1"All is fair in love and war" and I feel like you are a rogue state. 
 2
 3    When did it start? When we met?
 4    
 5            I sent her a message on a late October night.
 6            We hit it off from there.
 7
 8    Everything is fine for a while.
 9
10            Until it isn't.
11            Five months have passed. We've shared our fears, our weaknesses...
12            I tried comforting her through the hard times.
13            In trying to become a cure for her addictions, I simply replaced them.
14            She's scared of getting too close and getting hurt when inevitably
15            we have to part ways.
16            I'm hurt. Need time to think for a week. Can't keep hoping for something
17            that'll just never come. I can't keep investing my time and energy in
18            being there for her when she isn't there for me.
19            She won't ever make me forget this time apart.
20
21    Crying, at my doorstep.
22
23            That's where I found her when I came back from high school on that
24            fateful March day.
25            I don't want this.
26            - "Please leave."
27              "I don't want to talk about this now."
28            We started talking again a few days later. Under the condition that she
29            wouldn't keep on talking about things that would give me hope, bring me
30            closer to her, if she wasn't ready to return the energy and affection
31            I would expend.
32    
33    She ignored that part of the agreement.
34
35            Constantly, I'd be there as emotional support. I'd help her with school
36            work, talk about her uncertain future. I tried being reassuring.
37            Meanwhile, I was slowly feeling worse and worse about myself.
38            I never got any of that affection returned to me. I'd invite her out,
39            hoping that if she stuck close to me for this long then I might still
40            have a chance to be there for her and her to be there for me.
41    
42    We would get into fights.
43
44            Berating me. I'm the one in the wrong. It's my fault. All of it is 
45            because I couldn't shut my mouth and accept this asymetrical
46            relationship back in February.
47            Every time, I'd come back.
48            Perserverance? Stupidity?
49            I still don't know to this day.
50            I'd be there for her during hard times.
51            I still never got a pinch of affection.
52    
53    I feel used.
54
55            It's been a year now. October is coming to an end. A year and it all
56            feels useless. Time I wasted. People I could've met. All wasted because
57            I believed in someone not worth believing in.
58            I had faith in her.
59            I asked her why she refused to spend time with me when it wasn't about
60            conforting her and helping her with school.
61            She told me that she'd rather wait and that she was still hurt because
62            of what happened 8 months ago.
63            I felt like she wasn't ever going to give me a try.
64            She was just stringing me along for help and personal gain but had
65            no intention of letting me back into her life.
66            That feels so fucking pernicious.
67
68    Why would someone use me for personal gratification? Was it something I did?
69
70As I say my last goodbyes. I wonder.
71Is all really fair in love and war? Or was it all a mirage?
72
73— Louis Dalibard, 10/27/2022. 12:25PM.