. Fear is no reason to abandon potential.
She said no. It is as simple as that. You both gave it a shot, you wanted different things out of a romantic relationship (in that you wanted a romantic relationship), and it ended before it truly began.
That could be a blessing. Better in some ways to be a "never happened" than an ex-boyfriend.
Maybe she will say "No, really, I just want to be friends." And I will be hideously embarrassed to have been so sure. But at least I risked it. I'd rather regret telling her all of this than regret not doing so.
I'll give you this. It is better to have tried to fall in love with Eileen. I don't regret that you gave it a shot, even if I find some of your attempts and phrasing awkward.
Does that explain our affair? I hardly think so, although it feels quite a bit better to blame an increment of time than her or me.
I'm sure that February's frozen shoulders could take a little blame. In a merrier, warmer month, you could have sat in the grass, held hands, and things might have been different. In the slush, you have phone calls and letters. Words alone were not going to be enough to win Eileen over.
In fact, can we not blame time for all of this? Age, specifically, is the dastardly culprit.
She is nearly seventeen. The age difference isn't significant on the page, but it is considerable in the heart. Age can take more blame than February, but that doesn't absolve you. Of all involved, you are the most responsible party.
If she despairs now, a phone call or letter can alleviate her strife. She said that she would regret quite a bit sooner than twenty.
I do not think a phone call or letter was going to do the trick. Eileen needed you in person to know you in this way, but she couldn't have that.
she worried about the effects on my passion on her life.
Oh, this is a cryptic phrase. What is the exact nature of her worry there? What effect could your passion affect?
She sees a handsome lad. So long as she does not try to date him, I have no quarrel with her realizing other people are attractive.
Ah. As I said, Eileen needed you in person. She is in a school full of boys her age, young men she can see in a way she cannot see you. No wonder she worried about straying eyes and heart (and other parts).
She may have already wanted someone else, though she wasn't going to give you names. Your granting her something that she didn't ask won't comfort her.
As for her occasionally getting drunk, my provisions are merely that she doesn't get drunk every weekend or get out of control when she gets drunk.
You had an issue with Kate's substance use until you grew past it. Eileen suggests the same problems might present with her, which could be her cleverly trying to push that button to see if it could release her.
Aside from that, I practically insist she lead the life that makes her most happy. I care for her for who she is, why would I seek to change her?
I believe this. You would have been okay with Eileen experiencing these things. Had you managed to become a committed couple, she would eventually (or sooner) kiss someone else, confess, cry, and you would break up because she was in high school, where that is de rigueur. I suspect you knew this.
That would have been an experience that would not have hurt much in the long run.
However, if her knowing that I care for her as I do negatively affects her, gives her guilt she never had before, by all means I insist she keep me at an arms length.
She has kept you there. Again, Kate had similar issues with you, though after a long relationship to better justify it.
Loving another person means that you consider what they feel. It is a restriction. Why would Eileen want to be restricted if she didn't have to be?
She has made this decision to have me as nothing more than a friend, but she is not happy with it.
She made this decision. That's all you should need to know to back off. You can speculate that she isn't happy about it, but you owe it to the both of you to give her the space and respect what she has said.
But know, truly, that I care for her deeply and am lifted at the thought that my life contains her within. That I can lift a receiver off its cradle, dial seven numbers, and hear her voice.
And I think that it is requited.
Maybe Eileen requited, but that doesn't mean that she has to be your girlfriend. You can name a dozen people whom you adore but whom you would not wish to kiss.