Maybe I'm Full of Bullshit

Three times this week, women in the counseling room asked me, in different ways, "Why do I love him?" Or "Why did I love him?"

There are times when I think that pretty much everything I think I know is bullshit. When someone asks me why they love another person, it's one of those times. I mean, I've spent at least half my life pondering this question. I've meditated on it, written about it, gone to all kinds of school, read books, know all this theoretical stuff about attachment and family of origin and what have you.

And yet none of that gets at the heart of the question. Why do I love him? Why do I love her? What does this question really mean? Does it mean you don't want to love that person? That you do want to but feel it's not good enough? That you feel helpless? What does that question mean?

What I'm pretty sure of as I get older is that there's no answer. You can point to someone's family and their formative experiences, sure. You can say it's because that person reminds them of someone, or doesn't remind them of someone, they knew. You can say it's because at that moment in life a door opened. You can say all those kinds of things.

But what it comes down to is--really, who the hell knows?

You love someone. You just do. There might be a lot of reasons why or no reasons why. It doesn't seem to matter. You love someone whether or not s/he deserves it. Whether or not there's a chance in hell of reciprocation. Whether or not it's a good idea.

However, this doesn't seem to be a very counselor-y thing to say, so I go around and around this unanswerable question, wondering about it myself, wondering about what it means to my clients, wondering how to lead them deeper into the question instead of chasing an answer that satisfies nothing. Because, really, even if you "knew" would it change anything?

I wonder.

I might, probably will, see J. on Thursday. Why do I care for him? Well, who the hell knows? I can come up with reasons. I can tell you it's because I like the way he touches me and I like his presence. I can tell you it's because he fusses over me and asks me if I'm hungry when I'm at his house for a whole other reason, and I like that he does that even though I won't admit it to him, or even myself really. I can tell you it's because he's tall or because he has green eyes. But would any of those things really answer the deeper questions?

I care about him because I do. That's just how it is. I don't know what that feeling means or what it points to, though I could come up with some pretty good theories. I choose not to call it anything other than knowing I care for him at this point. As I told him the other day, he'll no doubt meet someone he'd rather have as a girlfriend when he's finally ready to get out there again. But would that change my caring for him? I doubt it.

It just is what it is; and it is. Just as it is for my clients. We sit there in that room trying to land a helicopter in the middle of a hurricane of a question about life, values, everything we think we believe about this thing called love. I wonder sometimes if I'm really doing them any good other than holding their hand on the ride.

I guess that counts for something.

Sweetness Between Us

Well, I went out to J's house this weekend.

After his nice letter, I'd responded, thanking him for what he wrote. I made a little joke to the effect that sometimes I thought we just needed to get together every six weeks or so and act out the best of our loving, sexy feelings toward one another.

He wrote back and said he was into the idea, after having spent some time with it and thought about it.

So...

It was nice. Very nice indeed. Just as sweet as ever. There is just nothing at all wrong with that aspect of how we relate to one another. Nothing wrong atall. I went out there feeling disconnected and sad and upset. Today, I feel about 100% better, and I know it's because of the time I spent with him.

I can't help but wonder--would things have played out between us differently if he'd been in a better place in his life? Would he maybe not have felt the need to boost his presentation if he hadn't been struggling on other levels, his confidence so battered across the board? I'll never know, I guess--what happened is what happened--but I do wonder. I do wonder if, had I met him at a different time, he would have been different, more open, less insecure, making better choices.

At any rate, the sweetness of what we share is intact; there are no hard feelings between us any more from what I can tell. I feel sure now that he didn't mean to hurt me with anything he did. It was thoughtless, immature, but not malicious. I'm glad we worked through everything, as painful as it was.

I'm glad there's still something we can share, too.

Tired and Discouraged

Well, I'm feeling pretty bottomed out right now.

I have two internship sites...I'm driving back and forth all over town to do this stuff...and I'm STILL not getting the hours I need to complete my course requirement. And there are only five weeks of the semester left.

I really really wish to hell I had waited and done fall and spring internship instead. I'm not having a summer break. I'm worn out. I'm not getting what I need from the sites I'm interning for, and on top of it I paid a thousand dollars for this experience. It completely sucks and I am just tired out and feeling like I'm at the bottom of a deep deep well right now.

I re-read J's letter and it really touched my heart. I do miss him. In spite of everything. There is something sweet and childlike about him that, when things were working between us, made it easy for me to care for him and connect with him. Despite the massive miscommunication and problems, there was something between us that touched me, left an impression that's still lingering even more than a month after we broke up. I have no idea what that something was, but it's there. I have to acknowledge its presence without understanding it or knowing what it means. It's a mystery, I guess.

Sometimes I think that the men I love all have this childlike quality--K. had that too, and I loved him for it, too. There's this quality of innocence that some men have that captures me; maybe I resonate with it somewhere inside myself. I wish that the rest of the man in those cases was more mature, which hasn't been the situation. Maybe you can't have a mature man who has that quality. I dunno.

What I do know is this: I went to the mall (!) today and bought enough shampoo and conditioner hopefully till the end of the year. I bought two long skirts off the sale rack of some teenage bimbo store because what I need most from my wardrobe right now is the ability to get dressed in less than 10 minutes and long skirts do that for me. I went to the market and bought coffee and chocolate and realized after I got home that I didn't buy any real food. I did some laundry. I did paperwork. I stressed. I got discouraged as hell.

It was a full day.

It seems to me I was better in terms of not feeling bad about all of this a few weeks ago. Then again, at that point I thought I was gonna get my hours, too. Things are not looking promising and the idea of starting the fall with a deficit does not make me happy in the least. Not to mention dealing with the entity that is my internship professor, which is so depressing I don't even want to get started writing about it. Suffice it to say I think getting an incomplete in this class is going to be made extremely difficult for me on more than one level and I'm not looking forward to the ensuing political battle that's bound to happen.

I really would like to fly away and go somewhere cool and quiet right now.

Waaahhhh!

A Note; A Cool Guy

I wrote J. a little note this morning thanking him for coming over the other evening and working through stuff with me. I said I truly do hope things get better for him and that I'm just taking the time I need to grieve the loss of the sweet things we had between us.

He wrote me back a sweet note--saying he's sorry he won't see me for a while, that he too misses those sweet things, and that he too thinks it would be hard to spend time with me if I had a new man in my life. He wrote: Maybe it's taking a little longer to sink in for me, to realize what you meant/mean to me. ...I may not hear from you right now but I think I will probably be wanting to write you again or call soon. love always, j.

We seem to be on the same page, which is good.

I also met a really cool guy today. Well, actually I've met him before; he works at this little shop where I've bought several pieces of jewelry. It's an odd little place, and tied to people who work at Renaissance fairs, of all things--which he does, as well, as an actor. He's helped me a couple of times. The last time I was in there, he mentioned the shop would be closing soon as the owners are planning to work only at fairs starting next year. So I went in there to scoop up a little pendant I'd had my eye on for a while.

We got into this great conversation about performance, therapy, relationships. He is a big kinda burly guy with bright eyes and a VERY active mind, also a really funny sense of humor. Very present and very intelligent. I suddenly realized that behind that jovial face is a sharp mind, a ready wit, and a depth of personality that I appreciate.

So I gave him my number. And you know what? I think he'll call me and we'll have coffee and have a great time. He's my kind of people; I can just tell. He's odd, intelligent, quirky and creative. He's thinking and living outside the box. I like people like that. I don't think I can ever get enough of them in my life. They keep me fresh and on my toes, always questioning what I'm doing from another angle, keeping me thinking about things differently.

It's really nice to meet someone in real life through my regular haunts; not that I have many regular haunts as a grad student without a life, which makes it even more special. It made me realize that it's been a long time since I connected with a guy completely without the use of an online medium. And it's nice. I like it a lot better.

Then I went to the pool and spent time with my friends.

I have a good life!

Thoughtful

Wednesday is like "massive therapy day." I lead a group in the morning, go to analysis, see another client, then do group therapy in the evening. It's a lot...but it's good.

I wrote K an email this morning because I finally wore the pendant he bought me a long time ago for the first time since our breakup. It was a short email; I just expressed that I think about him now and again and that if he ever decides he wants to communicate, the door is open on my side. That's about it.

I do think about K, and wonder about him. I guess I'll never really understand what happened there; but I've gotten to the place where that understanding is not necessary for me to live my life. As I expressed to C., it's a testament to the work that he and I have done together that I not only survived that breakup but went on with my semester and my program almost without a hitch, academically speaking (I got the only B of my graduate career that semester). Four or five years ago, an abandonment like the one K pulled would have left me in ruins. That not only didn't happen, I kept going with the challenges of grad school. To me that says a lot about what C. and I have done together in that therapy room--and why it is I believe so much in good therapy.

I don't know that I'll contact K many more times; as time goes by and he fades into my past as a mystery, I feel less and less desire to try to understand his actions. I figure if he had the ability to understand himself I'd have heard about it by now. He's just one of those Bermuda Triangle mysteries and not one that I spend too much time on any more as the days go by. I think of him, or good things about having been with him; that's about it.

Regardless, I wish him well and said so. I don't think I'll hear from him and that's fine with me, too. I don't any longer need a response from him. It would be nice but it's not necessary for me to live my life. I wish there was a proper closure to that situation, too, but it takes two, as I've learned.

Good enough.

Closure

Well, J. came over last night and we had dinner.

I'm glad we talked. I need time without contact with him in order to heal what happened. But what we did last night at least laid the groundwork for us to have a decent friendship in the future, if and when I decide I'm ready to be in contact with him again.

He was really saddened that I told him I need to go without us talking for a while; but he understood. I didn't hug him when he left; I didn't feel like I wanted to touch him at all. In some way this whole situation really messed with me, and I need to heal from that.

I could just see, sitting there with him, that this man continues to make one mistake after another in his life and that he has little to no awareness of the underlying emotional states and arrested development that drives those decisions. I felt bad for him, and at the same time, he's pretty resistant to change, so it's like he's just digging his own grave deeper and deeper. His life is basically going to hell in a handbasket and he's in denial about a lot of his own role in that process. Pretty much a classic mid life crisis.

I feel for him, but he hurt me too as part of this fallout, and now I need to take care of myself and not worry about him.

It was a good closure. Sad, but good.

Now What Was I Thinking Again?

Well, I didn't cancel the dinner thing today. I guess I'm wondering why I didn't other than that I was running around all day and, quite frankly, too tired to even think about it.

I guess I'll go through with it. But I have no idea why I'm even doing this. It seems to me that at some point I told him he needed to talk to me face to face. Now I'm wondering why I said that, or thought it in the first place. At the time, it seemed true, but at this point I have no idea why I thought that needed to happen.

I mean--he is who he is. I am who I am. I'm not gonna be tying up and flogging any guys anytime soon. Because I have a life, because I'm busy, because quite frankly I spend a whole lotta time taking care of other people and I can't imagine having to take care of a partner who's that dependent. At the risk of being completely and stupidly judgmental, all the men I've met who liked being submissive were...well, just sorta wormy. Not at all the kind of guy I see myself being in partnership with. They just seem like, well, a lot of work. The kind of guy who passes himself off as "mellow" but what he really is is passive, a bump in the road, a dead turtle sitting on a petrified log, the kind of guy you need a crane to get him off his ass.

I would suggest that ain't submissive; that's what we old schoolers call lazy. Nothing submissive about it. Lazy people are often pretty controlling because they expect other people do all the work.

Anyway, whatever. He's going to bring over dinner because I simply don't have it in me to go out after working all day. Fine, let him bring over dinner. I feel numb, sort of flat about the whole thing.

I do wonder if it's true what he said--that I wouldn't have dated him if I'd known all this stuff about him. I will say he didn't seem wormy to me when I first met him. I thought he had a bit of an edge to him. I would say that in some ways this is still true. As mad as I've been at him, he hasn't folded up, he hasn't withdrawn or given up. He continues to be there, in that weirdly deferring and yet persistent way. He's been a real jackass but he also hasn't given up on the situation even though he supposedly broke up with me three weeks ago. He goes six one way and a half dozen the other, contradicting himself with every other sentence, but what he doesn't ever do is go away completely.

It's sorta bizarre; I have to say I've not really seen anything like it, and it's confusing. I don't really know how to deal with it. I don't understand why he refuses to just take the booty call gig and call it a day. It seems close enough to what he wants and what he's had in the past, and yet he refused that when I suggested it, in fact he got pretty upset about it. Most guys would have taken it. He didn't.

I don't get him at all on some fundamental level. He's a confusing person. And I'm too tired to try to understand it right now.

Tired

I swam AND ran today. My doctor suggested I try doing that a while back to see if it helps my knees. Run first, then swim. It felt fine, but boy, I'm tired now.

I invited my friends A. and T. down to the pool with me and they met one another and it was a good, good time. They got along great as I figured they would. We hung out by the pool and then shared a plate of nachos across the street. Then I went to a meditation group and then to see my mother for a while.

I almost called J. today to tell him I don't want to get together on Tuesday. I guess I'm asking myself on some level--why bother? What's the point? I feel discouraged and sad when I think about him. I haven't anything else to offer and I can't see right now what would come out of such a meeting for me. I've expressed my anger and my hurt and my sadness. I can't affect what's already happened. I just have to live with the results.

So I almost did pick up the phone and call him and say, look, let's just not do this. There's no point. But I didn't. My friend A. actually said I should wait and see how I feel in another day or two before calling it off. I was surprised to hear her say that, but she usually has pretty good advice, and she knows me.

I dunno. I'm tapped out on this. I'm stuck with my sad and hurt feelings and I have to let them heal. I'm glad that the rest of my life is working well and that I'm otherwise OK. I'm just tired, physically, mentally, emotionally, and it's gonna be that way for a while.

I wish I could get over that bad, bad feeling of having been used by J. That's the worst part, that feeling. That's the feeling that makes me want to walk away and never see this person again. Is there a way to change that feeling? There would have been a lot of ways to prevent it while we were dating. Now, I don't know.

I just feel like giving up on the whole thing.

I'm gonna go to bed early and let sleep do its thing. See how I feel tomorrow.

What I Wanted

I feel a bit sad tonight. I watched the fireworks from my housemate's bedroom window because it's on the second floor and you can see them from there. It was pretty cool. He was out with a friend, probably down where the fireworks actually were; but I was happy to see them from home. I thought about going down to the show, but wasn't enough into it to face the crowds.

I'm considering this morning's conversation and sitting with my feelings. Mostly I feel sad. Sad because I don't think that what I wanted in my relationship with J. was so un-doable or so unreasonable. What I wanted was to feel important to him; to feel him holding me, caring for me, paying attention to me, treating me as precious and special to him. I don't think that's so damn much. Yet what I ended up feeling was ignored.

I still care for him. Not that it matters. He's terrified of getting too close to anyone and will sabotage any relationship that goes too well. It's ironic and sad to realize that what caused someone to act badly was the fact that you were TOO good, too kind, too caring and too loving. If I'd been more distant, more of a bitch, things would probably still be rolling along. He's pretty much said that this is what he's used to; he's even said he's happy in a relationship in which the other person isn't that invested.

I remember back to our first date how he said he was open to getting married again and even having another kid with the right person. I remember thinking how much I liked him for that, how this statement made me think that he was open to love, not afraid to take risks, really looking for that special someone. It was one of the things that made him attractive to me--that seeming courage and openness.

Now it seems like I couldn't have been more wrong.

I guess I'm getting to the point where I can allow myself to feel that sadness. To grieve that something sweet that was touched in me is not going to be allowed to flower--that it was only potential, something that I sensed but that can't develop because he is too afraid. I can allow myself to feel sad about that. To wish it had been different.

Nothing to do but let these feelings be what they are and run their course.

A Talk

So this morning my phone rings and it's J. He's gotten my email and he's wanting to tell me that he really does want to be friends.

I asked him what kind of friend he's been to me so far. Where's he been since he dumped all this shit on me? How has he helped me with any of the feelings that were brought up by the revelation that he'd lied to me and cheated in the past? How has he helped me with the disappointment, the anger, the fear, the sadness, the hurt that his disclosures engendered?

He hasn't done squat except to say "I'm sorry you're hurt." He has made no offer of reparation. He's basically taken the attitude of "How soon can we blow past this?"

What kind of friend is that? It's no friend at all, and that's what I told him.

We ended up talking for a while. I said to him that I thought any attempt at friendship would run into exactly the same problems as dating him did. After all, it's not like I accept lying, evading, immature, self serving behavior in my friends. It's not like I think it's OK for friends to cover up information that affects another person's life in a negative way. It's not like I don't expect my friends to be real, to show up, and to work through problems we have.

I do expect all of those things. I do expect my friends to be people I am proud to hang out with, that they don't act like jerks, screw over others, or behave in a self-serving way. I simply have no time or energy to spend around people who behave like losers, who are selfish and don't take others into account. That's not the kind of energy I want in my life.

Well, J. hung in there. He did. I told him that my experience of the main problem I have with him is a simple thing: he's selfish, choosing to always put his needs ahead of those of the person he's with, me in this case, but obviously also at least one woman in his past. You can't change being selfish by going to therapy. In fact it doesn't even take therapy to change that. It takes looking in the mirror and deciding not to be that kind of person and sticking to it. It takes considering the needs of others as much as you do your own needs.

He said he wasn't THAT selfish. I pointed out how he'd been shopping around online the week before I took him on vacation not knowing he was doing that. How he never offered to reciprocate that trip, other than to suggest I could go to Atlanta and poke around by myself if I bought my own ticket. He makes quite a bit more money than I do and didn't once offer to take me anywhere; in fact, he spent a great deal of time telling me about the trips he was planning to go on by himself. He didn't take me on dates, didn't listen to what I was telling him I needed in terms of attentiveness and/or time, and also made the decision to lie about things that were important to me in order to preserve his own ego and manipulate my impression of him. I asked him, "Did you at any point ever think of me and my needs while making these decisions?"

He was silent, and after waiting a while I said, "I don't think you did, J. I don't think you spent one minute thinking about it. And the other thing I notice is that since this shit blew up in my face, you don't seem to have spent any time thinking about how I might be feeling about what you told me. When I ask you 'How do you think this affects me?' you seemingly have no answer to that question. It's like you have never taken the time to stand in another person's shoes and imagine how your choices affect that person. Which, I will say outright, I find astonishing at your age. Astonishing."

"It's hard to open up, to let your guard down. I've had my heart broken before," he said.

"And are you the only person who has trouble letting your guard down? Are you the only person who's ever had his heart broken? How is that an excuse for acting like an ass?" I asked. "Are you so special, are your experiences so unique, that somehow they justify you hurting another person?"

There was quite a bit more, but what it comes down to is that he says he does want to work through this with me and become a friend, that he does want to make reparation, that he does realize that what he did was wrong and had a terrible effect on me, and that he understands that I am not going to trust him or forgive him for a while because this is part of the natural consequence of his actions.

All of this is fine. I have said what I needed to say about it. I told him outright that he needs to grow the fuck up and stop acting like a teenager, stop trying to get off the hook for things he's done wrong, stop making excuses and lame promises and actually get off his ass and put in the work to address his issues. J. has been floating along in life behaving in a way that is incredibly emotionally immature. He's going to have to complete the crash course in Adulthood 101 for us to have any kind of relationship. And quite frankly this is something that should have happened about two decades ago and he is way overdue. I don't know how the hell he thinks he is going to pass workable values on to his son if he can't do basic things like repair a relationship broken by lying himself. And yes, I said as much.

I have to say that I'm surprised at his phone call and that some part of me now does wonder if it's possible for this to work out amiably. I didn't consider that a possibility before this morning.

Life is full of surprises as always.

Alternately, A Fuck Buddy

It seems to me that I have several choices here.

I can't have J. as a boyfriend ever again. I'm not in love with him any more and he's just too fuckin' annoying.

The choices are friend, fuck buddy, and get the hell outta my life.

Quite frankly, the most likely of these are (2) and (3), fuck buddy or get the hell outta my life. Friendship is going to run into the same obstacles that dating did.

I have no idea whether I'd ever want to be physical with him again. However, my intention in meeting with him next week is to get all of the potential agendas out on the table so that I can decide what I am or am not interested in. To that effect, I answered his previous email thus:

In advance of our meeting next week--

"truth be told, I am used to and would enjoy a relationship where you didn't have to feel so invested, but where I might be able to make you feel good."

You are talking about sex, and you proceed to talk about it more in the next paragraph, as far as the dom/sub thing. I get it. You don't want a relationship that requires you to be any more invested than a fuck buddy with some leather and rope twists to it. Again, you could and should have told me that at the beginning.

Our former relationship, whatever is left of it, is in pieces. There is no trust. There is very little communication. There is a lot of pain and there are a lot of questions. And in the midst of this storm of bullshit, engineered and orchestrated by you, you are writing me emails about me domming you and still having a sexual relationship with me.

It's not too hard to see how you are thinking about this. For you, this is primarily about sex. So don't hint. You still want to fuck me, have the guts to say so, and stop pretending this has anything to do with love or friendship.

I don't need to be your friend to fuck you. I don't need to know you as a person. I especially don't need to be bothered with misleading talk about girlfriends and relationships. In fact I don't even have to like you, particularly, which is a plus right at the moment. If all you can be and all you want to be is a fuck buddy, buy some goddamn condoms and pitch your spiel. Don't expect me to deal with your bullshit, don't expect me to consider you a friend, and don't waste my time talking about love. Present whatever your deal is on the table on Tuesday and I'll consider whether or not it's something I'm interested in.

Honesty is *always* the best policy, J. You would do well to remember and practice that from now on as far as you and I are concerned.

Best,
Wily

I know, this probably seems nuts. But bear with me for a minute.

I have very strict rules about this stuff. I don't date men with whom I have a sex-only arrangement. I don't talk to them about life, theirs or mine. I don't even really make small talk, as a rule. I don't go out with them, I don't meet their families, I am not interested in any of that in any way. The arrangement is about one thing and one thing only.

J. is a horrible boyfriend. I'm not in love with him any more. If he wants to be my personal playboy, he can present that, and I'll think about it. It's the only thing that worked between us, and if he shuts up and does his thing, I might consider it. He's not going to have any privileges as a fuck buddy, and I'm not going to be interested in his life.

In other words, it would make things a lot easier for me. And it's about time something in this got easier for me. At least I think so.

At any rate, I want to see what he puts on the table. No more bullshitting around. J. is trying to have the best of both worlds. He only wants to do the minimum as far as work, hence, a fuck buddy arrangement. But he wants to be able to take her places and show her off as a girlfriend when it suits his ego to do so.

I call bullshit on that. Where I'm concerned, there are two choices: fuck buddy or full boyfriend. I don't do half relationships or part timers of any kind. They're not worth the heartache and confusion. In the absence of the full boyfriend, I'll have a fuck buddy now and again if it's available. If J. wants to be that, fine, let him put it out there. He's not a candidate for full boyfriend anyway.

Should be interesting to see what happens.

What A Dumbass!

So I get this email from J:

I am sorry you are still hurt. I hurt too, now you no longer love me. I know it is my fault for misleading you. Perhaps I'll never live that down. I disagree with your feeling that none of what I felt for you was real. I want to show you that I do know you somewhat and am willing to learn more. I certainly respect you and care about you and am not as selfish as you think. I know, before my email from Atlanta, we were just going to try to be friends. I still want that. We got sidetracked by the comment I made regarding your being in a place where you can not give a man all that you would want to in a relationship. I was merely saying that, truth be told, I am used to and would enjoy a relationship where you didn't have to feel so invested, but where I might be able to make you feel good. Being your service submissive was not my first idea. And I probably should not have brought it up again, because I do understand that that is something you are not into, at least not at this stage.

I wanted what would be enjoyable for both of us. Being a submissive or a dom or whatever would not be fun for me if you were not into it. I have fantasized about being your sub, sure, but that does not mean that I expect it or am unhappy with out it.

...I didn't want to trick you. I will own that I do have deep seeded kinks and I was not good at sharing them with you. I don't always think of my self as a kinky person. I think it would be nice to simply have a girlfriend. Maybe I'm not suited for that at this point.

This is very upsetting, but probably deserved. But you have to believe me that I think of you as a real woman deserving of respect, someone I listen to, Someone I hold in high esteem, even though I lost your love. I am sincerely sorry that you are feeling so heart broken.

Sounds nice, on the surface. But when you read underneath the content, this entire email reads as though we are still together or going to be together. It reads as this:

"Oh sorry about the slip Wily about the dom/sub thing. I'm sure this little tiff is just a hump in the road we'll get over. After all, you're going to wake up to the magic of the world of D/S and you'll realize what you've been missing. This little blip here, this here is just a stage. We'll get past it."

What a fucking dumbass!!!

I sat with this opus of bullshit for a while. I didn't even know how to begin to reply to it. I started to type a time or two, then just had to stop and sit there because I didn't even know where to begin.

Finally I picked up the phone and called him.

I chewed his ass out. First of all, he needs to fucking take responsibility for what he did. Second of all, I'm not going to continue having email conversation about this. I have told him already that this needs to be handled face to face if at all possible, because whether this door is to be closed or open between us, I am not gonna negotiate this stuff via email.

I asked him exactly what the hell he thinks it takes to have either a real friend or a girlfriend. It takes more than passive-aggressive email exchanges. It takes more than sex. We have a serious, serious problem between us and how the hell does he think suggesting I "dom" him is going to fix that? Or "serving" me?

He said, "I don't think those things will fix it."

"So what do you think will?" I countered. "This thing between us blew up almost a month ago. You have not taken ONE ACTION to make things better. You have not initiated one conversation about how to fix it. You are sitting on your ass, being passive and passive aggressive, doing nothing, yet writing me emails that you are SO sad and how you want to be friends, in between suggesting you'd still like to get down with me. What kind of fucking friendship is that?"

"I thought our talk the other night was productive," he said.

"Sure, it was a talk about YOUR fucking kinks," I told him. "Any time we start talking about your kinks, you light up and you can talk to me for two hours. The minute I want to talk to you about connection, love, and responsibility, you're fucking falling asleep."

"That's not fair," he said.

"Really?" I retorted. "How is is that all of our conversations lately revolve around your obsessive little interest? Do you even realize that there is a huge problem here that needs to be addressed that has nothing to do with your fucking fantasies? That problem is that you lied and you hurt an innocent person, me, who was not looking to be misled and was not looking to be hurt. What's more, you did this in your last relationship too. What exactly is it that makes you think it's OK to lie to someone who cares for you?"

"I don't think it's OK," he said stubbornly.

"Really? Then why do you do it?" I wanted to know.

Silence. He couldn't answer that one.

"See, this is the problem," I said, after waiting a while. "You sound like the fucking crack addicts I see every week in the recovery center. 'Oh, I know I shouldn't go over to the east side and get a rock.' And then you know what? They go over there and get a rock, and the hell with who that hurts."

"You need to fucking grow up. This is 14 year old type bullshit. You're 48. Why do you think it's OK to lie to someone who cares for you?"

"I don't think it's OK to lie to someone who cares about me," he repeated.

"So why do you keep on doing it?" I wanted to know.

Again, no answer.
So fucking lame, huh?

I waited a while. Then I said, "If you want to be in my life AT ALL, in any capacity, you need to get off your ass. You need to stop talking about 'wanting' to be a friend or what the fuck ever and DO something to work on it. You have done nothing. Nothing at all.

"If this thing needs to close, I want to close it face to face. I deserve that from you. And if it is not going to close then you need to step up to the plate, own what you did, and work through every piece of this, every bad feeling you caused, every bad decision you made, with me. That's what relationships are. They're about doing the work to work things out.

"If you are not up to it fine. If you don't have what it takes or you don't care enough fine. But don't keep on fucking saying you want to be friends. Don't keep on pretending that there's something to feel sad about. Your choice."

I paused for a moment or two, then said, "Do you have any idea how bad it hurt to find out you were shopping around on an online dating site the week before I took you on vacation?"

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Sorry, fuck you, that's not what I asked you," I retorted. "I asked you, do you know how bad it hurt? I'm not gonna get over that. You are not a kinky adventurer for doing this stuff. You are a selfish asshole. Your little line about a relationship I don't have to be invested in? What you're really saying is that you like relationships YOU don't have to be invested in. I am so sick of your projected bullshit, man."

Sheezus.

At any rate, I gave him a flat ultimatum: We work through this face to face, meeting as many times as it takes to do that. Or he can just get the fuck out of my life and I don't want to hear from him any more ever; there will be no "let's be friends" bullshit. I am not interested in bullshit friendships any more than I am interested in bullshit relationships.

He opted for the first. Next Tuesday evening. I told him not to expect fun and games or a nice datey evening. This is going to be hard work. I told him that he also has the option to not show up; that will be his way of letting me know he doesn't have what it takes.

"Have I ever not shown up yet?" he demanded, somewhat sullenly.

"You have always shown up," I agreed. "I will give you that. But it's not going to be enough to just show up for this. You're going to have to do some work. You have between now and Tuesday to think about it and decide. It's your call."

I'm going to be fine with it either way. I'm not going to spend any time thinking about what I want to say or trying to script anything, either. I went to the pool after this conversation and spent time with my friends. I'm working a bit tomorrow, then maybe going to eat ribs. Maybe a meditation group on Sunday too. Or seeing some other friends.

I trust myself at this point to do what needs to be done. I'm through with J's games and attempts at mind fuckery. If you want my friendship then do the work it takes to have it. If you don't fine. Get out of my life. Leave me the hell alone. Either way, stop writing me sorrowful missives about what a screwup you are. I don't need to hear it and it's just another substitute for actually getting off your ass and fixing what you broke.

Get off your ass and fix what you broke or get out. Your choice.

Whatever!

Send Me A Man Who Can Think

Yeah, universe, how about I make you a deal: I will do my part as far as screening more effectively for those who are walking around asleep and not waking up to the wonder of the world.

On your part, universe, could you send me a man who can think? I mean really think. A man who wonders, who explores, who expresses, who's living and growing instead of wearing a groove deeper and deeper into the ground like the proverbial donkey attached to the millstone.

OK, so I need to somehow screen for this thing in men, this in-a-rut lazy-ass passive-aggressive thing. I'm not sure how to do that exactly. But that's what friends and mentors are for, people who have different perspectives.

I'm probably not asking the right questions as usual. But I will figure out what to ask and stick to it.

We got a deal, universe? C'mon, you know you love me. :)

Moving On

So I have decided to move on. To stop bothering with anything about J.

I said in my email to him the other day that if things are ever to be right between us, it's his job to make them right, because he's the one that was dishonest. This is so simple that I don't need to say any more. It's been said.

I'm moving on with my life and leaving this mess behind. I spent the morning considering the whole friendship thing. And you know what? If a friend treated me the way he treated me, I'd walk away. I HAVE walked away from friends who stepped over the line often enough and selfishly enough. My friendship is a gift. It is a gift that gets withdrawn when it is not appreciated and respected. He's done neither.

He's no friend. It's up to him to do what it would take to become one. I am not wasting any more energy on him.

I'm not putting up with bullshit.

Done deal.

Insufficient Resistance

I'm remembering a conversation with my friend D. a while back about this woman he'd dated. She was quite pretty, and seemed very sweet. I asked him why the relationship ended and he said, "She didn't resist enough for me."

I didn't understand what he meant at first, but as he described more about her and her behavior, I got it. She was passive, depressed, and withdrawn, and after a while he just got bored trying to get her to respond to him, so he moved on. D. is a very alive and intelligent person, and he needs a lot more from his environment and his partner than that.

I've really sat with this question: If everything else in a relationship was working for me, would I be OK with my partner being submissive in the bedroom now and then? And you know what? I'd be fine with that as long as it wasn't all of the time, because that would be an unfair burden on me. But the thing is, he would have to be an equal in every other way, and pull his weight in the relationship.

What I'm not willing to do is drag someone along who is passive, incurious, self-absorbed, and dependent in the relationship overall. I keep thinking of that remark J. made about how "challenging people are hard to find." I thought at the time--and I wish I'd called him on it--that this was an astonishingly narcissistic thing to say given how unchallenging and rigid HE is. It's just another example of how he projects his shit onto the world. He didn't provide me with challenge for shit. Yet he wants to BE challenged. Just like he wants to be cared for without wanting to care for me. It's all about him, really.

Now I want to be fair. I do think he's been jolted awake about some of this and is thinking about it now. But I also think it would take a lot for him to shake out this ingrained pattern of trying to make the other person in the relationship do all the work because he doesn't want to grow up and be an adult. None of that is about being into kink. It's about a fundamental lack of taking charge of your life. He got mad at me when I told him that he doesn't conduct himself like an adult in our relationship, but it's the truth.

I dunno. It seems to me that there's really nothing here for me. What can he really give me that challenges and nourishes me? He's spent years in a rut and hasn't developed himself. That's his fault and his choice.

I want a partner, not a kid.

Shallow People

As I continue to work through my feelings of anger and hurt about the whole J. situation, something that initially seemed unrelated popped up for me that now seems like it might be actually the center of the whole deal. I don't know why but my conversation with H. brought it up.

I need depth. I need strength. I'm a deep person. Period.

It occurred to me earlier today that maybe the real problem here is that J. is just one of those shallow people who doesn't think about much in life. Who doesn't really spend that much time reflecting or thinking about how people tick or how it is people come to be the way they are. A lot of people are like that, and most certainly people into kink are no exception. Most people are, by and large, pretty shallow.

It could well be that's what is pissing me off about this whole thing. I've always had a hard time dealing with shallow people. I'm overcome with the urge to shake them by the shoulders and tell them to wake the fuck up and smell the coffee or for God's sake open their eyes and pay some attention to their universe. I cannot understand how people can wander through life half asleep, dragging along in their routines, seemingly content to go through life ignoring most of what happens, never asking questions. I do not get this at all.

It could well be that the central source of my anger at J. is his very real inability to understand my emotional experience. I don't know if he understands it or not, but I do know I don't feel him understanding me most of the time. I don't feel that feeling like yeah, this person gets me about this issue, he understands my feelings. I'll be honest that there have been a few times when I was angry that I wondered if J. is, indeed, just stupid in the classic sense, that is, unable to "get it."

But I don't really think that's the case. J. is actually not a stupid person. But he is pretty fuckin' lazy as far as emotional and intellectual investigation from what I can tell. He's pretty passive and seems to wait for the world to come to him. And it's the same with the emotional bit. He doesn't ask questions or try to understand anything. He takes this very passive and indifferent approach. And I hate that, because the question I end up with is, why am I even bothering talking to this person who is so completely checked out and lazy that he has not got one question about my internal world or how I'm feeling? I might as well be dating a cow chewing its cud in a field, the way I'm feeling right now.

Well, he is not a curious person. Or he hasn't been. That's the downside of being a sub, I would think. You get used to someone else providing everything for you and taking care of you. But it's fucking annoying in a relationship between grownups. If I wanted a passive teenager I'd have had a kid at some point before now. In spite of myself I resent having a boyfriend who acts like a baby without a sense of agency. In terms of his BDSM interest it makes things even worse. I have to say that although I would never tell him this I completely understand why his wife got sick of him. She had to take care of this passive man for years and she had a new baby and well, she decided to keep the baby and ditch the man who needed her to flog him.

I have to say, I get that. He's a grownup. He wants to be cared for and held and taken care of like a child. That's not a bad thing but his level of passivity is crazy making, especially when you add in the passive aggressive dynamics. He just sort of lives in his own world and anything interesting that happens is going to have to come from you. A woman gets sick of that after a while. She decides she'd like to turn that dynamic energy toward something that's going to give her something back, not a dead weight of a man.

There are sweet and good things about J. But he's passive and immature, and he's addicted to kink, and that's a lot of fucking work. There are few good times to be had in that lineup for a strong woman who needs more than sex. And most of us do need more than that, especially when the sex involves doing even more work around--again--him and his passivity.

I probably just need to stop trying to make him understand anything at all and just move on with my life. H. is right. He has too many problems. It's a black hole. I don't hate the guy but damn.

Do I Hate Him?

I wrote J. a letter--you know, one of the kind you don't send. It was a pretty angry letter. That's why I'm not going to send it. It was just an exercise, or maybe an exorcism.

I wondered if I hate him. If I just hate him for lying and being a manipulative jerk. I sort of do. At the same time I don't think he wants to be a bad person, though he acts like a bad person sometimes. I can see the good in him and that he's really pretty needy and vulnerable in a lot of ways. It would make his life a lot easier if he'd just own up to it and deal with that just as it is. It's trying to pretend he's not that way that makes him act so fucking stupid.

I dunno. The anger passes and evaporates quickly enough now. The hurt doesn't. That will take time, time and gentleness with myself. I don't know if cutting him off would really help solve anything for me. I did write him an email this morning expressing the level of hurt I still feel about what happened. I needed to express that. I did a good job in that email of not being angry. I didn't feel angry at the time, either.

The thing is, I want love. Not just sex. Not even nice and kinky sex with him, which I did really enjoy. But it's just not enough for me. He, too, said he wanted "a relationship and not just a kink" when this thing blew up. But the sad fact is that he is relationally crippled because he's spent a hell of a lot of time going for kink at the expense of intimacy. What this looked like was that he's got skills in bed and almost nowhere else. He can't talk to me, he can't connect, he can't express how he feels or roll with me intellectually or interpersonally at my level.

That's what happens when you have too much sex with strangers. You turn into a kind of whore who wants love but doesn't know how to create it with another person. It doesn't matter if it's kinky sex or not. When you can't talk to people, when you can't assess character, when you can't connect or show or share love, your relationships aren't relationships--they're sexual encounters with a few conversations thrown in. That's what it's like being with him and I feel sure that's why his previous relationships ended, in part.

Even I, caring genuinely about him as I did, often found myself wanting to skip everything else and just get to the bedroom with him because all of the other stuff is excruciatingly difficult and painful with him. I noticed that happening in myself and that's when I started trying to connect with him on other levels. And it was nearly impossible to do. That's sad, you know? To see someone who's nearly 50 who can't communicate, can't share and is just fuckin' clueless about creating love and intimacy. It didn't make sense when I didn't know the full story, but it sure as hell did later on.

Maybe he wants to be that way. I look at him and I wonder how he can stand what it's cost him to be that way. I couldn't stomach it, personally. But then again I would never make a lot of the choices he's made. I like myself a lot better than he likes himself.

He did say the other night that he feels close to me. I said, "Because you can talk to me about this stuff (the kink)." He said, "No, it's the other way around. I feel close to you already and so I DO talk to you about this stuff." I'm understanding that although it seems weird to me, he actually considers me to be a close person to him and he feels really comfortable with me. I'm sad that I don't feel the same way about him, though that conversation was better than most of the ones we've had. My guess would be that he hasn't felt close or comfortable with that many people. That it means something to him to feel that way.

I wish it were the same for me. It isn't because--and I have reluctantly begun to accept this--I am functioning on a very different level than he is in terms of relational skills and emotional understanding in general. I will say that he did step forward the other night in a way I've not heard him do before, and I told him I appreciated, and needed, that from him. I really did have a sense that he was making a serious attempt to up his game and meet me at a higher level, and he did a pretty good job. Especially for him.

I dunno. I understand what H. is saying. Take care of you, Wily, because this person can't do that, he's got problems. She's right. At the same time I don't need him to take care of me; we're not together any more. I do need to be able to express to him my deep hurt and disillusionment and pain. I do need to care for myself. But I don't know that I need to entirely cut him off. In spite of myself I think of what this would mean to him, how it would hurt him, and I'm not a vengeful person even if he deserves it.

That said, I'm angry because I thought he wanted to give and receive love. But at this point I really think all he knows about is sex. What he knows about love couldn't fill a fucking teacup. I don't know if it's sad or funny or just pitiful. For some reason, though, it pisses me off.

I don't have to decide anything anytime soon.

My Friend H

She called me tonight; she's going out of the state/country till September. H. has such a cool life, and a good marriage too, to a goodlooking, loving, kind, smart man. I often feel that her marriage and my friend B's marriage are the models of what I'd like to have.

She asked me how things are going and also what happened with J. as the last time I'd seen her I'd told her that I was feeling uneasy about the relationship (this was less than a week before all the crap came out). I shared with her what happened and most of all my own struggle right now.

I told her I'm struggling with feeling disgusted with myself for having been fooled by J. and having been vulnerable to him when he was deceiving me. Also that I'm not knowing any more whether I would want to have any kind of connection with this person at all, though I have this idea that maybe I should try to do that because it would be more "adult" not to just cut him out of my life. I told her that although the anger has faded, the hurt is still there, and I have no idea what it will take or how long for that to change.

She listened carefully and thoughtfully. Finally she said, "Wily, this person, he's just not healthy. That much is obvious. If it was me, the only answer I'd want to hear from this person is 'I'm sorry I did that, and I'm going to change therapists and do some deep work around why I'm acting this way.' If I were you I would also discontinue having any kind of contact with him in order to take care of myself."

"You think so?" I asked.

"I do," she affirmed. "You did nothing wrong in this situation, Wily. You were honest and brought things to the table. He's the one with the problem, and from what you've described, it sounds to me like there are problems on multiple levels with this person. That's not healthy for you. I'm not saying you did everything right, no one does, but I know you, and I know you came to this with your usual honesty and lovingness.

"He made a terrible mistake, but it's more than that--he needs to not only be sorry, he needs to figure out why the hell he's acting this way. I would strongly advise you to not be a part of that."

She paused, then added, "It's completely 'adult' to take care of yourself, especially when the person you were with has shown you that they are not going to do that. In fact I'd say it's your primary responsibility to cut loose and take care of you in that situation."

She always has wise words, H.

And I sense that she may be right. I mean, what would be the benefit of being connected with J. in any way? I was the one who brought the happiness, the fun, the laughter, the love, the creativity and the openness and honesty. He didn't bring most of those things. I brought those things in, and I'm taking them right back out with me as I leave.

He's trying to give more now I think, and I do recognize that. But I don't know. It may just be too late.

He's not a friend. He's not anything. Right now he's just some guy I dated who turned out to be like all of the other losers who are into BDSM telling their lies to try to get their fantasies met. He's no different. Not special. Not unique. Just another middle aged "submissive" guy with an agenda. They're everywhere.

And they're anything but real submissives. True service is a path with a lot of heart and a connection to the divine. These men aren't making any kind of connection to anything and they are serving nothing but their petty, selfish egos and their middle aged dicks. What they really want is to tell a woman what to do while acting as if that's not what they're doing. It's the ultimate in passive aggressive bullshit. A lie.

I made a mistake. I thought he wasn't like that. Stupid me.

It doesn't feel good to feel stupid, but if it's what I need to learn to never have this happen ever ever again, so be it.

I'll take the hit.

The Question of Forgiveness

I sat with the question of forgiveness today. I even talked to the guy who runs my new internship site about it, because he's a retired minister.

He said that forgiveness as it relates to lying is in two parts:

The person that lied needs to directly take responsibility for what happened: I lied, I hurt you, and I'm truly sorry I did that. I'm sorry that I did what I did. The lying person then needs to make a commitment to the person they lied to to practice complete truthfulness from that point onward, and stick to it. This is the only way they're going to ever be trusted again.

The person that is lied to has to consider whether or not s/he still wants a relationship with the liar. If s/he does, then forgiveness has to happen in order for the relationship to continue. The person lied to has to find a way to let go of the hurt and anger.

Since I am in camp (B) I have two decisions to make: do I still want any kind of relationship with J.? And if I do, can I let go of the hurt?

I know that I am very much on the fence about the first question and that I can't answer the second until I resolve the first. As I look back at what happened around the lies I feel doubtful about whether having any kind of relationship with J. would actually benefit me.

I remember that around the original lie one of the first things he said was "I don't want this hanging over my head forever." In other words, even at the very moment of dumping his bullshit on me, he was already thinking about how soon he could get out of it and be let off the hook for it. That's not the thought process of someone who's actually sorry about what he did or taking responsibility for it. He has not directly stated to me that he is sorry he lied to me, though he has said he's sorry he hurt me more than once. And, as far as that goes, I believe him, yes. I do believe he's sorry for hurting me.

But is he sorry for lying? I don't know. I've gotten the impression more than once since then that he's just saying whatever he thinks I want to hear. This could be because he's actually trying to salvage our relationship, but it could also be because he doesn't feel that his lying is a problem, nor does he intend to stop lying in relationships in general. There's no way for me to know really, as most of this has gone on via email. I've only seen him those two times since the original fallout, and that was weeks ago.

I really cared about this guy, and the depth of the hurt is proportionate. I've mainly been not thinking about it. But his suggestion that I could get involved again with him physically brings up that hurt and it's deep. I didn't ask for him to act this way. He chose to act this way.

I just have to sit with it, and with my hurt, letting it unfold however it's going to.

The Monkey And The Child

It seems to me that my Monkey and my inner child are one and the same. Curious, engaged, and yes, easily discouraged. Not discouraged by circumstances but by the nasty selfish things that live in people's hearts.

I remembered what happened with M. before I fell asleep last night. How I came back--I think it was a total of three times--to give him another chance, which he begged for. And how the last time I saw him he was so mean, and how I said to myself, "I don't want to be around a person like this any more ever, a mean person."

And I never was after that.

It took me a long time to listen to my little monkey-child. I used to come up with reasons why people were mean or selfish or cold, you know? I don't do that any more. I just look and see that they are, and I feel sad, and then I move on. I trust that easily discouraged, childlike part of me in relationships, because that part of me sees a lot of things that don't need explanations. There is that mature woman inside me too, but she defers to the intuition and wisdom of the child in these matters, when she's smart enough to do so.

The deal with J. is simple. He lied to me and was cold to me, and he hurt me really deeply, and I don't want to be around someone who acts like that. My child is very hurt by the way he behaved, and she doesn't believe there were good reasons for him to lie or be as selfish and cold as he was. She doesn't believe in him any more because he didn't tell the truth.

Home cooked dinners and massages don't make up for wounds to the heart.

I don't know if my child can be brought to think differently of him. What I do know is that it's my job to take care of her and his job of having taken the wrong he's done and making it right. It's not my job to make it right when I'm not the one who lied.

So I am letting her do what she does, my little monkey--scamper away to greener trees and gentler woods to look for nicer company.

I Want To Fall In Love

It's true: tired grad student or not, I'd like to fall in love.

In this department, I remain undiscouraged. I had my coupla weeks of sadness and feeling burned out. But truly, underneath that, I know I still want to fall in love.

I like the thought of that guy who would love to take care of me and have me take care of him. I like the thought of a nice smile, I like the idea of him thinking of me when I'm not around, of knowing I'm special to someone who would go out of his way for me.

I like the thought of his arm around me, his caring, his thoughtfulness and getting to know the way he sees the world. I like the idea of listening to him tell me what he's interested in and what he thinks about and what he's learned from his life. I like the idea of making his life better and him making my life better.

I like the idea of a guy with a brain AND a heart.

I like the idea of someone who would call me at the end of every day and let me know he's thinking of me and cares about me.

Yeah. I like all of that.

I am going to imagine him every night before I fall asleep--the man who has something to give, and wants to give to me. The man who knows how to respect and love. The man who dreams of a woman with strength and integrity, like me, and would appreciate me for all that I am and all that I bring.

I'd like to fall in love again.

Shallow For A Minute

Can I be? on my own blog?

I go to this pool to swim laps, right? And there are a LOT of cute guys at this pool. And there are a lot of cute guys at the other pool I go to sometimes, as well.

A fair number of them are J's age and in the same shape he is, that is to say, pretty good. I look at those guys. I like the way they look and the way they smile. I think to myself that there are plenty of guys like J. in this town. Because it's true. There are also a number of guys younger than J. who are in good shape and who are around.

And I'll bet you that some of them wouldn't mind massaging and getting dinner for a woman and wouldn't expose her to any passive aggressive, lying bullshit. Call me psychic but I feel sure of that. I feel sure of it.

The thing I'm asking myself is, I guess--what is it that J's offering me that would be so special anyways? Is he really that special? I sure thought he was when we started going out. But after all the crap I'm not so sure any more. I'm not even sure I'd feel sexually attracted to him any more. I'm not even sure I'd want to find out if I'm sexually attracted any more.

See, that's the thing about being a true Monkey. I do get discouraged. I do come back to situations, but not in the same way a lot of times. Look at what happened with M. who was also passive aggressive as shit. You know, I saw him at one of the pools the other day. He acted like he didn't see me, but I know he did because he was acting SO much like he didn't see me. Anyway, I tried a few times with M., but I lost interest because of the bullshit, and once the interest was gone, it was gone. It's never come back. And M. was in many ways a much more interesting person than J. --he was a great conversationalist, a romantic, and an exceptionally talented artist.

Is the spark dead with J.? I don't know. The fact that I don't feel any desire to see him would seemingly indicate as much. I enjoyed talking to him last night, but I don't feel any desire to try to get his time. I wrote him an email this morning suggesting that he take a good hard look at his passive aggressive bullshit and deal with it. After all, I'm not gonna deal with anyone who behaves that way, in any capacity, so if he wants to be a friend, he's gonna have to get a grip on himself and grow up. I figure if he can do that, he might be worth having as a friend and putting effort into. Otherwise, see you for a coffee now and again, maybe once a decade or so.

I think back over the times we had together that were good. But I feel disillusioned about all of it and like it was fake. I'm sure not all of it was fake, but knowing now what a bunch of lies I'd swallowed tarnishes the whole thing. I don't believe in the goodness of it the way I did at the time, especially knowing he was shopping around online the week before I took him on MY vacation.

Basically, I don't think he really appreciated shit. I'm sure that's not fair but it's how I feel. I don't feel like throwing any more good stuff to someone who's unappreciative. I did my process as far as ending this and said what I had to say.

Maybe I'm just done is all.

Shallow delights can be truly delightful...I don't feel bad about it at all.

Meh About It

So I spent some time today considering J's desire to "serve" me. And I have to admit that at this point I'm pretty meh about it.

You'd think that as tired as I am and as much as I'm doing, I'd grab at the chance to have him give something back to me, especially after the stunts he pulled in our relationship. The thing is, if he'd been honest with me about his kinks (which are fairly mild) and been a straight person with me in the relationship, that would probably be the case. As it is, after the lying and the obscuration and all the passive aggressive shit, I find myself lukewarm about even the idea of getting dinner and a massage from him.

Thing is, I can cook my own dinner, or go out for dinner. I have enough money to get a really good sports massage if I want it. I don't need him for those things. And I don't feel inclined to accept anything from him right now. I guess I'm still ticked off about the choices he made and the fact that he didn't think of my thoughts and feelings enough to be truthful or honor basic openness and trust in our relationship. I mean, the man spent three months with me and he has no idea who I am, and he lied to me. I'm not saying I won't get over that, but it's still recent enough that I still feel annoyed by it when I think about it.

The thing is, I actually do believe that his desire to give to me is sincere, that he's sincerely sorry, that he still cares for me, probably more than I do for him at this point. After all, he isn't the one who had to deal with a bunch of unexpected bullshit, so his feelings are the same. Mine aren't. I don't know exactly how they're different because the truth is I haven't spent that much time thinking about how they're different, or really focusing on how I feel about him at all. I've been choosing to focus on the situations and people in my life who DO provide me the honesty and openness I'm looking for. I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about how I would feel about J. if we were to continue our relationship on any level other than "see you once in a while for coffee" or whatever.

I mean, am I surprised at what he wants? No. I pretty well suspected it the whole time; it was stupid of him to lie about it. It's even more stupid that he withheld so much information from me. If I imagine the same scenario again, meeting him, and his being forthright and candid and loving and warm, and making it clear that he loved me all the way through, his kinks would simply have been a non-issue. But he decided to let the relationship fall to shit and paid no attention at all to what I needed, acted like a selfish ass, and only now did he get honest about what was pretty obvious the whole time.

I can forgive him as an acquaintance--I'm not even going to say friend because he hasn't proven himself that way yet. I mean, who gives a shit if all you do is see someone once in a while for a "so how's your life" session. He can do whatever he wants and I'm not going to make it my business. Even as a friend I'll share my opinion but it's not my business and I'm not going to internalize it. Beyond that, I have no idea how I feel about it. It's not a clean situation because of the lying and the passive aggressive bullshit, and the last thing I'm interested in is being manipulated by someone who's only giving because they want to get something from me. I'm not saying that that's his deal--just that, given how he behaved before, it's a strong enough possibility that I'm not currently interested in taking the chance.

J. can do whatever he wants as far as I'm concerned. I feel no urge to necessarily see him or call him or email him or anything else. I wish he hadn't been an ass. However, that's the choice he made and things are where they are because of it. I don't know if I could or would ever feel the way toward him I did before.

I don't know if I'm even that interested in finding out, to tell you the truth. It's nothing particularly negative that I feel. I just don't feel excited about it. He showed himself to be a taker, not a giver. I don't believe in his giving because he acted so damn selfish.

That's about the size of it.

Sexual Healing

J. called me tonight. He wrote me an email too, but I didn't see it; he called me before I got it. We ended up talking for about two and a half hours.

We talked really frankly about the BDSM stuff and he finally openly admitted that yes, he fantasizes about my being his domme and serving me. He hastened to say that he didn't and doesn't expect his fantasies to be fulfilled and that he doesn't want to give up my friendship and support. But he did admit to continuing to fantasize about me in this way. He also said he wants to be someone who is there for me--someone who will listen and be there for me as a true friend.

I listened to him from a non-reactive place, because I finally understood something about him, which is that this submissive stuff is not about sex. He's looking for healing from some kind of deep wound that he carries. He described the dissociative states he's gone into in the past when being bound, and it became clear to me that what he is seeking is a healing state--like a shaman would enter in order to effect change. But he doesn't know that this is what he wants, so he does what people in our culture do--he tells himself it's about sex and getting off, when that's the last thing it's really about.

It's not sex he wants; it's sexual healing.

I listened deeply to him and understood the heart of what is going on within him. He wants me to care for him and to help him go to that place where what is broken can be made whole again. He knows deep inside himself that I am a healer and also a naturally dominant personality, and that's the draw. I mean, I think he likes me well enough as a person and all of that, but that's not the attraction to me; it's these other things that draw him to me and fuel his fantasies as well as his confusion and manipulations.

He wrote in his email: I hope you don't feel like I'm being manipulative because you keep finding yourself "in that place" with me. But as I told him on the phone, he IS manipulative, and this is part of what he has to come to terms with in terms of his own evasion of his healing process. No one can help you if you're not being honest about your need for help, your dire need for someone to assist you, the fact that you are bleeding. He plays games around that and this is part of what he has to drop in order to get the healing he craves. The other thing is that he has to do his part in terms of becoming clear about what is broken and taking responsibility for making it whole. This requires a great deal of honesty and a great deal of sorting through his egoic bullshit, his denial, his pretenses, his laziness. He has to spend time with that on his own. A doctor can't help you if you pretend you have nothing wrong with you or refuse to give specific information about what ails you. Any other kind of healing is the same.

He asked me if this would jeopardize our friendship, his wanting this from me. I told him that I would help him as I would help any other friend, but he needs to be honest and clear about what he needs help with. I'm available to my friends for help but they know they need to be specific and they know they need to be willing to take in what I give them. I don't mind helping him, although I don't see myself as being close enough to him to enter a sexual space with him. He failed at getting to know me, he failed to recognize my world, he failed to understand pretty much anything about me, and in this way he behaved pretty much the same as any other man.

I did tell him this, and he listened with an open heart, no resentment. I said to him as a light joke, "If you want to be a really good sub...your first assignment would be to stop obsessing about yourself all of the time, stop only thinking of your own wants and needs, and realize that there are other worlds, that you can step into another person's shoes and look through their eyes. I wandered away from you because you knew nothing about me and made no effort to know anything about me; you were obsessed with your own shit. I hope you take the chance you have to do it again with the respect it's due."

He said simply, "Okay. Can I take some time to digest this?"

"You can do whatever you want on your own time," I told him. "We're no longer joined like we were before. You can take the rest of your life if you want." He laughed, and it was a genuine laugh.

There was a lot. It was a deep conversation, deep and very honest. I told him that I am not someone who wants to control others; that I value freedom and that since I don't want to be controlled, it's very hard for me to understand why someone else would crave it. I have no sadistic tendencies, no desire to hurt another person. In practical terms, I also have little desire to do lots of work around sex or engage in any kind of elaborate sexual ritual after spending all day caring for others. After all, being a "domme" is more of the same, isn't it? Having to tie someone up and care for them--it's not that different in the sense that I'm still carrying another person's well-being. My question in all of this would be, as it usually is, "And how are MY needs going to be met?"

I don't think he's really got an answer to that question, though he's starting to formulate one: I want to cook for you, be there for you when you don't feel good, give you what you need. This is more of an answer than he had the last time I asked him this question some weeks ago. The real issue is that he doesn't know me and that he therefore doesn't know what my wants and needs are. Basically, he has to stop being so damn selfish; and if he were to do so, whether through BDSM or some other avenue, it would greatly benefit his life.

We were talking about the Chinese zodiac and he's a Rat. Just like the guy the other night at dinner, he was a Rat too. I told him what I learned about how the Rat is a sly trickster and manipulator, kind of a hustler. He asked if the Monkey and Rat are supposed to be compatible. I said yes, but that I don't understand why, unless it's because the Monkey (that's me) is so curious that she wonders why the Rat is such a sneak. He said that maybe the Rat needs to learn to be more curious.

I snorted and said, "Why would a born hustler change? It works for him, doesn't it?"

He hesitated for a moment, then said, "Because he wants to be less rat-like."

"Less of a dirty rat, eh?" I laughed. "I guess I can see that. It just seems like a stretch though if you ask me."

"What else about the Monkey?" he wanted to know.

"Easily discouraged," I replied. "Intensely curious and easily discouraged."

"That's not you," he said, doubtfully.

"No?" I smiled. "Is that why we're not dating any more? Because I'm so encouraged?"

We talked about a lot of stuff. The whole stupid thing with his ex and I told him about getting that weird email through Yelp. I'll give him credit, he laughed at my wondering about her plastic bead earrings and denim jacket. He said, "It's a look. Maybe not for every occasion." I laughed out loud at that. He can be pretty funny when the mood takes him.

What a weirdo he is; but tonight I saw the side of him I liked originally. Our dating relationship is over; but I do look forward to seeing how he conducts himself as a true friend.

Hell, it's the least he can do after all he put me through. Sheesh.

When I Imagine Him

When I imagine him, that man I'd like in my life...

--He's creative and funny--not necessarily an artist, but with an artistic mind
--He's self aware, or getting that way, and likes to look 'inside' and wonder about things (in other words, he's curious, open, and alive, not inhibited, repressed, or avoiding/resentful of self-awareness)
--He believes in love and is willing to work for it and on it with someone else--in the most basic terms, this means he understands it is NOT all about him and his needs and his life, but that he's in the presence of another person with her own needs and her life too, and he's down with that
--He's clearly looking for a partner (he is not sitting on the fence, ambiguous/ambivalent, changing his mind about it every other day or week)
--He appreciates the quirky, the absurd, and the poignant
--He's happy with his trajectory in life and is realistic about who he is and his accomplishments--he's over trying to compete with other men or being materialistic
--He's mature and responsible
--He's healthy--takes care of his body, doesn't abuse alcohol or drugs
--He's honest and believes honesty and communication are foundational in relationships--and he enjoys giving and receiving both.

There's nothing on this list about money. Nothing about his needing to own the car, the house, or be in the nice job. This list is about who he is on the inside, the kind of person he is. It's not about whether or not he's a 'success' by conventional standards.

That's him, the guy I'd like to meet.

Yeah.