[733] Truth Rapists

I feel like if I don't write about this now while I don't feel anything, the thoughts are only going to become corrupted by anger that cause them to drift further away from what needs to be explored.

I really don't know how to begin. I say this often, but this time it's really important because the different parts that need to weave together actually speak to one larger point and isn't a million random roads trying to make sense of it all. Keep this in mind if any one damming sentiment starts off a paragraph, as that was just a door or window into the house I'm trying to construct.

I was finally de-friended by my ex. In her words, “I can't justify you as a friend.” She explained that she couldn't figure out how to defend herself, or me, when I came up in conversation. Instead of attempting to anymore, better out of sight and out of mind.

What was she being asked to defend? Well, to start our conversation she straight up asks the million dollar question, “Did you rape Girl?” I go, “What the fuck? Fuck no?” You see, for several months, not only has the “overly masculine” tenor of our friend group in common come under question, spurred on by #metoo, but the sole player who set everyone up to fail in general was zeroed down to me. That failure consists of either setting the party conditions, condoning shitty behavior, or otherwise being completely unable to change or recognize when what I'm doing has made someone uncomfortable.

I feel for the sake of trying to keep coherent, and relative brevity, we need to pass right over a discussion of endless interpretations, the fallibility of memory, fickle nature of feelings, and otherwise previously noted angry agendas one might bring to that conversation.

But to quickly put a bow on my understanding of the night and girl in question. I sat down on a couch next to her after a bit of dancing. She rubs on my leg. I rub on her arm. Wink wink, nudge nudge, I literally ask her if she wants to go fool around. She says yes, follows me upstairs, through the living room, outside to the side of the house, quick little make out, quick enough sex to not encounter anyone on a smoke break, and we head back inside. I, in an open relationship, sit down next to my ex and say, “Dammit, I just had sex with Girl.” She laughs and goes, “Really? Why?” The only answer that makes sense is drunk and generally horny.

I don't know about you, but people who rape don't seem to ask the girl if she wants to have sex, do it semi-publically, and then sit down next to their girlfriend and talk about how dumb it was to fool around with someone they weren't attracted to. It was perhaps rude, or crass, or slutty, but the way you call it rape is from a collection of forces I hope to describe going forward.

I've been on the outs with, at least the females, of that college group for some time. You know, or maybe you don't, when no matter what you say when or how it will always be wrong? I'm not saying you even did something wrong, but you've found a person that were you to bring them flowers, they'll tell the world you tried to cause them an allergic reaction meant to kill them? Well, I was getting a lot of that. Often, this is related to me as a difference between “thinkers” and “feelers,” so named. While I want to analyze and break down words, they just want to call me a name, make sure I believe it, and we both walk away healthier or better for it? In that I understand they felt really bad and it manifested as a measure of how terrible I am, therefore now we're better?

Honestly, in the years I've been writing, not a single person has ever bothered to explain why this is better, mature, healthy, or something I should just accept.

So, with one of the girls it was jumping down my throat about relaying my desperate feelings under an article she posted about dying polar bears. You see, I'm not allowed to feel, or tell you about it. That spiraled into a whole thing I've already written about. Then, another girl comes to town and I text if her and her boy want to hang out. A follow up text resulted in a clap back, in modern parlance, essentially shuffling me back in my corner for daring to ask or want to hang in the first place. Probably the first pin in these cascading examples of “fuck that guy” was a wholly terrible conversation where I, probably stupidly, decided to try and gain insight from another girl about my ex, another, highly liked, saga that I thought required a breakdown.

Mind you, none of the guys who are with these girls have given me shit nor changed their attitude, nor said they were right on board with setting me adrift on the ice sheet for my misdeeds or words. Either all of these girls are with complicit lying cowards, or they've all accepted something vital to a lasting relationship that I ignore to the degree in which I seek to alienate myself. It's not an either/or, but it also is.

So I've got angry girls, who I've made so before #metoo, who are every ounce of the chatty gossip dick heads that everyone I hung out with was or is, cooking for months. Now Girl, fairly good friends with one of them, shares her story. Damage I've managed to do in the last 2 or 3 years, combined with the reimagining of the past with fervent moment energy, more than enough for more contributions to the cascading damnation of my character, a galling man, no less.

Can you take all that in as one or two pieces, or one or two windows? The next part is more personal and about my relationship with my ex.

I've said many times I knew we were doomed to fail. I wasn't looking forward to it, but I knew, like I generally always know, people. I don't mean generally. I mean individuals. I know what's running their machinery. I know it despite my convoluted ways of attempting to describe. I know it in ways that I try to contradict in efforts to be “normal,” in some Hollywood or cliché fashion. The only reason I know it is because I was forced to look and pay attention in order to avoid causing myself harm. So, I know that she never “loved” me, in the broadest sense of the term. I know, in the least condescending way the idea can be conveyed, that I started the relationship a jaded old whore, and she was an enthusiastic child.

What do children do? They play with things. They test things. They're generally open to new experiences. That's great! For a jaded old whore, yet also overgrown child, like myself. I can make it fun and lead her into worlds and behaviors she wouldn't necessarily pick by herself. This is key. I'm a novelty. I'm not “[redacted]” at this point. I'm a point of intrigue and a tool for her self-actualization. It's worth noting, I don't even have to claim this as conjecture, she literally described her process this way yesterday evening.

I also frame it like this because I hesitate to simply regard her as “maliciously selfish.” I believe the naivety overrules malcontent. I don't think she played me, but I do think she was playing with me. I, like a romantic fool, took my feelings and time investment and willingness to be open to more than my high-school forlorn teenager perspective, and ran with it. I had the hottest girl. She had qualities I thought complimented or I might learn to adopt a measure of. She had interests independent of mine. She seemed to surround herself with a measure of also caring, informed, or otherwise worthwhile individuals. Can't really ask for more, on paper. So, how do you justify having a tool in your arsenal that's outdated?

Here I think it's worth noting that for all of my worries concerning my potential malevolence in manipulating people or treating them as objects, or hell, even direct condemnations of my character alleging as such devoid of all evidence, my crowning testament on my built up concept of “friends” was to do the exact opposite of this kind of behavior. It was live and let live. It was meet people where they are. It was accept their quirks or habits or issues as them, and just be a good goddamn friend. For that matter, it's still what I believe in, even if I persistently stab or have forgone more monolithic conceptions of “friend.” Even if my slutty behavior registers as a measure of shame or regret in someone else, I don't think sex is unfriendly, unless you're a rapist.

We've got child-like love interest, women of a certain age pairing off and resentful, the cultural zeitgeist of every man is a rapist devil, my general, at least questionable, behavior and attitude compounding over years, and then I serve up hundreds of blogs discussing fucked up topics or ideas and picking apart what it means to manipulate or relate, throw in a few niggas here and there, and the soup never stops blending. How could anyone justify that? As an idea, even before a tool. What kind of horrible monster did these poor girls find themselves entangled with?

The only thing I wish to testify to my character, because god knows my words are horrible, is the opinion of the friends who don't behave like that. It’s the relationships I've had since high-school or elementary school, who don't entertain for months or years the idea that I'm a rapist before they choose to call or ask me about it. What are friends for? Gossip, intolerance, and vitriol? No no. They're supposed to let you know what's fucked up. They're supposed to see and relate things to you, that while maybe obvious to them, you've pathologized. Should I trust the message after it's gone through the process described above? Do I need to look inward at my horrible soul in a way I never have before now that finally, all of these people who've, on significantly less serious issues, shown themselves as hostile witnesses or implacably biased juries?

Maybe now we've got 5 or 6 windows: Zeitgeist shit storm, I'm an impossibly (so much I don't even exist!) easy target, complicated mess of feeling-based judgment thrown in gossip-cycle, general children and child-like proclivities abound, and my “hopeful” (willful?) blindness about what I perceived to be things as “as good as you can get” with regard to friendships beyond the realm of my “quasi-sociopathic” ones.

Still with me? Then a quick reiteration and aside.

One of the things that concerns me considerably more than choosing to do something stupid is the idea that I would be wildly surprised by how much damage I'm causing carrying on in the way I do. The Girl who claims rape? That fucking sucks to think that all the atmosphere and ideas and work I've put towards trying to stop having sex vilified or be used as this all-encompassing testament to misused power or misunderstood connection would be regarded as “he possibly raped someone” by the people most involved in creating that fucking atmosphere! And no, I didn't say it sucks that she would feel that way. It does. But that's, honestly, not something I can understand without throwing everything about me and how I understand the world off a cliff. Today we talk about things like “affirmative consent.” We say things like, “she can't give consent if she's drunk.” By the overtly-”safe” and, if not at least often impractical, metrics of today, I apparently couldn't give consent either, as I'd been drinking too, or should have taken her word “yes” and accompanying head nod and follow as a warning of impropriety?

And what kind of person who isn't wholly behind a cliche hippie-adjacent sex ideology (I've never heard of them taking to rape either) takes to the page, twice now, to delineate his potentially shit behavior? Methinks he doth protest too much? Fuck you! You can't protest ridiculous irrational debasement of people enough. Would I be the first to introduce you to the cultural psychosis that is Trump?

Let's try to bring it home.

All of this is to attempt to speak to the house in which your mind rests. Is your opinion the rumor mill, or the investigation? Is your concept of “friend” the direct confrontation and open acceptance and engagement, or the punching bag? Is your first impulse to deny there's a person there at all, or to give them such the benefit of the doubt that you'd earnestly hope and spend 5 years with them, and then not even be angry or blame them after the dust settles and you figure out how talk about it? I figured out how to talk about it, she figured out how to get rid of her old tool. I'm willing to get into the weeds of drunk sex behavior, because I'm not ambiguous about where I feel I sit in relation to the people I've had or wanted to have sex with. Has the thought “Yeah, I'm gonna fuck this bitch and she's gonna like it and can't stop me” ever crossed my mind? Not until now in order to write it or without more irony than there's words for. Is that a melodramatic depiction meant to disguise my otherwise sly and corrupt soul that could justify anything? Of course, if you want it to be. I don't have 740 blogs of insight into my being and hundreds of relationships or sexual encounters over years that should give me the benefit of the doubt. Girl felt bad that for 2 dissatisfying minutes, I turned her as slutty as I am. Just like the girls felt bad that I chose to question when they put words in my mouth, or described feelings I didn’t have, behind something I said they disliked.

Who, right now, is leaning towards a sentiment that I'm trying to bash or unfairly stereotype women? Can the ones who feel that way even see the previous sentence? Because what I did was stop and think about my phrasing. I took my opposition's side and imagined what they feel like as someone's ex, or who empathizes hard-core with any girl who's felt violated. And I know that, while I, explicitly, am making a larger point about the lens from which to view the world and the people in it, I have juxtaposed a “relationship story” against a less than deferential tone about #metoo, employed trigger words like “gossip” and “naive” with regard to women, and denied myself the opportunity to demonize sex or masculinity as inherently evil and precarious. Clearly, I just don't understand the depth of the feelings that should render my perspective mute. I'm basically Trump.

Now, go on, opposite-world engine, do your thing. I'll hide behind my enablers and words until it's time to execute. Because, again, I already know what you want, and how you go about getting it.

[540] Things We Never Had

I have an increasing problem with language. The more I hear it, the more I just get frustrated or downright angry. For much of my life, I never really thought words mattered. I had a very simple view that a word won’t punch you in the face or shoot you. Needless to say, I was unfamiliar with neuroscience at the time. Your body can respond as if it’s experiencing physical pain. Words can scar you. Words can swallow you up in depression or make you burst with rage.

But at least when that happens you have something clear to work with. A pissed off person is to be restrained or ran from, or perhaps politely engaged with. A depressed person needs pills or to attempt therapy. What we don’t pay attention to is when words make us sick, but we don’t really feel sick. We don’t feel different at all. In fact, the more you try to point to the words that are responsible for the sickness, people think you’re the sick one.

We take talking and language for granted. Whether a word is male or female or “rooted” in another language. We don’t struggle with every syllable like it didn’t start as a bark or a scream trying to convey something from more primordial times. We assume the meaning is built in. We act like when I say “car,” the mental picture is the same across the board. It’s innocent enough, as in, who cares if you pictured a Hot Wheels toy or a Nascar racer, we can clarify with a few more questions or specific words.

Humans have more unidentifiable experiences and feelings though. They have complex relationships and institutions. Words that once had meaning float away or become something entirely different, and new ones pop into existence seemingly daily. And we don’t even notice. I’d put money on the idea that someone’s said something akin to “I took this selfie in 1995 before smart phones.”

It’s how we arrived at the all-encompassing nature of the word “love.” It’s why people have an impossible time finding the “truth.” It’s the struggle behind your relationship with “friends” and “family.” Most, in service to trying to feel “normal,” see no point in searching for a kind of excruciating exactness. “My mom’s my mom and I love her! That’s the truth!” And you’re hard-pressed to disagree, even if the person making the claim doesn’t know why or care to learn why they’re wrong.

I think a lot about this when I consider my relationships. I don’t believe my ex feels any real guilt that isn’t masked in a language of relief. The stakes weren’t as high for her. I don’t think she even grasped the nature of the problem. In the handful of things she was willing to type out and explain to me, you can see the contradictions written sometimes in the next sentence claiming something different. It’s not that her explanation doesn’t make a certain kind of sense in “normal” or “everyday” terms, but I would describe it as missing a soul. I think there’s more to be said about the lines, “I don’t believe we started off as friends. At least not honest friends,” and “I think the lying stemmed from a true desire to see you happy” than there’s time for here.

Consider planting a tree you don’t want. You hate this tree. You hate the idea of trees. Yet every day you water it. You watch it get taller and taller. Its roots start to crack your foundation. Its leaves clog your gutters. It attracts animals and bugs you’re constantly swiping at. You buy expensive equipment trying to blow them away and make repairs. Then your neighbor comes over and proclaims how hard you work and praises you for your dedication to taking care of your property. You look up, angry and exhausted and scream, “I wish that damn thing had never been planted to begin with!”

The “logic” of property maintenance requires the expensive tools and hours in the sun. You need trash bags and allergy medication. You need new gutters and a new foundation. But you hate trees, and you planted one anyway? But wait, you may think to yourself, trees are good! Trees help ecosystems. Trees suck up carbon. I like apples! Perfectly fair and valid points, just in an entirely different discussion. The root of your problem remains unaddressed.

This is why I write and ask people to pay attention. This is why I find it so weird that people are threatened by my mere descriptions of aesthetic things that are causing them a mindgasm. It’s why I urge you to run from judgmental language because it’s a hearty signifier that you probably have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Our judgments are fundamentally corrupted, and if we attempt to base our feelings on them, we’re throwing food at a wall trying to assemble an emotional meal from whatever sticks.

Why am I so “defensive” or “difficult” to talk to? Why is it so “exhausting” to answer my questions? I don’t feel responsible for the lies you’ve told me. I don’t accept the idea that my perspective is “less magical” or “normal” or “worthwhile” just because I call a mountain a mountain and you’ll cry or cum if you stare at it too long. That doesn’t make me angry at you or resent you. I climbed the stupid thing because I wanted to be around the people doing what they enjoy. It seems practically inhumane to ignore that motivation for the sake of a mound of dirt.

It speaks to why I don’t regret getting into a relationship as well. What if I had sacrificed myself, like I was prepared to in high school? What if I stopped partying and said “I believe!” when it only felt like torture? What if I hadn’t done all the work to really discover who I was and what was important or what I was willing to do? Because that’s all you really have at the end of the day. Trying to be true to yourself.

If I may borrow a phrase from a movie I just watched (even if I don’t believe in love), “The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” You can of course get half of the lesson right if others find themselves incapable or unwilling to acknowledge what’s worth loving about you. Your tokens can still represent true feelings. (I find it curious they’ve all been left behind.) You don’t have to adopt the same complacent exhaustion or judgment that denigrates the other person.

To be honest, I thought I’d feel more dramatic lol. But once I heard the foundation was a lie, I went out like a light. I was relieved. I could stop believing. I know how to treat liars, or, basically every person and “friend” I’ve ever met. Keep them at arm's distance. Maybe get something out of them. Play along and lie back as earnestly as they’re asking you to do so. Finally! Some direction.

Now I’m hung up on the “trying to be true to yourself” line. Because it’s the default language that people employ when trying to justify their behavior. I need to be more specific. Be true to what you’ve worked to discover. Be true to things you place higher on the shelf than the pit in your stomach. I felt nothing but excited and proud when she hooked up with girls. I felt absolutely terrible the first time my ex slept with a dude that wasn’t me. As compared to the 15 or so girls I’d been with since we were together. That means I’m a culturally programmed romantic sexist who literally embodied a painful hypocritical double-standard, not that there’s something wrong with sex and attraction or paying attention to history, human psychology, and animal behavior.

Important reminder, I didn’t blame her for my feelings. I didn’t think she was trying to hurt me. I believe she would have stayed home if I asked her to. She didn’t punch me in the gut. I put my trust in our life together and a spirit of sharing and honesty. Oops. And even still, if I may borrow a line from a song that I find spectacular, “Indiscretion is a blessing if you know how the truth is told.” Truth is told one line at a time. It’s every moment, and every word that captures where you’re at in time and spirit. That moment competes for the truth as it is against the truth that you’re desperate to justify. And while it’s extremely hard, if not sometimes impossible, to tell the degree and nature of how we’re lying to ourselves, I’ll catch you every time when you try to lie about me.

I’ll never blame anyone for feeling confused, angry, or hurt. It happens, it sucks, and it betrays our best conception of ourselves. But don’t blame me for you not recognizing what I find beautiful. Don’t tell me what I do and don’t see. Don’t allow yourself a second of pretending to know what I think if you’re unwilling to ask, and don’t tell me to respect your feelings when your misused words insulate you from experiencing mine. I chose trust when I wasn’t trusted. I chose ideals over butterflies. I choose friends even when I don’t believe they can see me. I choose writing to fighting, be it with myself, or you...mostly.

I think the only thing that brings people together or makes someone “right” for someone else is the decision to say so. Make no mistake, when you’re lying to someone, you haven’t chosen them. You’re not concerned with their happiness. You’re not in love. You shouldn’t trust what you’re finding beautiful. You’re not sacrificing anything anymore than Jesus did. The reality of your hard-sold godly standards will rise again until you can recognize them for the empty fairy tales of self-indulgence they are. And you’ll hurt a lot of people along the way. And at least if you’ve caught this and paid attention, we’ll both know it’s no longer innocent.

[469] Kaput

I sometimes wonder if I’m sadder than I let on.

I don’t really understand emotions. It’s like, I know what they feel like, but I’ve never been persuaded about what they are supposed to constitute. The easiest example is jealousy. I’ve been as bent out of shape and perturbed by my girl being with someone else in an open relationship as I imagine anyone would be. But, my “better” “more logical” self is more compelling. I don’t really care if you want to get off or find someone attractive. I’m not with someone because I trap or hoard their sexuality. That’s the conclusion I come to 364 out of 365 days in which it’s ever presented to me.

And what a volatile situation people treat their sexuality. I’m currently watching The Affair. A compelling, surely award winning in an era of non-oversaturation drama, based around two married people drifting off still sells. It’s no less real the drama of infidelity and the intrigue bread on whether they will stay together or why.

But take something a little more abstract. Maybe it’s your impression of the news. Every day you take in information that glorifies or horrifies the worst examples we as a species can represent. Perhaps you carry on each day, healthy, working on something. Your life could constitute a simple chug on a train making its way to a destination. No gained mile fundamentally different than the last. You simply role with the environment. You internalize and normalize what it expects.

I never want to qualify my sadness. I feel like, you should be sad about things you can fix. I can’t make people talk back. I can’t make people regard what I say as “insightful” or “worthy.” It’d be pretty dumb if 10 years down the line I was going to make up my mind to beat myself up about feedback or lack thereof. Further, I’m not positive I’ve nailed down my “in general” conception of life explanation, so drawing or following some kind of conclusion would be ridiculously stupid.

In common conception, I’m healthy. Even if I’m getting fat, I’m not too fat and not ugly. I have so much shit. I barely know what to do with the thousands of dollars I can get from drug studies, let alone if/when I create something that will net significantly more. I’m not alone. I’m not cold or wanting. Where would I get off being sad?

Maybe it’s a discussion of different kinds of sadness. It’s where you squeeze in the word “existential.” Of course, only to betray and mock those who exist at a “substandard” level. I’m not hungry, but I crave discussions I don’t get. I’m not cold, but I feel my demeanor among a majority of new people. I don’t seek shelter, yet need a canopy of common sense and scholarship that keeps me from putting holes in the walls. I have an enviable sadness. You should dare to dream to be sad like me. I have a privileged angst and desire born from too much free time and opportunity.

It’s a loneliness of spirit. Even phrasing it like that makes me think I’m insulting friends. Even my best friend we’ve never worked together like I’ve worked at my peak. I’m an amalgam of superficial gains. I called the coffee kiosk a glorified lemonade stand. I ridiculed school as I got A’s and B’s. Learning body language makes you a whore (a word I don’t regard pejoratively), not a stud. I read books I recite back to myself or hint at in blogs. I watch shows not even to “nerd out” but so I can be familiar with “media in general” which translates into shitting on something you like for reasons tangentially related to respecting better efforts.

I spend so much time waiting to matter. I think about my grandma so often. Always cooking or cleaning. Always trying to make her home feel like yours. I only know how to buy things. I know how to get the drinks or pay for the tickets. I don’t know how to make you feel at home. I threw parties. Sure, I wanted them to mean something and be memories. But what I got was a lot of resentment. I got fights. I got the kind of lesson that turns so many people against a participatory or empathetic existence.

I guess I have the kind of sadness that only comes from having it all. I miss the friends that were there every day. I miss working on things that probably didn’t matter, but at least had other people there with you. I miss the kind of naïve fervor I had to entertain and get to know people before they were all reduced to boring clichés. I miss feeling like I knew what “genuine” meant when it gummed up the works in my exploration of trying to have friends verses flat manipulation of their sentimentality.

Every time I write I feel like I’m out of things to say.

[356-3] Ding, Going Up

As with most things I write, there's ample opportunity to get more specific. This will likely make more sense as a third part to a trilogy in line with the last two things I've written.

The idea of having “no rules” in a relationship sounds retarded, at first. It comes from a point of shared selfishness. If you want the other person to do as they do and that's what you like about them, what's the point of undermining that by dictating what they should do? It seems unfair and petty. You can do a lot to suppress the feelings you have about their behavior, because after all, it's your problem as a result of your mutually agreed upon no-rules understanding. But, at that point, it's likely not healthy and not really what you had in mind when you said “no rules” in the first place.

At the intellectual level, everyone just “is.” There is no intrinsic specialness other than what you choose to feel about yourself and your happenstance existence. This isn't a very constructive or human place to come from if you seek to form social bonds or convey “real human messages.” And, arguably for most of my life, that's been perfectly fine for me. The handful of times I allowed “emotionality” to guide my rationale or actions, they went remarkably bad. And lest you think I only reference my small window, the reports from others are consistent, to one degree or another, with my experience. It's significantly easier to “trust” people to simply be their degree of cluster-fuckery, and navigate those waters as they rise and fall.

So you develop a language to accompany your behavior. I adopt a lot of terms revolving around coldness, distance, detachment, being mean, playing games, sociopathy, and brazen disregard for the emotional states of other people. It's a well-rehearsed, and constructive for my purposes, set of conditions you'd do well to understand what I mean when referencing them, if we're attempting to get along.

At the heart of it is a reflection of superficiality. It's the overt impression I've gotten from overwhelming examples of asking about and getting more than I bargained for. There's not been an experience where it's been worth “trusting” people or looking vulnerable. So why would I pretend I'm concerned with opportunities to engage in those behaviors? Why would I consider your emotional appeal? I can't argue from a position where things have gone well when these things were at play, so I'm intellectually locked out of the kind of conversation you might be trying to have. I, in times of emotionality, have been met with recurring themes of dismissive, taken for granted, or abusive responses; you eventually learn to find a way to “shut it off.”

Now, I still don't necessarily regard this as a bad thing. Lucky for me, I really like being “mean.” It's fun and fulfilling to explain things in terms or have an understanding of the world that either delights people in how dreadful it sounds, or turns them off so completely I learn quickly they aren't worth bothering with. Yes, while selfishness can evolve and mean many things, the bad kind doesn't go away completely. I'll take those opportunities to be personally gratified.

Here's where things get tricky. What happens when you're not super keen on being crazy selfish all the time? What happens when it's not about you it's about us? Emotions in and of themselves are not bad things, but I've thought for a considerable amount of time they should inform, not dictate, how you behave. So what happens when I don't want to play the cold manipulative game, and am being informed from the guy everyone forgot worked here, that something needs to change?

I certainly have a construct, a set of ideals or relative rule structure in which I conduct my affairs. It stands to reason that if they've served me well, rules in and of themselves are not a bad thing. Appreciating the rules is different than seeking to use them for control. And self-imposed rules hopefully come from a place of deep appreciation for why you conduct yourself a certain way. It's why I'd rather detach when I have too long periods of “fuck everything” verses continuing being around and making it people I like's problem.

Certainly the underpinning philosophy behind open relationship things is a sense that you have more to give, or recognize what others offer, on top of, or in conjunction with, what you have. It's greedy for the right reasons. Some people are just sluts, I truly empathize, and make it more about sex and “spreading the love” that way, but to me, that seems fundamentally hollow. Others have a deep pull towards different people or personalities and want to play those feelings out wherever they take them. And there's any number of degrees in between. Regardless of the motivation, you've missed the boat if you're not communicating what you feel and what you want. Hopefully, having that backed with an underlying trust. Expressing, not excusing.

And I think there's a shaky ground in that “between” realm that doesn't get enough acknowledgment. I think having built a pretty big network of “people I get along with to one degree or another” when something happens that seems to undermine what I thought that relationship looked like, it helps justify the lack of feeling or investment even further. Everyone seems to be out for “the idea of The One” and anything you had gets swept under the table because they found a proper title. It's humbling (is that how you spell humiliating?) how people you've spent nearly every day with for months can express how lonely they feel.

It should be clear by now that it's not “trust them to fuck up how you expect” or “communicate what you want them to hear.” I've, until relatively recently, found little to no inclination to do anything but those. I didn't know how to appreciate the kinds of places “emotional” people were in, in the same way. Or if I had, I didn't give it the weight required for a change in the decision making process.

It goes back to previous themes I've mentioned. What matters is your being intentioned. What's on your mind and why. What example you want to set and what kind of behavior you want to reward. Can you see, do you feel, the utility and perhaps meaning in actually trusting or actually communicating where you're coming from with someone else. Is there something about together that better informs you about being alone. I'm not using question marks because they feel more like directives.

I think having experienced a hint of how it can work has at least made me a tad more sympathetic. Ultimately, what gets you to the other side is being able to struggle through the words and feelings, hopefully with someone who doesn't betray your process. Who are you shoveling shit with when it inevitably hits the fan? When the pains of jealousy, doubt, or existential nihilism subside, did your mind go back to “I wish they were here lying next to me watching this movie.”

And it's not fair. That's almost exactly the point. Picking someone or adhering to new rules for someone else's sake is to prop up and celebrate that us example. Presumably, at least for me, because you advocate for what it means and feels like, and not so you can look down your nose or garner false pride in clinging to something that staves off crippling anxiety and loneliness. It should perhaps also not allow you to forget or ignore what else you have or want and why those still mean something to you.

If you're brave enough to talk yourself over a cliff, you'll be able to appreciate what survived after the landing.

This is part 3 of a series: Part 1 & Part 2

[355-2] Totes Jelly

I don't think I've devoted an entire blog to jealousy. I should get on that now.

With the foundation thoughts for ownership in place, jealousy seems to follow rather naturally. What is jealousy then? I can tell you the most recurring theme in talking with people about their relationships is some form of jealousy standing vigilant looking for any and all excuse to leap forth and take action. Whether it's your creepy boyfriend looking from across the room or your list of rules about who to text or hang out with, everyone seems to have some form of rules they want their partners to play by to help dignify the specialness of their relationship. No, they don't all have to take some creepy or overbearing form and there are plenty of people who find jealousy endearing, but I think there's a deeper story.

Now, turns out, I tend to think you have a hard time reaching a kind of “ground floor” of a personality or individual nature when you're adhering to rules. A Christian who is virtuous for fear of hell holds no more water for me than a faithful spouse who simply doesn't believe they know how to get away clean with cheating. You need to develop your own reasons. You need to actually feel the depths of your “soul” (icky word) and then start trying to honestly recount your experience. I think you should find the most ground in the idea of things changing, and then put yourself to task figuring out why.

So, as a rule in relationships, I don't deal with rules. No matter what my potential feelings on a matter may be, I let them happen, yet what makes the most sense to do is my decision. This allows jealousy to be kicked in the balls, in a sense. I think unlike sadness or anger, jealousy has a terribly “personal” character. You can externalize the others. I'm mad at you, I'm sad they died. Whatever you may be jealous of harps back inevitably to something about you. Given that I've lost practically all capacity to be insecure, let's see if I can describe what feels abstract.

I have a hard time describing how and why I feel jealous or when it kicks in. I've been jealous about damn near every person I've “hooked up with” as it's crassly understood when they get a boyfriend, for example. Why? Is it like an intrinsic man thing to fundamentally feel some kind of claim on women you fool around with? And, even if I make it “go away,” it usually has everything to do with the distance or the distractions of the present moment. In a sense, it's like there's always a lit candle. It may just have something to do with taboos and struggles people tend to have when it comes to that realm, and the idea that they decided to get with you, it's like, awesome no way!

The romantic in me, (right? It's struggling to work it's way back from the grave) likes to tell the story of the endless amounts of people I hate and find ugly as sin. The idea that there are even a handful of opportunities to find people who are mutually attractive and versed in interesting things to talk about is like a godsend. It would be quite a shame to think they would get with someone “lesser” or who would not sort of feel the same things about them if and when their situation changes. Like, I do a lot of work trying to figure out where I'm coming from, some lost boy pining for the pussy I find it hard to be compared to even figuratively.

I think there's a huge part of me that doesn't want to respect or acknowledge other peoples' feelings. Let me explain. For as emotionally retarded, quick to insecurity, anxious and fear laden declarations of “love” I've come across, I've all but lost my capacity to believe damn near anything people say about their relationships or where they're coming from. When someone “woos” one of my friends, I'm immediately defaulted into thinking “the worst.” And it's not just because I'm mean, it's because people are normal. People are polite. People want to believe. Even when they know they shouldn't.

And when I say the worst, I mean shitting on ideas I had about my friend. In that, “how the fuck could they not see this this and this” and I have to sort of choke down new little negotiations of how they're going to register in my life. I've seen friends go after other friends out of spite, and “win”. God could that be unpacked for days but this is no time for pointing fingers. I've seen a sense of pride across faces in recalling their “number.” And I've seen so many girls after years of finding typical guys start to develop a lot of demoralizing habits and ideas about what they want from their next partner. Certainly not in every realm, but in very important ways, whomever you're with, I shouldn't be able to say that I would be (am?) a better friend to you than they are a boyfriend.

I think it's partly a pretentious thing. I think that I hold myself and our relationship in such a high regard, that if I can't stomach the other peoples' personalities who you like, it's like an affront to what I thought existed between us. It's like, I'd rather be treated like a whore-ish dog than be persuaded that there's something more between the people I fool around with or call friends. And there's a world of confusion as to how I understand how you understand your relationship with someone else. Yes, I'm pretending it's even my business because I had some naïve thoughts about the level of involvement friends might offer their perspectives.

What's interesting, is that jealous feeling goes completely out the window when I like the guy. Or, perhaps better said, basically know where he's coming from. Granted, this is damn near impossible to understand about most people most of the time, so I'm always gonna be stuck making shitty comments from time to time. And it's not enough to simply say something like “well, he makes me happy.” Happy is a fickle and cruel joke played on relationships. Happiness is a trick. It's the easiest set of causes and effects. Identify things you like, do said things in varying intervals that provoke happiness. I want people in your lives that make you work, think, and you both come out disfigured with the battle wounds of being human, not “happy.” For my sake, if I may beg, please be specific.

I've always considered jealousy important for the amount of information it can prompt you to think about. It's why, while I'll always lament it, I won't let it dictate rules. I won't pretend I own anything, I won't pretend it's going to stop me from treating or caring to the degree I do. What I need to do is either figure out how to better respect where people are coming from when they engage with what I would consider, let's put it politely, hopeless-where-it-matters types. I know that it isn't fair to friends or even the ideas I have about them. It's my cut-and-dry attitude of how I engage with said hopeless types that bleeds over into undue expectations of friends.

I suppose I find others' sincerity shallow. If they manage to be sincere at all and aren't outright lying to get by or get what they want. I'm sure there is no intrinsic difference between me and anyone, hopeless or otherwise, that people are choosing to relate to. I think I just find more value and meaning in calling out all the ways it can be bullshit. I see a lot of emotional thieves looking for the language and the payout without the work. I hope to cast a giant shadow of doubt. It lets the people with real things shine.

This is part two of a series: Part 1 & Part 3

[168] Life Is Very Short, And There's No Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime

Saturday, January 3, 2009 at 6:43am

It's not that Steev and I are always fighting, it's that I never understand her. Or I guess better said, I don't understand how we relate beyond a physical and semi-cordial manner. I don't love her even remotely in the way I love/d Nikki. We've had however many talks about breaking up, even setting a date at the beginning of summer. Simple things like text messaging don't even go over well. I say something I think is pretty straight forward or completely sarcastic and funny, she responds with what's, why's, and how's that don't even make sense to me. It's literally as if I asked her about her day and she decided to scorn me about the cancer growing in my lungs from polio. It just doesn't make any sense to me. And then when it comes to sex, you'd think that would be a mutual thing. Takes two people, involves each other's pleasure zones, but the way she comes across is as if she's granting it to me because I want it. Like she pities that I'm horny. And if I make some sort of sexual innuendo comment she takes it to mean that I'm just trying to have sex for her, as if I could possibly not enjoy it. She'll call me and we'll have nothing to say to each other. I'm bad at small talk and know it. She tells me I'm the only one that she can't have hour long random conversations with on the phone. I'm sitting here thinking, there's no reception, I'm doing nor have done anything remotely interesting in the past two weeks, and despite me just telling you that I was reading I'm still staring off into space, dead air in my ear.

I shouldn't have to respond to "Do you like it" with regards to my relationship with, "That should be an easier question to answer." There are perks sure, You get to wake up with someone, you get to talk and hang out, share the burden of and mutually support things. In my world though, I've gotten past my previous conceptions of what a relationship would do for me. I really do like and get excited by many girls and the idea of talking them into things, spending time with all kinds of different people, and playing my own game. Now, all I feel is restricted by the rules of formality, cordialness, but mostly her feelings. The fact that she really cares about me is making me make myself suffer through an uneven and, personally understood as, mismatched relationship. I didn't like being alone because it was boring, not because I was aching to have a girlfriend. The only reason I started talking to her in the first place was because I saw that she was someone who would be worth knowing, messing around with, getting back into the swing of things. This relationship isn't fair to either of us and yet it will persist and I think I'm just making another game of finding a way to be happy in the midst of it. I'm not sure if this is healthy or practice. The fact I don't see those two relating to each other doesn't help. She'll survive without me and I her. We'd get along well enough to keep Mystik going, I hope. This is truly all my fault for breaking my own rules and acting against my nature in the name of experimenting.

She doesn't love me. Not in the way I felt for Nikki. Keeping that in mind is allowing me to drag this out without thinking it's just digging some hole. I already know she will probably get hurt. You can't explain to someone that you care, but at the same time don't give a fuck. I don't want my friends hurt. And that's what she is. A friend I have a committed relationship with. But people are ultimately responsible for themselves. I can't say I haven't been honest, but I've had to be "nice" enough with that honesty. When I honestly acted in exactly how I understood the situation, she thought I betrayed her. When I'm too honest about what I'm thinking or feeling, she gets hurt and thinks I'm going to cheat or thinking that she's lacking in something. She refuses to accept that she's who she is and needs to express that and not think it needs to be sacrificed for me. That's how I can say that I just don't give a fuck if she's going through some emotional turmoil. She's not retarded, she stands strong and she understands, I hope, what's going on. She is choosing to be in this just as I am, but I feel like I will always see things more clearly. Or at the more desperate level, always feel confused about what she means, where she's coming from, and why she doesn't understand the simplest forms of expression I can engage in.

This coupled with my ability to cut people off, be unbearably mean, drive to fuck with, and inability to sympathize with those that choose to suffer under what I deem retarded circumstances isn't good. I guess the quick thinker would point out that I seem to be suffering in confusion and lack of love. But I think suffering implies more desperation, more feeling of being out of control or unable to pull the trigger when absolutely necessary. I am not suffering through having a cute girlfriend that I basically get along with who's ambitious and smart enough to want to endeavor down a road with Mystik and social manipulation. That's far from suffering. A girl that will pop the pimples on your back is a keeper, so why can't I just be happy? The obvious answer, my overall happiness thus far has entailed a more encompassing social and sexual interaction, and it hasn't been at the expense of doing or saying anything that popped into my head at any one moment. I don't have a scale that says how important being able to do that is. Thus, I'm figuring out how much a relationship can pump out in happiness if I work at it, sacrifice for it, and try not to see my previous rationals and "perfectly" rational. Acting on the outside is what will reflect on the inside, but your innate and selfish, arguably "true" nature, doesn't just get erased in lieu of your actions. Where am I going to balance?

I know I don't want headaches. I don't want to make her sad. I don't want to feel on the brink of saying something or doing something for the sake of some test or antagonism. If I can write, keep the writings from her, and practice I think this will go smoother and start to make more sense. As much as I want to say that I passed up fucking a girl that I've been trying to fuck for years, this information does not go over well for relationships. As much as I'd like to just get super pissed at something seemingly insignificant yet it cuts so deep, I need to tarry that anger to a context. I wish I didn't feel free. Maybe that's why I'm working on the relationship. If I can get a set of rules with a person that I've convinced myself to be enthralled with, then it takes off the burden that comes with the feelings of being free. If I can find reason enough that this would be better for me longer than my sexual philanthropy and unabashed character, then I don't suffer the bullshit of feeling marginally guilty by hooking up with someone, or waiting for actual years before she comes around to your pitch.

I'm also falling into the trap of thinking too far into the future. I'm already worried about what she'll think or feel when I escort some girl to my room as we walk past her. I'm already worried about how we might act during some business meeting. I'm taking for granted that she'll be less inclined to help or care if I end things in the wrong way. I don't like how she tells me she loves me and then says I don't have to say it. Of course I don't have to say it. If and when I feel it, I will/do say it. She loves me, but not in a way I can understand. And I love her, but not in a way she feels, necessarily likes, or understands fully either. It won't help to start making schedules and interactions that keep us around each other all the time. She won't want that after things are done. Especially if for whatever reason we don't make it until the summer. I had a feeling the schedule thing would fall through anyway. If only because we won't have enough things to keep a consistent block of things we simply have to get done.

It bothers me that I could "emptily" fuck this other girl and still want and appreciate what I have with Steev, and she would never in a million years agree or empathize with that. I need to be all to herself. I'm "special" although I'm not, neither is she, none of us are. Sex is just fun for me, not a sign of commitment or loyalty. I can commit to people with the promises I make, the the words I give to my friends. They can trust how I'll react to things, how I'll deduce a situation, and that I'll at some level always be acting in my self interest. I don't understand how that isn't enough. I feel like I give people more honest assessments of myself and heartfelt testaments to who I can be for them at a level that some people who've been together for decades don't have with each other. Yet that still isn't enough? All that tells me is that the flaw isn't with honesty, it isn't with my style or choices, it's with the other person. It just means that I don't want to play the game of catering for the sake of a title or I don't want or empathize with the feelings of a normal relationship.

I can't be wrong if I'm happy and the people I want to be happy are happy as well. I can't see the flaw in my reasoning if people keep coming back, aren't holding grudges, can and do talk to me without my probing or desperate attempt at getting back in contact with them. I appreciate the different ways I relate with everyone. I don't want to sacrifice that for one relationship. For one person that must be glorified beyond all reason to make any argument formulated around that idea seem even vaguely compelling and plausible. That is what causes my headaches. That is where the suffering takes place. It isn't me suffering being with one person who by any standard is amazing and good for me, it's sacrificing what I see as my relationships with other people. They all make me happy. They all compose a part of me that I like to express in some form or another, and they are all part of the framework I've built to understand and express. Steev isn't conducive to the whole, and that's why we'll end. It isn't her, it's everything about me, and that isn't meant to be self-defeating, an excuse, or cliche. That's the reality. At this current juncture in my life, I will want to fuck other people, I will want my seemingly endless time alone, I will want to construe my philosophy and words on unsuspecting people and situations, and I will be compelled to react against the situations that put me in opposition to that. And that's exactly what a relationship is. It's giving your finger to the world of pure selfish expression.

Relationships, friendships, and love I feel only work when both people understand that that is why they are in it. Despite all the people in the world and everything else you could be doing, your both choosing to enjoy how you relate to each other, and are dignifying it over everything else in those moments. Neither of you has to sacrifice aspects of your personality that you enjoy and see as fundamental to expressing who you are. Your both uplifted by each other, not picking away at yourselves "for the sake" of the other person. If you like to fuck, then fuck. If your good at talking, then talk to each other, if you can do both at the same time, more power to you. To me, the reality is, there is no intrinsic action or behavior that should glorify basic human interactions that everybody can engage in. There is no edict from heaven that says once you can stay up all night talking to someone, you should be in a relationship. The best blow job of your life may hate everything else you hold dear. It all is just actions, what makes them dignified is your pro-active choice about who they are going to be with. It is not your desperation to hold on to the integrity of the ideal laden platitudes about love and relationships. While I'm acting to keep a relationship and doing all I can do to visibly show this other person that I enjoy their time and appreciate what we have, I can't ignore the statement I see myself making to other people. I can't pretend like I didn't see that one girl's body language before and after she found out I had a girlfriend despite our previous conversation. I can't pretend I am not fantasizing about or had set into motion a plan for getting with someone that is now being trampled because I'm another "taken" guy. That is frustrating as hell and really pisses me off.

And now despite this, what does someone like me do? I go and make the game even more complicated. I try to use the relationship as an advantage for my later interaction with those girls. I use their built up thoughts and ideas about me to grow and swelter so they are that much more likely to submit in the future. I coyly play like I don't notice them looking at me. I try to remain friendly and nonchalant when their faces grow cold and down. I still don't know if that's being "honest" to Steev. When there's a list of things you can't tell someone because your in a relationship, given that they are about what it would be like if the relationship weren't in tact, I can't feel that bad about not telling her. This especially given how she's reacted in the past. It is being honest to my perverted self. It is being honest to my curiosity and want to fool around with them. I want it all. I felt like I had it all, except for the experience from or effort put towards a "normal relationship."

When I didn't have much of an identity beyond obnoxious asshole, that would explain why I fell so hard for Nikki. Here I had granted myself a new game of trying to "self express" through actions that would distract or fix her troubled world. I put up the edicts about her being gorgeous and worthy to get the reasoning out of the way, and then I go to town on mentally bereaving myself. Now that I've moved beyond that and developed a shit ton of more reasons to be anti-relationship, if not anti-love as well, I'm tearing myself up over the idea that I would drag myself back into a world that I've already figured out. A self-defeating game I've already beaten. A struggle that won't take place in the same way, but still smells of the past. My basic empathy and rules regarding friends will continue to weigh on me so heavily because they are well-reasoned and good things to live by. They are things that aren't necessarily in opposition to my other views, until they adopt a cloak of a relationship. So, the new game is resolving this? Making the relationship cohesive to the idea, at least for now, that it's spitting on or detracting from what I have with other people or how I express myself. I don't think that was a wise road to travel. I really think at this point that I've just been so bored I've openly adopted this drama and mess for the sake of something to write about. Well okay, not really, but close. I can't say I didn't see any of it coming, and I can't pretend like I don't believe there is a simple answer. I just want to make my friends happy, but only when they understand it's their responsibility first. And it shouldn't even have to remotely involve me.

Updated about 3 months ago · Comment · LikeUnlike

 You like this.

 Diana Woody at 11:45am January 3

It blows my mind you post this kind of anguish that involves other people publicly...
Love you.

 Nick P. at 3:24pm January 3

this is actually private with only you and my one friend allowed to see it.

 Diana Woody at 3:29pm January 3

OH. That explains a lot. Also, I feel privileged. And, you should try leaving Indiana...move to the east coast...people are so much awesomer out here... Example: in Indiana, I ask a girl before a threesome, are you sure you'll be alright with this in the morning. She reassures me. A week later she's bemoaning how she gave in to temptation and woe is her, she screwed up and I'm thinking, dammit, I PERSONALLY asked you to think it through because I KNEW you would do this. I've NEVER had that problem with anybody out here. Lots of people identify themselves as "loose" in their relationships (not their words, that's my best description for it) in the kind of way that you and I appreciate... There's so much world and variety of people outside of the midwest! Not that I hated the midwest, it's just definitely been different out here...

 Nick P. at 3:47pm January 3

See, I the worst thing about here is that at the beginning of our relationship she described wanting a "British style" relationship. What I took to mean as, and I'm paraphrasing her words, "You can fuck other people just as long as you know that your coming home to me" type situation. Given this delightful information, I didn't sleep with, but messed around with another girl towards the beginning of the relationship which resulted in a huge backlash about me being dishonest or trying to betray her. You can hopefully imagine my confusion. I wish I could convey that it's nothing about her that I necessarily dislike, but I really am just that bent on new experiences and don't regard sex as the be all end all denotation of feelings. I am intrigued by the East given your frequent endorsements. Although I'm not conveniently disposed to pick up and go quite yet. Also, I'm modestly hopeful that I could swing her around to three way things or letting me stray, but it isn't something I can push.

 Diana Woody at 3:59pm January 3

I think insecure women say, and possibly even think, they're alright with "british style" (I'll use that term) relationships, but in their minds, even though they've "given you the freedom" (which bothers me, since both people should kinda want it for it to work), they actually want you to shun all others as a sacrifice to prove your love for her. I've seen several women try to be open-relationship kind of girls and fail utterly because of pettiness, spite and jealousy. Which wouldn't be a big deal if they were just honest with themselves and admitted that they want a conventional monogamous relationship! Unless she does a lot of growing up (mentally) quickly, I doubt the relationship will get much better... She's practicing too much self-deception (is what it sounds like to me) to be able to be a part of a serious, mature form of relationship that's open. You have to really have it together to be in an openish relationship.

 Nick P. at 4:16pm January 3

I have confidence that I can at least go about my "method" as it were of discussion with her, and am actually willing to go through the potential drama if it doesn't work out. We've touched on things like this before even though I can say I think the main reason she won't like it will be because of her ideas about betrayal. One way or another I'm confident things will work out without regrettable consequences even though I don't necessarily disagree with your analysis of her behavior.

 Diana Woody at 4:38pm January 3

as long as you're confident, I suppose... ;)