lucy, the evil, heartless bitch: prologue

There have been many occasions since I started this blog, when I thought maybe I would tell this story. Each time I’ve got a little closer, but ultimately, I’ve just kept ignoring it. Ignoring it hasn’t really been very helpful so far, though, so I think it’s finally time to go through the whole story. Part of why I’ve been reluctant to share it, is that I feel so guilty about how I acted and I don’t want to reveal myself to be a horrible person and have you all hate me. But at the same time, the other reason I couldn’t tell, is that I secretly want you all to read it and tell me I’m not so bad and I feel guilty wanting to be absolved of my guilt. Writing about some of my other deep, dark secrets has felt amazingly freeing, so I guess that’s what I want here, even though I think I don’t deserve it.
I think the first time I thought of telling this story was way back when PPB asked people for their best worst experience. I’m still not sure if it fits the best part of that, though. More recently, I read Curly, of ham & cheese on wry's series of posts about her first girlfriend and found myself almost recognising myself in her story of an online friendship becoming something more and ending in heartbreak (interestingly, the first post also reminds me of one of my theories). I say almost because you may remember me claiming never to have had so much as a crush, so how would I be identifying with this story of first love? I still think this doesn't count, but you mightn't agree. In any case, if I'm wrong, I'm deceiving myself as much as you. The major difference between Curly’s story and this one, though, is that I’m not the sympathetic hero of my story, but the villain.
There are multiple stories that I’ve referred to obliquely here. This is the story of the guy I tried and failed to like-like (actually, I can't find what I thought I'd said; maybe I self-censored more than I remembered), who is also the guy I ran into here, who emailed me yesterday. It’s also the story of why I’m even here in the US. I wrote once about wanting to dissociate current-me from the idiotic past-me who did incomprehensibly foolish things. This story is about that past-me.
One of the students in my program lived in Europe for a while after undergrad and when I asked her what made her decide to go overseas she said blithely, "I followed a boy". I was astounded at her honesty and at the same time terrified for her. In my head, I was yelling at her for laying herself open like that. Had she no sense of self-preservation? Of course, nobody reacted with scorn or ridicule, fear of which keeps me from telling anyone my real reason for applying to grad schools in the US. Her openness didn't inspire me to deviate from my official story, though, because it's based on so many layers of lies and secrecy that it (at least feels like it) would be disastrous to start demolishing the facade. I'm also still deeply ashamed of the whole story.
Before I start, you need to go and read Curly’s series of posts (it’s long; I’ll wait for you), so you know what the other side of my story is like (and also because her story is worth reading in itself). Then, I promise I'll start being less cryptic.