scallop time

07.16.2026

Last night, I ordered beef lo mein from Big Wong and wondered where we went wrong. It had been a long day. The 100-degree weather plus 70% humidity didn't help. I had made plans with a friend but she canceled on me the minute we were supposed to meet. Then I went to church and didn’t see you there. I Ubered home after because I didn’t have the willpower to walk all the way to Eastern. Took me twenty minutes to go two blocks. It was hot, I was tired, I had been crying, and my head was bursting with a million different arguments trying to convince me that you really did understand the decision I made. Memories of our phone calls, regret over things left unsaid, and this unshakable sense of worry about your unawareness of my desire for you flooded my brain and competed for space. The driver noticed my hyperventilating and asked if I was okay. I laughed a little out of embarrassment. I cried some more after I got home and decided to order myself some real food.

And I kept thinking. Where did I screw up? At what point was I supposed to stop talking to you? Should I have never picked up your phone calls? Should I have never responded to your texts? What would have been the wisest way to go about this whole mess? I didn’t have a clear answer to this question. I liked you. You liked her. I tried so hard to move on from you, but I couldn’t. So I thought maybe I would help you feel a little better about yourself via a friendly rebound. Never did I think the feelings were mutual. Looking back, I wish I had apologized more. But at the moment, the feeling of loss was far too strong for me to feel anything else. I wasn’t as sorry as I should have been because back then, I did what I thought was best given my circumstances. Now I am, because I hurt you and wasted your time. I’m sorry. I hope you’ll forgive me. But there’s really no point in trying to think this over now. It’s over and will remain that way no matter how much I wish otherwise. 

•

Last week, I read a line in a book that asked what I would do if I could do anything I wanted without facing its consequences. You were the first thing on my mind. Giving you a call, sending you a text message, letting you know that I not only love you, but I also desire your presence so very much. I hate that the person I will have become a year from now will not have been shaped and spoken to by you. I always tell Emily (but mostly myself) that “there was life before Brian.” Now, there will be life after Brian. It’s hard to believe, but it is what it is—and in fact, I’m living in it right now. I hope I get better at it.

That being said, I think I’m gonna be single for a while. I’m gonna try to spend my time thinking more about and learning to love God. And when I’m not, I’m gonna spend all my time thinking about you. I really hope you move on and find someone better. More specifically, I hope you won't spend any more of your time hung up on an uncertainty. But for me, I’m gonna let myself linger for a little while longer. And whatever sadness I feel as a result will be the price I pay for wanting you. For as long as that desire persists, I’ll keep thinking that it’s worth it.

•

I’m not going to, and I’m fine with leaving these unsaid, but if I could tell you anything, it’d be this:

자상이 많이 아깝다. You are an amazing man. Way out of my league — not just because you’re tall and pretty, but because of your character. Top of Hillsdale econ. 3.9 GPA. Praxis president. Independent Institute publication. 1580 SAT. 4th place swimmer at SSIS. They’re impressive in and of themselves but infinitely more so because they’re proof of your capacity for discipline. And it shows in your life. Working out regularly, keeping track of your coffee equipment, showing up to things on time, being smart with your finances, planning things ahead, applying again and again even after the automatic rejections. So much discipline, so much self control. It is so incredibly attractive. And it certainly showed during the breakup. Thinking before speaking, making a genuine effort to understand, holding back when you were upset—that’s not something just anyone can do. It’s a valuable trait and one that's hard to cultivate. And it’s precisely this—your ability to act with reason and not on pure desire—that made it so easy for me to open up to you. You said you’re sorry for how you reacted. Brian, you reacted great. You were upset. That’s okay. I never took offense to it. You had nothing to apologize for, and I have everything to thank you for. Thank you so much. The way you handled this breakup made me fall in love with you even more. It makes it so hard for me to move on. 많이 고생했고 고마웠어요.

•

I heard about a conversation you had with a friend. Apparently, someone told you that you’ll know a girl’s the one if you’re certain she’d “stay the same.” Apparently, with me, your answer was a no. Yeah. That’s probably what hurts the most. I wish so badly that I would have had the chance to prove you wrong. In your defense, it’s true that you can't be 100% certain that I would crush on you like this for the rest of my life. But it wasn't just about feelings, was it? I have so much respect for the person that you are and a genuine desire for you to be well. And I thought that maybe our year of platonic love proved, at least in part, that side of our relationship. The feelings would obviously ebb and flow, but this was more than just feelings for me. I would have loved to let you test me. God, I would have loved to try with you.

Don’t get me wrong, though, because the feelings were most certainly there and most certainly relentless. So I hate that you doubted my desire for you. Doubting my love is completely understandable, because I know I haven't had many chances to prove that. But the desire? Have I not proven myself enough? Why else would I pick up so many of your calls just to hear you talk about Lauren for an hour? My desire to spend time with you was far greater than my desire to protect my ego. I picked up every call even when you told me, after reading my blog entry, that you're still not over her; when all you talked about were your DMs with Carli; when you told me that in another life, you would have married Anna; and when you decided that you wouldn’t talk to me for a week. The point I’m trying to make here isn’t that it was wrong of you to tell me about your romantic interests. In fact, I was grateful that you trusted me enough to do so. What I am saying, however, is that I picked up your calls and answered your texts even though it crushed me because my desire to talk to you was greater than my desire to feel good about myself. So yeah, the feelings were there, and they persisted through conversations that did numbers on my inferiority complex. That's how I knew that this was real.

A part of me wishes I could have told you all of this just so you'd know how much I liked you and how big a loss this is to me. I didn't, because I knew that it would have only served to make me feel better at the cost of you not getting the closure you wanted. I think it was for the best that this is left unsaid. 

Yet for the sake of my own sanity, I keep telling myself that you did understand. That you do know all of this and we’re on the same page. But the truth is that I don’t and will never really know with full certainty. Even if I did, I don’t want the certainty of your knowledge of my love to be the thing that keeps me at ease; I want that to be the knowledge of God’s sovereignty. So for now, I try to tell myself that even if you don’t know that I love you, it doesn’t change the fact that I do. And at the end of the day, it is truths, not falsehoods, that constitute the reality we live in. So whether or not you know it, my love for you will continue to exist and affect us both in ways both known and unknown. I have complete closure because I know that even if no one, including you, believes me, I did love you and love you still. Wo ai ni baby. I'll see you when I see you!