Rejection makes the heart grow fonder. -- my mom

There was actually a point to my last blog entry. I know I made one, but it wasn't the one I intended to. I do that sometimes.

The point I wanted to segue into is that you can't make someone like you. Not if you like them even more to make up for their lacking share. Not if you tell them they're selfish, they're proud, that they have grandiose, worthless ideas for life.

The reason I changed my blog URL, as most of you know, is because I had someone stalking me. I dated him for a month, more than one and a half years ago, and he became obsessed with me. I liked him in the beginning. He seemed different in a way you don't see too often - religious, courageous, cute. I had never really given anyone a chance before, so I thought - what would it hurt?

So I gave him a chance. He flew out to see me and stayed for five days. He met my family. He seemed nice enough, and we didn't get sick of each other, which was bonus. I know how I can be sometimes - idealistic, super-serious and cautious - so I tried to be freer. He had told me that he didn't believe in soulmates, that his dad had said that when you're ready to get married, you'll find 100 girls in a one mile radius that would work out. It deadened me a little -- I didn't come close to believing that and I had tried arguing to no avail. I didn't really have anything to back my opinions up with, other than I thought God had a plan for us and a perfect person out there for each of us. It couldn't just be anybody.

I flew down to see him the next month. This time was rougher. We had a big fight in the middle. I wanted to go home. He said at one point, "I'm not anything special. I'm just an average guy." And I saw that. For the first time, I stopped making excuses for him and trying to find things that weren't there. He wasn't anything special. He might say he's religious and spout nonsensical, complicated thoughts, but I didn't feel his goodness. He didn't inspire me. He wasn't worth it.

When I left, I knew I would never be back. He had wanted me to spend the summer there and rent a townhouse with one of his girl friends. He wanted me to kiss him when we stood in front of the airport, my suitcases at my side. I told him that I would kiss him when I was sure about him. I was already sure. I was done.

I have a hard time hurting people. I knew it hurt. We still talked on the phone every night. I was having a horrible semester with school, and I felt alone. He was there with me. But our feelings were drastically different. I saw him as a friend. I hoped that maybe someday I would see a spark of sweetness, of goodness, of brilliance, of something that would convince me that I was wrong about him the first time. But I didn't.

I think he again tried to overcompensate for my lack of feelings. The less I liked him, the less I thought of him, the more he liked me and the more he thought of me. He was desperate for me to love him. He would ask me why I didn't love him like his ex-girlfriend did. He sent me books on the virtue of humility, telling me that if I wasn't so selfish with such unrealistic expectations of life that I would appreciate him.

It didn't work. It just made me angry. He stopped being a friend and started being an enemy. I didn't want drama. I've always hated it. He didn't make me happy anymore. I dreaded talking to him and hearing his religious nonsense. God was his trump card. He tried to control me through God's will.

Ten months after I last saw him, I had had enough. I told him that I never wanted to see or speak to him again. I told him to stop contacting me. He sent me close to 40 e-mails after that, in a span of five months. Always saying the same thing. Some I read, some I didn't. How I was so perfect, but now I was cold. How I had changed so much. How he knew he wasn't perfect yet, but he would see me when he was angelic enough. It sent shivers up my spine.

He kept writing, telling me that I was asking unfair things of him, wanting him to be a doctor or a lawyer, making huge amounts of money each year. In his mind, he was seeking out any excuse, any reason, for me to stop liking him. He saw my desire for continued education, for traveling the world, as a worship of material things. He told me I would never be happy being so superficial, that I would never be happy until I listened to God, which was assuredly pushing me into his arms again.

He would write to me after every blog entry, believing that I had written it solely for him. He would pick apart every sentence, every turn of the phrase, because he thought it held some cryptic message that only he could understand. Because his life revolved around me, he was convinced my life also revolved around him. If I mentioned something unhappy or unfortunate, he told me that it was because I was denying God's will and that he was disappointed in me. Different things I wrote about would conjure up memories or dreams for him, and he would write to me about them. They were all the same -- how we could be so happy together, that we both had to push for self-perfection, how I needed to stop having such impossible goals for him. He never quite realized that my dreams were my own and they never matched up with his. I didn't want them to. I knew we weren't going in the same direction.

Sine the last time I told him never to contact me again, he has sent me two e-mails. I have them directed to my trash, but I can still see that they're in there. He thinks his relentless pursual will win over me in the end. God is still telling him that we're meant to be together.

For me, I have a few regrets. I think I handled the situation as best I could with such an unusual specimen. But if I could do things differently, I would like to go back in time and punch him in the stomach before I got on the plane. God is actually telling me that it would be justly deserved.