He's baccckkkkkkk

My ex - the one that broke my heart last year - sent me an OUT OF THE BLUE email of hello on Sunday. I said something back, light, breezy, not asking any questions.

Ex: What's up?

Me: Thanksgiving was great, blah blah bye

Ex: Sounds good to me.

hours later

Ex: If you want to catch up or hang out after you get back let me know.

I haven't answered. I don't know if I will. He brought so much pain into my life.

These are the only two reasons I waiver:
1) I still find him devastatingly physically attractive. Like one of the hottest men ever.
2) There is a 5% within me that wants to believe he wants to right all the wrongs, do it "right" this time and love me the way I deserve. There is that very small part I want to believe which is: He loves me and wants to be with me.

But the 95%  knows the truth. The 95% of me cannot forget the countless times during our short time dating that he let me down, made me feel worthless, made me feel like I wasn't a priority. And that's the part I need to remember. I was SO MISERABLE when we were dating. Most of the time sucked and there were brief glimmers of amazingness. Those were the ones i wanted to believe in. But there wasn't enough of good. I constantly questioned my self-worth, confidence, sexiness, even words I said b/c I so badly wanted to please this asshole man. He dangled the relationship in my face, but only if i followed his rules. That's not love. That's manipulative bullshit of a true Narcissistic. The fact that he is contacting me out of the blue is proof of this as well.Also - I do not believe I'm the only one he's emailed this to. I suspect he has a long list of women like me - those he contacts for praise and/or sex when he's in between women and feeling insecure. What an asshole!!!

But there's that little part of me that wants him to take me out for drinks and tell me how wrong he was. But I know that would most likely end in some sort of fake reconciliation (sex) and would follow by months of an emotional roller coaster.

I need to make the right decision for me right now. That is - based on past knowledge - that I cannot ever engage with this man ever again. Even though I still have that 5% that craves the idea of him - the reality of him is not the same. The reality is that he's a selfish man with lots of problems. I need to protect myself this time. This is about self-preservation more than anything else. I love myself more than him. By far.

But why does it have to be this hard?

I can't wait until I meet someone who truly wants to love me, not just play games and be a shitty person. I've had more horrible things happen than good at dating and to be honest, the reason I haven't had a date in so long is fear and trauma. I realize this is not "special". I'm not the only one who has gone through these things, everyone goes through this. I just don't know what incentive there is to dating since every time I put my trust in someones hands they literally take it and smash it into 1,000 pieced before dumping me.

Dear God give me the strength to resist this bastard for once and for all!!!!