My first relationship began as friends with benefits. I fell in love and realized how hard it hurts to lose someone due to different points of view.

"Shared in common; having the same feelings one for the other; directed by each toward the other or the others; joint" is how Merriam-Webster defines mutual. If you and another person decide that something is mutual, shouldn't it continue to be mutual? I learned quickly that even if you think something's mutual, it usually turns out it's not.

I had my first relationship starting July of 2018. Relationships were unfamiliar and scary to me since I had never experienced one. I met an amazing guy, A, at my friend's graduation party. After that party, he found me online and we began talking. The following weekend a group of us went to the lake, and he and I went out that night to grab food and talk. I gave him myself that night and from then on that is all we did.

We would grab dinner, watch a movie, and hookup. A routine we followed until my friends began asking me what he and I were. I didn't know what we were. We went on dates but never called it that. It was when we went out to breakfast one morning I asked him what we were and he said "friends with benefits." I dreaded hearing that term, but deep down I knew that's what we were. I didn't want that, so at that moment I asked him to be my boyfriend. I looked at him with hopeful eyes, but he just sighed and walked off.

He was waiting for me in the car. I got in the car and the whole drive back to my place we sat in complete silence. As we pulled up to my place he looked at me and said "Okay. We'll give this thing a try." It wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear, but I wanted us to be officially together. From then on we continued what we were doing, but added the girlfriend and boyfriend label to it. We were inseparable from then on out. Always staying together, day and night, I fell in love for the first time.

Except love fades and you have to move on. We both were moving into college in August, so we knew we'd either have to break-up or try long-distance. I told him I wanted to break-up and end on good terms, but he wasn't happy with that decision. In the end, we chose a mutual break-up, but it turned out to not be mutual to him.

At first, we tried being friends, but I wanted to move on and not feel the pain of losing him. I cut off ties with him for almost two weeks but then began talking to him again. He didn't appreciate that and got furious at me. After our break-up, I've never seen him be more mad and self-conceited. He would yell at me for going out, talking to other guys, and call me a cheater. Then the next day he'd call me, apologize for the night before, and tell me he still loved me and wanted me back.

It made it harder for me to move on and meet people, so I blocked him on every social media platform. I felt terrible for doing it, but I needed to be free from his constant calling, yelling, and begging. After cutting off contact from him, he began to message my friends to get to me. I lost some friends due to the fact they continued talking to him and ignored my request to help me cut him off.

I learned that you may agree to something, but changing your mind is always an option. My ex-boyfriend agreed to a mutual break-up but changed his mind. The truth is mutual is never truly mutual.