h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sometimes you can look back and realize that this one thing a person said to you changed you forever.
When I was living in Stockholm, I realized something that up to that point had been only a clische: No promise is forever. And because of that I shy away from ppl who say "never ever". You shouldn't make promises like that. They can't be true. You don't know the future.
At the time I was not in very good shape, emotionally. I was looking for someone I could share with, and most of all I was looking for someone whom I could have a rational conversation about suicide with. Different ways of doing it, etc. And I met someone and he listened for the longest time.

And then he asked me why I was telling him all these things.
I can still hear it, it's like a video tape in my mind and his voice is so crisp and clear, and I understood that you can't share eveything. I still freeze up when I hear him say that. It is the most shamefull moment of my life; knowing I had said too much.
I don't talk to anyone about me anymore, unless it's shallow and means nothing.

I don't cry in front of ppl. Not even the ones who are closest to me. I go in to the shower and cry behind the shielding sound of water falling.
I hide when I'm in pain like an animal. I can't bear to be caught unguarded. No, it's not like it was his fault. I live and I learn, he really had no obligations towards me. How was he to know?

The thing he did though, that lingered, was that he said he'd always be there for me. No one had ever said that to me before and even though common sense told me it was an illusion, a kind of emotianal fraud, I believed him, and when he wasn't there for me I punished him with the most hatefull letters I have ever written.
He didn't respond to that either.

It's hard, I should be over this by now. But some nights I think of him and feel this over again like it just happened.