Pangs and Pains

"We think the same thing at the same time, but we can't do anything about it..." -Thom Yorke "Hawthorne Hill"
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There is another me. A doppelganger, if you will, but not in the evil sense. He is more the male version of me, a quiet love I never quite got around to being in.  We never really spoke, just sort of read each other...in bed, in person, to others--others being the biggest obstacle of all.
With him, there were a million chances, a million words never spoken that needed to be, a million years together that condensed, somehow, into only a few 365's that slowly tapered into oblivion. We had no official end, no official friendship, no official feelings...but we were never officially anything.
I loved him. I still love him.
This is the problem.

On an unrelated note, I haven't been in a relationship in over a year.  The last person I dated was a friend from college, whom I knew for 14 years prior to our dating.  Unfortunately, over those years, he descended into a state of alcoholism nearly impossible to understand.  He is a great person, but that person has been living in the shadow of his mistakes for so long, he's now swimming in an ocean of booze with no interest in finding land.  Our breakup was quite difficult, in the sense that he really cared about me--and i him--but couldn't sustain a real relationship with anyone due to the alcohol.
Someone once said dating someone with an addiction issue is a full-time job. They weren't lying...and I'm not looking to fix anyone else's problems.
Not that time. He wasn't the first alcoholic I've ever dated.

I began to look for different friends, after that breakup. In the process of doing so, I found someone profoundly damaged...someone whose reality had split a long time ago.  This person began stalking me about 5 months ago. It continues to this day...and he lives about 100 ft away from me.  I have to constantly be on the lookout for my safety, and have to call the police every time he talks to me since the restraining order is of no use in physical confrontation.

Between these two people, I have had no sex in over a year either.  I've had interest in it, of course, but not the interest to look for it. It seems every time I look for physical satisfaction I simply inherit a whole host of unsatisfactory bullshit and problems others can't wait to unload or punish someone for having.
This is not working for me.
I've gotten to the point where, I just lost all interest in sex, masturbation takes an hour to make me come and I simply get no satisfaction from it. I need a human's touch. I need to feel loved and wanted, not needed and appreciated.
I need unselfishness.

So, in this time of drought of the body, He comes into my mind.

No, not some deity, the He I spoke of in the first paragraphs. My doppelganger.

I can be driving and for no apparent reason I will get flashes of our time together--kissing, touching, looking into each other, seeing each other across the room, the silence we cherished screaming volumes.  The time I lost a friend to a drunk driver and he didn't hesitate to pull me into a bear hug and hold onto me for half an hour as multiple other people tried to pull him away. The way he stood to hear every word of the conversation I had with a mutual friend about dating someone else (I should have listened, in that case...impetuous youth led to serious PTSD). The way he dropped his girlfriend's hand when he turned the corner at the base of the stairs to see me, backlit with sun, standing at the top.
The way he was always single as soon as I was. The way he was always single when he found out I was upset he wasn't.

He knows I loved him, I wrote a book and half of its poetry was about him...I never got to hear what he thought of it. He was amazing about it though.

Don't get me wrong, he was nowhere near perfect; he fucked half the city and paraded those girls in front of me to make me jealous. They generally disappeared after one night, being as he never called them back. He drank, he played games, he broke me up with a few people on purpose...he never called me, not once.

When I had facebook, he never answered my friend request--just left it hanging, not accepting or denying it. I followed him on twitter for a little while, but felt like a stalker myself...same with instagram.  He takes great pictures, but I felt odd liking them when I haven't spoken to him in years. He lives about 65 blocks away from me now (about 10 min drive via interstate), with his best friend from high school.
I had a brief relationship with said best friend, and a short fling with him two years ago...until he decided he wasn't ready from his last breakup to start anything. At least the best friend apologized for it.

I know He just pops into my head because I've had some really bad relationships, and he was always the smile on my face to get me through or over them, past them, or around them.  I know I'm lonely as hell right now, and I wish he were someone I could call, to hang out, chat, whatever...but our relationship has never been that sort.  I don't know him anymore, superficially...he cut his hair, has a different job, different interests, different friends...but I doubt he's much different now than he used to be on the inside.

I don't even know what I would do, were I to run into him. I don't know if I would ignore him, hug him, be aloof, ecstatic, annoyed, sad, happy, or all of the above. Part of me wants to know why he disappeared the way he did, why he's shunned me from his life...but I understand my reasons for shunning him--it hurts too much to remember, even when they're the memories you cherish most. Perhaps that's his reason.

Part of me wants to know how he ever felt about me, if he ever wonders about me...and the rest of me doesn't want to know. The rest of me just wants some kind of closure, but that's bullshit too...I can't ever have it. It's like if I were to hear he was engaged.

My heart would completely break.
I don't know how long it would take me to get past that news.

And people would ask, how do you feel about it?

I'll tell you.
I'd say, "I'm glad he found someone to make him happy, to make him a better person, to share his life with, his joys, sorrows, fears, and goals with...someone to enhance him, because he deserves all of those things.

But am I glad he's engaged? No. I'm not. I can't be.

She isn't me."

Selfish? Sure. True? Absolutely.

I'm hoping putting this out of my head will put him out of my head for a while, at least long enough to stop the random crying fits that break out.  Bipolar disorder is killing me slowly, he is killing me softly, and I'm not trying to prevent the death...I just want it to be a little less of a constant ache somewhere between my chest and my diaphragm.

I'm hoping some resolution is had, one way or another. Something has to change, because I can't keep changing and have this stay the same.

I wouldn't know who I was if that were the case.