Sorry about that.

My last blog just had "bitter" written all over it.

I don't really like talking about why I'm still here because as soon as I've convinced myself that I've accepted it and it's cool, I start to remember how it felt when my parents totally SCREWED me (see! There I go again!)

Don't feel bad for asking though. It's ok. It's something I need to deal with eventually.

Mark and I. Hmm... Maybe I'll tell you the WHOLE story. It gets complicated because I let relationships overlap.

I can't say I think that I've had a really bad relationship before. Now, Jared will disagree vehemently with me. It could be because I'm naive and still don't get it, but I still think that I've dated only really nice guys.

Matthew, my first love and internet boyfriend for 2 years since I was 16 whom I met once in Hawaii 2 years later, is probably the worst relationship. It had its ups and downs. And you may think he is a jerk now, because he's turned cold, but give him a break you guys, while we were "dating", he was always trying to bend backwards for me. And I really did use him. He's just trying to keep his distance now so he won't get hurt that way again.

We were a total mismatch. That's all. The biggest problem was really that he was Catholic and me Mormon - we couldn't /wouldn't marry each other unless one of us converted and neither of us would budge (and all the afore-mentioned moral issues - Faith, you're not the only one who confuses sex and love). That and he REALLY disagreed with what I believed in. It came out alot more towards the end. Basically our relationship was doomed from the beginning.

Jared and I were dating when I was still resolving issues with Matt. Total bad timing. He had to go home for the Spring and Summer and another thing. There's a thing we Mormon's like to do in a relationship - we pray about it.

So Jared prayed about our relationship, and he got a negative. He's a straight up guy, so he broke up with me. Kudos to him for that. He gave up what he had always wanted to do the right thing.

One problem: It really hurt me to be broken up with for that reason - and I gave up. I thought it was over. When he still thought that we had a chance to get back together after I smoothened my issues out.

Unfortunately, this girl has a thing for rebounds. The last 2 weeks I was in school, I met Mark and jumped STRAIGHT into a relationship with him- complicated things even MORE. It was the Spring term, everyone was home. I was desperate for a guy. I missed Jared TERRIBLY, of course.

Right after we had started, I tried to break it off with Mark because I knew I was in it for the wrong reasons. But I messed up and kissed him again the day after I told him I just wanted to be friends.

I was up to my neck in hot water so I basically figured that since I was leaving anyway that I would just do the easy thing and use THAT as an excuse, so I wouldn't hurt his feelings.

Well, I left for Arizona to visit Jared before going home. And in all that emotional confusion at that time, I used Mark as a back-up. Called him often and thought about him all the time.

He came to visit me in KL a couple of weeks after I came home. It was great. We decided to stay just friends, and continued to talk online on Yahoo with our webcams and all every chance we got after he returned to Hawaii. He and I had gotten so close, and somehow, we decided to call each other "boyfriend and girlfriend" again.

We were always flirting and stuff anyway. And everyone here saw him as my boyfriend - and we acted as such - some people thought we were going to get married. It made things simple.

The whole time, both of us have been clueless as to where the whole long-distance relationship was going. Whether we were in it for the right reasons. We both know that the physical aspect of it has played a HUGE part. Now our judgement has been clouded.

When I found out that I wasn't going to be in Hawaii for another semester, I knew we had to break up. Our relationship was getting (and probably still is) obsessive and unhealthy. He's still unsure of whether or not he wants to stay in Hawaii or go back to school in Maryland where he's from. And I don't want him to decide to stay so he can date me since I'm not sure that would lead up to anything anyway.

We're bad for each other. So we broke it off. I initiated it. But I think he would call it mutual.

It's hard to do. Especially harder because I have no reason to hate him. And in the process of developing a relationship with him, I fell in love. That's hard to undo.

Falling in love, as great as that is, insufficient to make things last. We are all too familiar with marriages that don't work and we don't want that.

So now we're still friends who are in love with each other. I don't see us dating again. I would love to. But I know I dated Mark because I was mostly in love with love.

Almost an exact replica of my relationship with Matt, except that we got to spend maybe 3 more weeks physcially together, we didn't meet on the internet (although that's where we talk now!) and he isn't Catholic, but LDS.

There's a sign right there that it's something I need to let go of.

On the bright side, dating Mark has helped me completely get over Matt. And enough time has lasped that I have resolved any internal issues concerning Jared.

So, for the first time, I am dealing with only ONE break-up with no hope of a rebound. (That's a good thing! Don't let me use you!)