This is one of those personal type posts wherein I spend the obligatory (?) five minutes or so of “Poor Baby” time on myself so I can get the hell over it, core dump it all from my mind, and move on with life. So…. if that’s not something that sounds interesting to you, feel free to skip this one.
Still here? Heh. Alrighty…
I recently put an end to a new relationship. It lasted almost two months. It likely wouldn’t have gone that long but for my own choice to be deliberately blind to certain behaviors and indicators in hopes of them being initial spasms of nervousness or jitteriness. Lesson definitely learned there.
We are both gamers, so I looked forward to doing that together. I made a point of rearranging my calendar to allow for it (a fairly significant thing, considering I’m carrying college courses as well as a number of commitments ranging from Monday night drafts, Saturday visiting with friends, and of course, the usual domestic chores and activities relating to keeping a home in order). I figured the best way to demonstrate my active interest and willingness to be with this person was to actually make time for them.
They, apparently, were approaching this more as a “something to do when I’m bored” perspective and, as it turned out, considered gaming as “something they did on their own”. That’s all perfectly well and good but for one little problem — they had standing game days/nights every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
So, ok, I thought…. maybe we won’t get to play together, but I’m sure he will agree that asking for one weekend out of the month is an elegant compromise to allow us time other than two or three hours once a week.
Wrong again. As it was carefully explained to me, I was “being demanding” to ask for any manner of dedicated time with him. I should be perfectly content to see him for an hour or two once, maybe twice a week if he didn’t have other things to do.
Oh, and did I mention that those one or two hours were always at my place, never actually “out and about”, let alone with his or my friends?
Oh, and did I mention that he pretty much expected that if he were going to “bother” to come visit me, he was going to “get something for it”?
Um. Hrm.
Once I realized that he really meant this and honestly was not able to see or understand why this might be an issue for me, I had the obligatory “break up lunch” with him.
No, actually, that’s not quite correct. I had the “Last chance to prove to me that you’re not a lying schmuck who thinks I’m too stupid to figure this out” lunch.
He spent the first minutes of the lunch leering at my chest and the next few telling me how much he wanted to come over that night. Suffice to say I was sick to my stomach after the first minutes and hurt beyond care of conveying it thereafter. The lunch itself was spent with my emotions shoved into the attic whilst we spoke calmly about the differences in our opinions and I heard that I was just too demanding and that I should stop being so. He looked at me and said, “I like you a lot. I really don’t want to lose you, but this isn’t something I’m willing to change for you.”
The “something” being to give me one weekend out of the four or five in every month.
I was really struggling not to just launch at him. I sat there, the realization that here I was, once again, sitting in front of a man who really thought I should be happy to be at his beck and call and who just couldn’t understand why seeing me when he’s bored or only wants to knock booty might be insulting to me.
I asked him if he’d ever seen the movie “He Just Not That Into You” and he said, no, he hadn’t. I told him that he might want to watch it with some of his female friends so he could get a grasp of how and why this matters to women. He told me that he really didn’t have any female friends.
And, just like that, as those words were hanging in the air between us, I finally got it; Saw every bit of it with absolute clarity. The surge of anger I pushed back and simply said to him, “You can’t lose something you’ve never had.”
I think it wasn’t until I said this that he really understood I was done. Really done. Sickened and disgusted and feeling tricked and used. Done.
We walked to our cars and he actually had the nerve to say to me, “Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me.” I was so proud of not slapping that smug look from his face. He actually tried to hug me. I pulled away, looked him in the eye and replied, “No, actually, if you change your mind, YOU know where to find ME.”
I left. I didn’t look back. But that parting exchange combined with the reality of just how far off I was about him and how unwilling he was to invest time and self…. it kept gnawing at me. I went from being hurt and feeling betrayed to being upset and that feeling of upset just kept mushrooming and growing over the next days as the silence extended and the truth it carried got louder and louder in the process.
I remember that, by the end of the third day, I had gone from trying to excuse his behavior as naivete or due to some odd miscommunication to realizing that this really was an active deception on his part. I mean, this was the boy who had started things by telling me very explicitly that he was looking for a long-term relationship. That he was ready, willing, and able to commit to one. That his hopes for our relationship were that we were inclusive with one another; friends, events, all of it.
But when it came right down to it, he wasn’t willing to be here, he wasn’t willing to accept my invitations to join me in social outings or parties (having turned down three already), he wasn’t willing to include me in his activities (guy stuff, he called it), and when it came to brass tacks, he wasn’t willing to compromise on anything.
And I thought about it a little more and I realized that in addition to all of this, I had already allowed him to cross boundaries that I wasn’t comfortable with and he didn’t even have any insight to or appreciation of that (despite having told him so)… and it was then that it occurred to me that I had a right to be angry and I had done myself a disservice in not allowing myself to express that and make it clear that I could see the marked difference between all those pretty words (lies) and the reality of his actions (or lack thereof).
I also realized that I really needed to make it crystal clear that, given the situation, not only did I no longer want to date him, I didn’t even want him in my life at all. So I sat me down and wrote him a letter that delivered every damn bit of it in language even he couldn’t misunderstand. And I let the anger ride with that letter in a way that made it very pointedly clear that I wanted no further contact with him what so ever and any attempt would turn out poorly for him.
I felt much better after doing so. The anger was gone. Now, I have to figure out a way to unload the hurt.
I fully realize that a lot of the hurt isn’t really because of him. It’s actually a cumulative thing; all the heartaches of all the befores (long ago as they are) are still here. I had tamped them down and forgotten them and now, I had allowed him to not only resurrect it all, but to add to it.
He, ultimately, is barely a scratch on the surface. He never got to know me, he certainly never made it close enough to me to really wound me. But he got close enough to hit the sore spot and dredge up all the hurt of all the befores… and here it sits, throbbing and I’m trying to figure out how to purge it since, obviously, shoving it back into the attic isn’t going to be helpful in either the short or the long term.
At core, I’m angry with myself. For being fooled. Again. For being taken advantage of. Again. For putting even the smallest sliver of myself out there only to be rejected and found unworthy of more than… well… you get the idea.
It’s all ashes and dust. It chokes me until I can’t tell if I want to scream until my lungs bleed, claw down the sky, or just find a convenient corner and rock until it stops hurting.
The hard part is remembering that most of this has nothing to do with him. Target of opportunity is not rightful target. (Sometimes, being so damned ethical is a pain in the ass.)
I think the difficult part is once again thinking about the reality that I’m getting older… and feeling as if my chances for the things I’ve been missing in this area are dwindling.
I really wish I could find a way to just be content on my own, alone, and stop feeling like I’ve been missing out all my life. I want to figure out how to manage it without becoming so bitter and cynical that I can’t even stand to be with myself.
No, actually, I just wish I didn’t have to figure any of this out. I wish I could meet someone who was as into me as I am them; someone who would actually treat me with kindness, respect, and care.
Why is that so fucking impossible? I just don’t get it.
I guess I have to take the good things where I can find them… and the fact is, this is not as overwhelming or as permanent a feeling as it may sound as I write in this moment. The sense of missing and the hurt of the reminders of old, and the feeling that it just never changes and never will…. it comes and goes. Likely tomorrow, I’ll wake up and laugh that I wrote any of this.
But here… now… ? It just hurts.
Meh. Guess this isn’t really a core dump after all. Or maybe it’s the start of one. I can hope.