i want to say sorry for stuff i haven't done yet

today i let someone down. i did it as gently as possible, but in the end, i felt as though i had no choice. getting involved with someone is a scary road anyway without expectations being put on the table. so say you meet person X and you and X fit together in ways you didn't think existed. conversations roll off your tongues, you make each other nervous and with each passing day you wonder what comes next. what comes next is discovering all the hurdles you won't overcome and the hills you will manage together. sometimes those hurdles are big ones, the ones that loom in the near distance. today i found one of those and unfortunately had to nip the bud before it ever saw the light of day. to say, "i'm sorry, but i don't want those things for myself and i don't know that i ever will. this is our point of disappointment." i don't want to change anyone and i surely don't want anyone coming along altering me or even attempting to against my will. but dammit if i really hate, maybe even abhor, letting someone down.

why do we react like that, knowing, sensing that we have failed someone else and feeling so awful about it? granted i know that there is a percentage of the general population that feels no remorse for disappointment, but on the whole, i believe it to simply be human nature to feel so affected. how do you get over feeling so responsible for someone else's happiness? feeling so sad and dejected about saying, "i'm not sorry that i can't meet you halfway."

i suppose we, as john darnielle (my source of wisdom, of course) says: give it the old college try. sometimes there are things about yourself that you just shouldn't budge on. am i cynical (or skeptical?) to thing that there is nothing useful in lying your way through a budding relationship, nodding to the questions as though maybe you'd consider what (s)he is offering.

i felt sick saying what i needed to say, what i had to say, but when parameters become evident, honesty is a key to unlocking those boundaries and letting yourself out quietly. there is no fleeing, just a somber walk away, renee. why set limits for a future that no one can see?

man. this dating thing is hard.