Last year a man came up and demanded my attention while I was at the Christmas fair. He was someone who had stalked me and who told people that I had stolen his boyfriend. I was in the middle of a street gig and it was the first time doing it in front of an audience. I was waiting for my cue. This man put me on the spot in front of patrons, knowing that I would not want to make a scene on the first day of fair. He put me into a position where I had to interact with him or walk away from a scripted gig.
A woman, who also had issues with him, came to my rescue. She made it possible for my scene to continue.
My boyfriend made excuses for him. Yes, that same boyfriend I "stole". The same boyfriend who knew this person, who had been on the receiving end of his stalking and abuse, told me that I probably misunderstood. He felt that I should just let it go.
I spoke up. I told a director right after it happened. That director told me that they would not get involved in a personal matter and that I needed to speak to my own director. I told the stage manager and I was called a drama queen for not handling it myself. I told my own director and I was finally listened to.
The man's director decided that it was a personal matter as well. They pushed back on my director and told my boyfriend's director that there was trouble. That was the last my boyfriend ever heard of it. However, I heard about it every single following weekend.
I was not allowed to be in the man's theatrical space when he was performing. I agreed to it. He was not supposed to be in mine. He pushed that boundary every chance he got.
I was told he would be banned from my area, but that was walked back within a weekend.
My boyfriend was more concerned about the feelings of a mutual friend of his and the man than about my feelings or safety. He was worried that she might get the fallout. (He is no longer my boyfriend.)
This man never sexually assaulted me. He yelled at me. He threatened me with physical violence. He stalked me. He made me feel unsafe. He called me sexually charged names (like whore and bitch) and he blamed me for ending a relationship that had been over for months. However, he has never sexually assaulted me so I am not in danger.
I have been told that this man will return to the fair this year, even though he violated the agreement to stay out of my space. I have already been informed that I am not to be in his theatrical space. I have received no assurances that he will stay out of mine. I have been told that my safety is not at risk and that I am overreacting.
The only safety I have is by my fellow cast members who have offered to insulate me from this man.
This man has documented issues with mental stability. His irrational behavior toward me and others has been witnessed by many people. However do you want to know what I was told? I was told to leave him alone and not exacerbate the situation. It is somehow my job to make sure that he doesn't get upset and cause an incident.
This man is the reason that I cannot do dances I have done for over 20 years at the Christmas fair.
I am not fucking surprised that Kavanaugh passed the committee hearing. Even when a woman comes forward and puts her reputation at risk, she is not believed and her concerns are not addressed. This man has been a problem in my life for three years. People don't care and tell me it's my problem. So no, I am not fucking surprised at all.
I am not a big believer in Tarot or in Astrology, until I believe in it. If I build someone's astrological chart, I can do a fairly good reading and sometimes I can even make some decent predictions. I can also do fairly well with Tarot. I don't have the skills that others do, but I have my flashes of intuition. However, I am nothing compared to the reader who explained to me that wherever I go, I create home. I create safe spaces where people can relax and be themselves. I was also reminded that there are times when the universe will tap me on the shoulder and put me on call.
I am not interested in or looking for a relationship. In regards to Keto, I thought I was gaining a spanking buddy. It was after our first play session that I realized that anything more with Keto was going to involve an emotional connection. I think that he needs home. He just doesn't want it to live with him.
Upon arrival, I had to take the lead in our conversation. You, nobody asked you! pbbbbtttt!
I quickly learned that the best thing to do is to get Keto involved in a task. So we discussed some ongoing projects he has going on or that he wants to start. (He has a teak bench that we discussed stripping and refinishing.) Keto then asked me to help him do some tasks that were easier done by two hands and that is how we spent much of the afternoon.
We also discussed what happened (and didn't happen) at the party at his place a couple of weeks before. He told me that he regretted not inviting me to join him in his bed that night, but he wasn't sure how to do so or if I would be offended. You see, I must have wanted to sleep in my tent, because I brought camping gear. *head desk* The first thing he asked me when I arrived is if I would like to join him in his bed after the party. I said sure, I would be delighted
After the party, we went to his bed. I won't go into the details (because privacy). I will say that it was important to Keto that we share affection and that is what we prioritized. That is what has made this so difficult. I know that I am not ready to get emotionally involved with someone. I am still working through my frustrations with DA. Sex would have been easy. Affection was challenging and showing myself to another person after the shredding my emotions have taken was not something I was ready for. That's why I needed all the processing. The timing could be much better.
Well, the timing is what it is. As my grandmother was fond of telling me, if things always happened according to plan, nobody would fall in love, get married, or have children. Sometime God moves us along when he is impatient with all the overthinking we are doing.
I explained about my fair schedule to Keto. I am putting aside as much free time as I am able, but it isn't much. I am not sure how much I will be able to see him until the end of the year. I don't think the infrequency of visits is going to be difficult for him. What I do foresee as a potential problem is that he has never been in a poly relationship before.
Keto assured me that he is familiar with the concept of ethical non-mongamy. The majority of the people in our social group are one flavor of poly or another, including his two closest friends. However, I still had to walk him through the basic questions and concerns about how my partner would feel about me seeing someone else. I also had to go through the current roster of who I am seeing.
I have a roster? How the hell did that happen?
Rachel's Kinky Mouseketeer Roll Call:
Little Miss from Mass, (who writes the best e-mail)
KzF,
my gal Jezzie,
a spanko that I am taking a shibari class with,
Tas (from SoCal),
GArt (who I met back in June),
Double Trouble (they are a set)
and Keto.
But wait, there's more.
There is a fellow in SF that just chatted me up and we have a lot in common both professionally and personally. I also got an invitation from someone else who I met at the party last Saturday.
They would like to get to know me better and asked me to meet up with
them at the munch I often attend.
Whatever I might think I am feeling, it seems the universe has its own ideas of what I will be doing.
So, thanks to Jimmy Fallon and through influence of my students, my song today is in Korean, but the group BTS.
Writing about Keto has proven to be more challenging that I would have imagined.
I guess I will start with the basics. I arrived (a bit late, I got lost and traffic). We chatted for a while and then got ready for the party. We talked more on the way down. I knew a number of people who were attending. It was really nice to receive some enthusiastic greetings from people who I haven't seen in a while.
The party went well. There was a wonderfully heated pool. I stayed in until I pruned and then some. It worked out well, because it gave Keto a chance to carry me around the pool and touch in a low stress environment. He was enjoying being someone with a partner as opposed to just being social. Actually, it was amusing, because Keto monopolized me enough that I received three different requests from people the following day, saying that they were sorry to miss me at the party, but I had seemed busy. I am not sure who was more tickled, me or him.
I knew that getting involved with Keto would be challenging, but I don't think I really realized how challenging until Saturday. I don't feel comfortable sharing his personal life, so I will leave it at this. Keto has lived alone, on his mountain, for 30 years. He owns the house outright and while his home is a craftsman paradise, a woman has yet to influence a damn thing about that place. Keto has no sisters and his female friends aren't the nesting type. I have been there twice and I have a list of things I want to do to the place. Hell, I have already offered to take him shopping. (He has recently lost a lot of weight and is still wearing his old clothes.)
Keto may want to have me in his life, but that is a much different dynamic than anyone I have dated in the past few years. As he put it, dating me has been incredibly easy. I just showed up at his house one day (at the party he hosted) and made a place for myself. (Wait, doesn't everyone do this?)
I know that Keto likes me. I know that he likes me a lot. The problem is that he can't offer the sort of assurances and attention I would like to get. He isn't a communicative person. As an example, he went to Southern California to see a couple of friends. I requested that he let me know that he arrived safely, which he did. That's the last I heard from him. I am not surprised, because what else does he have to tell me? He isn't used to the idea of sharing his life with someone. If I want to know something, I can ask. If he has something to ask, he'll contact me.
I know that my needs are valid and that I can ask for them to be addressed and met. I just need to figure out what I actually need and what I am used to. Keto and I have a lot in common, but I have only dated one person who is even somewhat similar. However that person and I exchanged some 800 e-mails in the first three months of our relationship. (don't ask)
I am completely outside of my comfort zone and that's unusual for me.
So today's song is a lot more cheesy than I usually prefer and I am not sure who it applies to more, Keto or me.
I was a data analyst before I went into teaching. As a teacher, I still use a lot of data. I have always found there to be a certain beauty in data structures and while I am not usually a detail oriented person, tables and graphs of data occupy my ADHD brain in ways that few other things do.
This is a mixed blessing. Google tracks certain kinds of data and makes that available to users, including a tool suite associated with advertising and page views. It did not require much on my part to exploit those tools to provide me with the sort of data I wanted.
I am not tracking IP addresses. I usually cannot track an individual's behavior. However, as I have told DA directly, when he reads my blog, he leaves a significant footprint that is hard to miss.
When I see that particular footprint pinging my blog, I suspect it is him. DA shares my love of data and information. I am posting publicly, so looking at my blog isn't a privacy violation. I am sure, if he were communicating with me, he would assure me that he no longer reads my blog and that I am being crazy. (Except when he has told me that he reads.)
I do not want to think like this. It's speculation and innuendo. I think that is what is sticking in my craw, I have enough information to suspect, but not enough to know.
I am not looking for solutions, I am bitching. DA has stated that our in-person and telephone conversations are too negative for him to endure and has refused to even schedule a time for discussion. I feel that his e-mail and text conversations are inconsiderate and thoughtless of anyone but him having feelings, so I have refused to engage in them.
Instead, there is a one-way channel here, that he can read or he can avoid at his discretion. I am trying very hard not to utilize it, but I know me and I know I am human. I write with the knowledge that DA is likely to break down and read the blog at some point.
I have played around with other blogging possibilities, but there are two reasons I haven't.
I will not let my ex take my blog away again.
He made me feel unsafe when he told me that Amber (his current partner) read through all of my entries. He said it like that was acceptable behavior on her part.
He defended her actions since she found it through a public facebook post, which makes it all right.
He justified her actions as her trying to gain some compassion. (No, you moron, she used the information against me and rather effectively. Note how we stopped communicating?)
It's my damn blog, if I end up posting diatribes to him every day, it's my business. (The fact I would lose readers is a different point.)
I am trying to figure out what I want to write about Keto and the one thing that has been staying my hand is that I don't want DA to know anything. It's none of his fucking business. I only want to discuss something this private to people who actually care about the information, not stalker ex boyfriends who are too cowardly to talk to me, but refuse to let me go (allegedly).
How I, a child of the 80s. have not invoked this song is beyond me. Today's choice was too obvious, but I am going with it.
It has been a very interesting weekend. I am not ready to write about my time with Keto. I am still processing, albeit in a good way. I will say that it was a good weekend, not what I expected, but very, very good.
There seems to be some confusion about my cognitive abilities. No, I have not lost them. I am careful about the people I name on this blog because I don't want people to make assumptions. That is the whole point, but people made assumptions. So, to be clear, I am not currently dating or planning to date anyone who attended my high school nor am I interested in some jerk I blocked on LiveJournal because he was an asshole. I am mostly amused, but really people. I understand it's been a long three years, but I didn't take complete leave of my senses.
One thing that is troubling me is that someone has been pinging my blog. The person is not reading any entries. They are just pinging it. Normally the pings would get lost in the traffic of new posts and whatnot, but since I was out of service for over 24 hours and mostly people knew that I would be, there were only a certain number of hits to my blog in a 24 hour period. I was able to confirm some of them with friends who said, "Yep, that was me."
The remainder remain a mystery, although since it was all the same source, I have my suspicions. Regardless, since I can only guess, I suppose I will assume that someone just wanted to see what my next song choice was.
I have been doing a lot of processing and talking with various friends and with my therapist. I was trying to write it out and I realized that this needed to be a dialogue. I don't know why, but it did. So JT is my therapist and a number of friends all combined into one person, relating what I have been told over the past few months. JT is not a real person, although he is based on a dear friend of mine.
EXTERIOR COFFEE SHOP -- SHADED TABLE -- DAY
There are two people at the table, iced lattes in hand, the remains of scones in front of them. RACHEL is in workout clothes, her hair pulled back in a loose pony tail. JT is in cargo shorts and a tech t-shirt for a long defunct product. He is well put together for the silicon valley. The camera focuses in on them in the midst of a conversation. The coffee shop is a chain, but the chairs and tables look out on a marina and there are boats sailing in the water.
JT
So I am glad to hear that things with Keto are progressing, but last time we talked you had been in a relationship with DA. What happened?
RACHEL
(toys with her straw and shrugs her shoulders)
He met someone else and decided that we no longer meant anything. I mean, it's in my blog.
JT
(surprised)
I saw the two of you together. He adores you. Hell, I saw his photographs of you. No one has ever managed to capture that much of your personality.
RACHEL
We both had enough, so we agreed to stop seeing each other. Then four days later, we got into a text argument. DA said "goodbye". I stopped talking to him. He didn't ask to talk to me. Our relationship was always volatile.At least it was quiet for once. I guess DA wants it to stay that way.
JT
(smiling)
Only you would use the word volatile, sweetie. Most people would say fucked up. But ok, so you two weren't the most functional couple. I get that. However, that boy wasn't going to let you walk out of his life. So, did you cut him off?
RACHEL
(proudly)
I didn't contact him for weeks. I didn't contact him until fair looked like it might be an issue. He agreed to meet with me and so we got together on a Saturday morning.
JT
Ok, let me guess, he broke down and you ended up taking care of him and not getting your needs met...again. Rachel, you really have to...
RACHEL
(interrupting)
Secondary broke off the relationship the night before. We had a fucking car wreck of a conversation. He was so self-absorbed he didn't realize that he told me that she was going to be participating in the fair but hadn't told me that they were no longer together.
JT
Yeah, she is as bad as you when it comes to that asshole. I don't know what either of you see in him. So, how long until she relented?
RACHEL
(slowly)
I don't know, however I get the impression that she got to a similar point to me. I think she decided that enough was enough and hasn't gone back to him.
Given that her roommate and one of her best friends can't stand DA, she had more support than I did to cut him out of her life. And I had a lot of support.
JT
About fucking time!
RACHEL
(makes a negative sound)
JT
Look, sweetie, I know that you cared for him. God knows he needed someone to give a damn about him. I mean the poor boy was so lonely when you met him and so fucking desperate for connection. It was sad, really.
And while I don't really get what he saw in Miss Blonde Hippie, at least he wasn't putting all of his needs on you anymore. I know you don't like her, but you see that she was shouldering the burden, yeah?
RACHEL
(nods)
I do now, yes.
JT
So now this new girl, she has him all to herself?
RACHEL
Yeah
JT
(chuckling)
I'd feel sorry for her, but she's only digging her own hole. DA is too thick headed to see what she's doing. Of course, he'll blame her for it, just like he's blaming you, hun.
RACHEL
(confused)
I don't get where you are going...
JT
Rachel, for someone who is so damn intuitive, you can be really dense, you know that.
(puts up his hands)
Hey, hey, if you can't hear this from me, who can you hear it from?
Look, for three years that man didn't choose a pair of shoes or plan a meal without asking you first. From what you are describing, you knew what was happening with this new girl before he went on a second date with her. You didn't suddenly get stupid. You just don't have perspective.
RACHEL
(still confused, slurps at the dregs of her drink)
Ok. What am I missing?
JT
You were a threat, you were eliminated. It's as simple as that. He was always the spineless wonder sub. Now he found an abusive top who will yank his cock and make him talk.
RACHEL
(nearly spit takes)
Wha....?
JT
Look, I don't know, hun. I only met him a couple of times. But if any boy wanted a mommy as much as your ex-husband, it was him. You are a wonderful caretaker, one of the sweetest. You might run at the mouth, but you also care, you help and most importantly, you don't expect to be paid back. And that is your problem. Why should anyone value what you give away for free?
RACHEL
(sighs)
But....
JT
No, you have me wrong. They should value it. They should value you. That asshole got your best and it wasn't good enough for him and that's because he thinks that this new girl is going to do it better.
And hey, who knows, she might. But I'd bet, like I'd bet you drinks for a year, that the reason he won't talk to you on the phone or in person is because she made it clear that he shouldn't. She probably wasn't blunt about it. She probably yanked his dick and put the words into his mouth that you have been getting from him.
You are a force of nature, m'dear. She'd be stupid to let you near her boy while she is away. And from what you tell me, she's not stupid and she likes to win.
You're right, Rachel, he picked her over you. And that's the thing, that should have never been a question. What is it you always say? "Embrace the power of AND"?
RACHEL
(smiling a little)
I appropriated the phrase.
JT
(grins)
Of course you did, see that's you. You always try to give credit where credit is due. That's the thing you don't get. People, at least few people, think like you do. It's makes you fucking awesome.
You have been my friend, my lover, my buddy, and the biggest thorn in my paw for how long? And you know what test I used for every person I have dated?
RACHEL
(shakes her head)
No, what?
JT
(smacks his cup of ice and coffee dregs on the table)
Why, you of course!
If someone didn't understand that you were an important person in my life, then I knew that they weren't right for me. I learned that from [XXXX] and I never forgot that lesson. She didn't like you. Dating her was a mistake and it's because she didn't respect your place in my life.
RACHEL
But that's different...
JT
No, it isn't. You expect the same of the people you date.
RACHEL
No, I mean, we were already, I mean...but sex.
JT
Rachel, I love you. I really do, but I won't sleep with you again, at least not in any world that I want to imagine. I chose a monogamous partner and that's something the two of us agreed to. I was willing to give up our physically intimate relationship for her. However, that didn't mean I could give up an affection friendship with you. In all these years, even when you were monogamous, you never abandoned our friendship.
You and I were together for less time than you and that anal boil, DA. I don't care what you said or what he said. I know you. I can't imagine that you said or did anything to deserve to be treated like a stranger or worse like you weren't one of the most important people in his life.
I am not saying you weren't a bitch. I have been on the receiving end of your temper, more that once. That's the price of your caring nature and your husband, your housemate, your friends, and anyone else with a gram of sense is willing to put up with your storms. They are mighty, but they are usually short lived.
RACHEL
DA and I fought all the time.
JT
I bet you did. I bet that you were fighting because you cared about him and you were trying to help him. You might have been wrong, but I can't imagine you wished him ill.
Look, emotionally, how are you doing?
RACHEL
(with more confidence)
I am pretty damn good. I have time, energy, and I am finally taking care of myself.
JT
So, this chick has done you a favor. You are better off without him in your life. He has been an absolute asshole to you and how did you respond?
RACHEL
Like a doormat
JT
No. You responded like the caring and loving soul that you are. You didn't abandon your friendship with him. Actually, you have been covering for him and enabling him.
Say it with me, Co-De-Pen-Dency
RACHEL
But....
JT
No buts. There was no fucking reason for him to do the fair. He guilted you into letting him go. I am not saying you should have done anything to stop him. I am just saying that you didn't need to make it so easy for him.
RACHEL
Well, I just wanted to be fair. I don't want to be like his ex.
JT
Oh, his ex is a fucking crazy pants. Suggesting that two of you are alike is manipulative and wrong. Crazy pants doesn't care about anyone but his own ego and his cock. You care, Rachel. Don't ever let anyone tell you that it's not the most special thing about you.
RACHEL
(tears slipping down her cheeks)
JT....
JT
(reaches over and grabs her hand)
Look, I know this hurts. What he did was really unfair. Sure, maybe the romantic part of the relationship was over, but why anyone would willfully throw away your friendship is beyond me. DA will probably learn how stupid he is. And if it makes you feel any better, he'll probably regret it for the rest of his life.
RACHEL
You don't think we'll ever be friends?
JT
(shakes his head)
I can't answer that, I'm not as good at predictions as you are. But I have known you for a long time. People rarely understand how quickly you move forward. I remember your ex was stunned that you had a new house, a new job, a new boyfriend, and were happy when he tried to ask you to reconcile six months later. Think about it Rachel, in six months, you had a whole new life that he couldn't even fathom and you were together for seven years.
I wouldn't be surprised if you have already started that process. By the time DA sees you at workshops, you won't be recognizable.
Trust me, this is his loss. You have everything to gain and you will be so much better off without him. Even if he marries this new chick, she will never be what you were and what you could have been. Trust me, I know.
RACHEL
I don't know what to say.
JT
Well, you can accept what I said and not argue with me.
RACHEL
(nods)
Ok
JT
(smiles)
And Rachel...quit covering for him. I read you blog. Stop it. I mean if you don't want to write about him, don't. That's your business. If you want to write about him, for fuck's sake, write about him. You are a writer, you process by writing. So, write!
RACHEL
Covering for him?
JT
Rachel, he dumped you. He was a fucking ass about it. He is using you and your caring nature so that he doesn't have to pay for the consequences. You have been taking blame and trying to make excuses. You. Don't. Owe. Him. Anything!
Who ever ended the relationship doesn't matter. Blame doesn't matter. You don't have to do a goddamned thing for him. You don't have to make sure he can go to fair without dealing with repercussions. If you want to talk to your best friend about how you are hurting, fuck that she is his roommate, tell her. If she doesn't want to hear it, she'll tell you. I know you, Rachel. You won't lie. You won't call him your "abusive ex" or not take ownership for the things you did wrong.
But no one who gave a person what you have given him deserves what he has done to you. You have been nothing but there for him. You have fed him, supported him, loved him, cared for him. That extended to his secondary, that extended to his parents, that extended to his college gf, that even extended to his crazy pants ex.
Anyone who takes his side is an idiot. Frankly, I think that the only person he is going to have is that new chick and given how much work he is, I have the feeling that she is going to regret that she is taking it all on her own. Sure, right now she has "won". She has him right where she wants him and he is her little monkey, dancing to her organ.
Monkeys throw shit and they are horrible pets. She will end up covered in shit with a screeching monkey and she won't have anyone to help her, She will have no one to blame but herself. As much as the two of you disliked each other, DA's secondary and you were able to trade off shit duty and did so more than once.
(whews)
Okay, off my soapbox. I have been wanting to tell you that since July.
RACHEL
(looking stunned)
You are right.
JT
(grins)
Of course I am.
So, write that in your blog. Write the whole damn thing, quote me. Rachel, you are an amazing and special friend. DA should be telling his girl that you are a valued person in his life, not avoiding you or dicking you around. If he's too chicken shit to do that, then he will have no one to blame but himself.
So, blame him, Rachel. He is wrong, you are right. Now, go show Keto that wonderful smile of yours and invest yourself in someone who will appreciate you.
RACHEL AND JT CLEAN UP THEIR TABLE, THROW AWAY THEIR GARBAGE AND WALK AWAY.
So, I have two songs today, because I am embracing the power of AND. I think that why I chose them should be pretty obvious.
I saw my cousin last weekend. We were celebrating her 45th birthday, but more importantly we were celebrating one year of sobriety. I am so happy for her, because I have been afraid for a long time that I might lose her, too. (Her younger sister died in 2006 due to opioid abuse.)
We hung out in the kitchen for a while and she spoke about her new life. She said she's very happy because she has real friends now, people who support her sobriety and her new perspective. She also said something else that got me thinking today. How do you face people after you have truly fucked up?
Depression, anger, substance abuse, stupid choices, whatever it is, I think we all have moments when we did something profoundly stupid that changes our lives forever. I know that from my own experience, I have made some truly epic mistakes and I have seen others make them too.
I am not kind when those choices negatively impact me. Without going into specifics, I will say that I believe that 2nd Hubby made a spur-of-the-moment choice that is still affecting him. That choice, made while he was on a business trip, ended our relationship. I have never been sure if 2nd Hubby realized that until he got home.
However, it wasn't just our relationship that he lost. He lost the respect of just about everyone one we knew. He lost our social group. He lost most of the people he thought were his friends. I did not have to take any action to make it happen. He just dug himself into a hole. Instead of admitting to anyone that he screwed up and asking how to fix it, 2nd Hubby just ran away into his misery. Some six months later, he finally came to ask for help and forgiveness, it was too late. I had no motivation to help him, not after everything he put me through.
I never went out of my way to isolate my second husband from the social groups we shared. I even left one so he could have it. However, what I believe my 2nd Hubby never understood is that he was an asshole that people put up with because I was always quietly helping him navigate social situations. After we split, he found out that without me, he was not terribly popular. He invited himself to things. He dropped in on people without notice. He made assumptions and expected to be treated like the golden boy he had always been.
When he met the woman who is his current wife, that was beginning of the end of any shared social groups. I know that they have social outlets, but there is not one social circle where I have to see either of them. We have only one mutual friend, all the rest chose one or the other (he got one, I got the rest). Given how many things 2nd Hubby and I still have in common, I am still surprised that I don't run into him more frequently.
To give some perspective, my first husband and I, who were together a much shorter time, run into each other a few times per year. We have a number of friends, acquaintances and social groups that we still share in common (like the Christmas fair, where is current wife is a director). I think the main difference is that I was the one who screwed up. I admitted it. I faced it. And I tried to deal with the consequences that came up out of my choices. I didn't run away, and I have faced those people, year after year. Yes, I lost some friends and there have been times when I have been very, very angry. But in retrospect, I am glad to have been through that. It was worth the growth. Who knew that all that time in Alateen and Al-Anon would pay off?
My cousin is doing the same. She is talking to her family. She is talking to old friends. She is trying to admit her wrongs and make amends. I don't truly believe in the whole 12 step model anymore but "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all." seems like a very good way to stop hiding and face up to those poor choices I have made.
I suppose the best thing I have learned is that the longer I put off facing my poor choices and avoiding consequences, the worse the fallout. There are times when I feel pity for my 2nd Hubby. I wonder if he has understood what I brought to his life and what he lost when he drove me away. However, now that our son is grown, I rarely think about him. I imagine that if we had not had a child together, I would have forgotten him much sooner.
I suppose it is never too late. My cousin is recovering from over 15 years of substance abuse and the shit that goes with it. We still love her all the same and while we are cautious. we still forgive her.
When my Uncle Paul was still alive, he liked to play with music production. He would make us cassettes of his remixes. Today's song is one that Paul shared with all of us, but especially meant for my cousin. I think my uncle would have dug the Weezer cover.
Keto and I are getting together this weekend. When I was at the munch last Sunday, I ran into RP, who is a friend. He has also become more social, and has suggested we get better acquainted (and play.)
There is also Taz. We were introduced by mutual friends, well sort of. We were introduced online. He recently finalized his divorce and so the friend thought I would be a good person for him to talk to, since I am *ahem* familiar with how divorce feels. We immediately clicked online and on the phone. The problem is that he lives in So Cal,
As a rule, I avoid Long Distance Relationships (LDR), but that's because having been married to someone who traveled frequently, I hated having half of our relationship via chat and phone calls. I imagine that as someone who is poly, some aspects are easier. It also helps that we have both agreed that neither of us are interested in something serious.
It's fun to have someone to share flirty texts with all day. Keto has many fine qualities, but I imagine he will be similar to my husband with regards to communicating. (I'll text you if I need to know something.)
This seems to happen every time I get out of a bad relationship. I feel like I was walking around with a blindfold on and it's suddenly removed. The world seems full of opportunities. I figure that this can't possibly last, so I am going to enjoy it while I can. There are three people who have approached me in the past week who think I am amazing. It's a good feeling and I have to remember that when I am a sparkly Rachel, I make heads turn.
So, Keto gets to walk into a pool party with a woman on his arm. The hostess was very enthusiastic when he asked if I could attend as his guest. I plan to make sure I look very pretty. He could use some positive attention and there is nothing like arriving with a hot woman to make every other woman at a party take notice. I figure I will reap the rewards that evening.
If Tas feeds me any more compliments, I think my head won't fit through the door. It's just not that he thinks I am lovely (he does) but he thinks I am funny, witty, and clever.
RP is wonderfully responsive to e-mails with are clear and mean exactly what they say.
Today, I am going to bask in feeling like I am wanted and desired by those with penises, but even better, I have amazing friends (with and without appendages between their legs) who have been supporting me to this point. I am going to make sure that I don't let the sudden downpour of attention make me forget them. The best thing about the past few months is the Clue x 4 that I am truly blessed by the people in my life.
I was listening to music during my break and this song came up in the mix. It made me feel pretty awesome, so I am sharing some top 40s pop today.
I imagine I will seem very petty. I will accept that, because this has been bugging me since yesterday morning. It's a little thing, but I think it hits the overall issue.
So I am going to start out by saying that yes, this involves DA. However, I can't really blame him. I believe that he meant everything sincerely. I really do. So while I am
angry at him about this stupid boundary shit, I am not upset at his
response. I am upset that we live in a society where that response is
considered thoughtful. He responded the way I have seen many men respond in similar situations. I call it, "There is emotional labor and I expect you to do it. Further, while that is a declared boundary and I respect it, said boundary doesn't apply to me this time."
I crossed a line on Monday night. I admit that. I apologized and I addressed the problem within an hour. The reason I was angry was because DA refused to talk to me on the phone or in person about setting up reasonable boundaries for the upcoming fair. I had tried to explain that e-mails and texting weren't working. I tried to explain that I just wanted to clear up misunderstandings. I tried.
I crossed the line when I threatened to talk to his directors and twisted the knife.
My director and I came up with a solution. Without any input or effort from DA, we proposed boundaries. Simply put, DA and I will avoid each other and if we see each other, we'll civilly move on. This was the very thing I was trying to prevent. I didn't expect DA and I to be fast friends. I was hoping that we would be able to at least be courteous enough to each other that our mutual friends wouldn't be made uncomfortable. (Remember, my best friend is his roommate.) This is what I meant by "functioning relationship".
I wrote up very limited boundaries because, while draconian, at least it will avoid unnecessary drama. I guess our friends will cope.
DA wrote me back and his email came in while I was teaching. That was the first problem. I have told him that every e-mail and every text hurts. Just seeing his name gets my heart pounding and sets off my anxiety. I have requested, many, many times that he not e-mail or text me. I have been trying not to contact him during work hours. I want the same courtesy returned. It's not that I am not owed some texting payback for texting him at work. However, he is not in front of a room full of students. It didn't occur to me to block his emails so as I was teaching, his email popped up on my watch.
The content of the e-mail was very simple: the proposed boundaries were reasonable and he hoped I was feeling better.
Really?
The boundaries that two people had to work on because he couldn't be bothered were acceptable to him. My anger was a temporary snit and after a good night sleep and time to think about what I had done, I would be feeling better? My only option was to propose that we have no interactions for a period of nine weeks and so he hopes I am feeling better? No, asshole, I do not feel better. I am hurt and frustrated that he can't even figure out that he shouldn't e-mail me during the work day, much less that I have asked him not to e-mail me at all. Of course, that boundary didn't apply to him.
His e-mail felt so condescending and clueless that I had to take a walk as soon as class was over.
I am angry that I live in a society where a man does no emotional labor, acts like a self-absorbed child and then gets to magnanimously accept that he won't have to deal with me at all because I will make sure that his visage isn't tainted by my presence.
Maybe I am wrong, but I feel like I am doing him the favor. I brought him to fair last year. He dumped me a couple of months ago. Why is it too much to ask that he accommodate my feelings and needs, provided they are reasonable? Oh right, because I am his ex and I am a woman.
*shrug* I know I have to let it go. So I e-mailed him back. I told him to talk to my director about any boundary particulars. Then I told him that he is not to text or e-mail me again.
DA will probably miss this, but I didn't tell him he couldn't talk to me. I feel that most, if not all, of the problems with our relationship can be traced to not talking in person. I can't fix our relationship, but I can refuse to engage in the thing that I think has ruined it.
The one upside is that no contact for 38 days and then trying to pretend that the other doesn't exist for nine weekends should significantly reduce the number of DA entries. God knows I am done with writing them.
Back to my guitarist kick, I'll let the late Tom Petty provide the soundtrack to today's entry. Given that I am being petty, it is more than appropriate.
Have I mentioned how much I adore people who answer their e-mails promptly?
Keto responded in an hour.
quoted without permission because it made me squee and I am in a classroom full of students, so I can't do it out loud:
"You're probably good at reading between the lines... I am so hungry for connection I could scream. And I've wondered how I could possibly start that conversation, so your assertiveness is very welcome."
We are getting together early on Saturday (time to be discussed at the munch he's hosting on Friday.)
All right, I sent Keto an e-mail letting him know about my schedule constraints and suggesting that we discuss getting together before I give my life (and more importantly weekends) over to the pursuit of the Christmas fair.
My e-mail was 342 words. To give you some context, my last post was five times as long. I tried to keep it simple, to the point and I didn't apologize or undercut myself. I asked a question and "no" is a perfectly acceptable answer. Just because I am free this weekend doesn't mean that he is and that is all right.
Now I get to wait for an answer. I do so love waiting. My song seemed an appropriate, albeit rather dated.
The stages are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. I hit Anger tonight and hit it hard.
I do not use the word hate lightly. It is not an emotion that I am comfortable with. I find the idea that someone has caused me so much grief and pain that all of my feelings for them are negative to be a wretched place to be. It is very rare that I hate people, I am far more likely to feel indifference.
Thankfully hate is usually a temporary condition for me; I really can't be bothered to sustain it. The other two people I hated just have my pity now. They say that the best revenge is living well. I am so much better off without those two people in my life and I can see it.
Tonight, I told DA that I hated him. Well, I texted him. I just wanted to figure this fair boundary stuff out. I wanted a conversation, in person or over the phone, to discuss it. I wasn't asking for a friendship. I wasn't asking for a deep in-depth examination of our feelings. I wanted a functional dynamic so that we could coexist in a shared venue.
No matter how many times I tried, I was unable to get this idea across to DA. It felt like any textual interaction, whether it be e-mail or text, was misunderstood and/or misinterpreted. I tried. When DA misunderstood something in my e-mail, I explained it to him. I gave him time and space to figure out whatever it was that was troubling him and made it so challenging to talk to me. I tried to be respectful and understanding.
The e-mail I received on Sunday was more of his same bullshit. I snapped and I translated it back to him as I experienced it. I tried to get him to understand why it was impossible to communicate if I couldn't read what he was writing as it was intended, but in the worst possible context. I don't think he got it. Maybe he thought I was being a bitch.
I asked him tonight, via text, if we could please just talk? He hemmed and hawed and then he said that if he could talk to me tonight, he'd let me know. He told me that I didn't know what he was going through.
That's when I went from frustration to rage. I am fucking done! I am tired of being asked to wait while DA gets his delicate little feelings in order. I have better things to do. I don't know what he's going through? Poor baby. He chose to pursue a relationship with someone and in doing so he trashed his relationships with the only two people who had been putting up with him. He just figured out that he was an asshole and that assholes don't have friends? (I don't know what is going on with him. I hope that his family is all right and that he hasn't found out he has some horrible health issues.) However, since he hasn't told me "what he is going through" I am left to feel acrimony after what he put me through.
I am not proud of this next part, but I had been pushed to my limit for too long. I finally just let loose in a way that I have actively tried to contain. I am sure DA would tell you how I have been verbally abusive in the past, so what do I know?
I quoted something his director said and then I used it to stick the knife in deep. I am recording this incident to remind myself that I can and do let my anger get the best of me. When I lash out, I intend to cause damage and I mean for it to be emotionally fatal. Whether or not my attack actually lands or just ends up looking pathetic and sad doesn't really matter. This is a behavioral flaw that I am working on, to express my anger is acceptable ways. If I can't express it, then I should walk away from the situation and not engage.
This is what I texted to DA:
"We can do [DA’s “show”] without DA. We have done it before. Your request for boundaries is perfectly reasonable. Requesting not to have that conversation via text or email is also reasonable. Let me know if I need to take steps.”
(The above was a conversation with DA’s director and I took it way out of context.)
That’s ALL I want to discuss
and
NO you haven’t answered my questions, discussed it with me or in any way addressed my concerns.
I don’t want your pity or your excuse for friendship. I want you to get the hell out of my fair. If I can’t have that, then I am setting boundaries.
DA, I hate you. I really and truly do not give a rat’s ass what is happening to you.
So if you won’t talk to me, I will ask [your directors] to intercede. I’m sorry if you feel threatened, but I have been trying to have this discussion for over three weeks. And the reason I hate you is because what should have been a 20 minute conversation about my fairly simple needs has been a three week dick around about your profound emotional problems.
Get some help, act like a grown up and quit trying to avoid the problem. I won’t back down again. I’ll just let the directors know that I have hit my limit. You can deal with them.
Thankfully, I contacted my director before I sent anything off to DA's directors. My director talked me off the ledge. She asked me what I wanted to accomplish. I told her. She suggested that I write DA an e-mail outlining my requested boundaries and CC her on the message. That way a director was involved and aware of the situation without it turning into a drama fest, which I was close to starting.
I wrote the e-mail. I started off with an apology. I crossed a line and I know it. I said as much. Then I outlined some basic boundaries that mostly had to do with me staying out of his space and him staying out of mine. He doesn't have to talk to me at all. He can simply tell my director that the boundaries are all right (I don't think I asked for anything onerous) and that will be that.
I probably should have figured this idea out three weeks ago. I will totally admit that I was hoping that if DA would actually sit down and have a conversation, we might be able to clear up what was between us. That will probably never happen. DA treated me horribly. There is no excuse for that. I have treated DA horribly and there is no excuse for that either. The best thing to do is just leave each other alone.
I have no reason to initiate contact with DA and that can only be a positive for me. I can't recall the last time I had an ex where there was such shared antipathy and animosity. Strike that, I have the animosity. I don't know how DA feels. All I have is his actions and they speak volumes. None of it is positive.
The only upside is that I am not doing too poorly. I ate dinner and I did get some sleep. I woke up at 3am from troubling dreams. I am hoping that writing this out will help me let it all go and move forward. I am hoping that now that I hit anger, I can get to acceptance. There was no crying, no break downs, and the pain is dull. Mostly what I feel is relief that this is off my plate and wondering why I thought that contacting DA could ever be a worthwhile endeavor.
Spotify served up this song. I am very lucky to have some wonderful "real friends". However, this does a good job of explaining how I am feeling about DA. I thought I was a real friend to him and now I am finding out how little my feelings matter. He's so caught up with whatever he is going through that he doesn't seem to understand that other people are hurting too. And to paraphrase a friend of mine, we all go through shit, but that doesn't excuse us from our obligations. "I am going through stuff" is not an excuse to put someone off for three weeks.
(Edited at 0900 for grammar and word choice. I also added that I did include an apology in the final e-mail.)
I have to do the thing I dislike the most. I have to be direct and set myself up to be told no. I hate being told no. I don't friend people on Facebook, I don't reach out to people on social media. At a social gathering, I will walk up to someone, introduce myself and start talking. Online, I am shy and scared of being rejected. It sucks, given how much is done online these days.
I went to a new munch on Sunday. It was a nerd munch held in a bar in the South Bay. Did you know that there is a Star Wars bar in Silicon Valley? Yeah, neither did I.
It was a really good gathering. I knew people, I met people that I had only spoken with online. I met new people. Oh, and Keto was there. He drove all the way down the mountain to attend. I don't know if it was to just see me, but we probably spent more than half the munch talking.
He showed me pictures of his trip to Vietnam. He showed me projects he was working on. He told me about stuff that had happened over the weekend. To give credit where credit is due, it was DA who showed me how important it is to let someone talk about the daily minutiae of their day. I am so used to living with people that I always have someone to tell about what's going on. When someone lives alone, I have found that they really need to be able to just talk about their day. It was rather sweet.
I am just guessing here, but I think Keto is interested. I don't know, because even though he has spanked me twice there has been a few hugs, it hasn't gone beyond that. I don't know if he is because he isn't saying anything. Argh!!!!!
A friend of mine told me that I am just going to have to lay my cards on the table. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate gambling. I don't want to deal with rejection right now.
Yes, I could wait. You be quiet, you.
However, if I wait for Keto, it could put things off too long. Emotional connection is one thing and I know better than to get too deeply involved right now. However, getting to know each other both physically (which we have already started) and as people is not something I want to delay. I did some mental math and I realized that between now and the beginning of workshops for the Christmas fair, I only have a couple of free weekends. I have this coming weekend and I have one in October. I could also carve out a weekend day in October if I want to. Between workshops and the fair, my available weekend time will be virtually non-existent until after Christmas. Given that Keto lives too far away for weekday overnights (at his place), once the fair season begins, we will be limited to what time we can spare each other when he is down the mountain. (Thankfully his contract starts on 10/1, which means he will be in the valley every weekday until at least January.)
My options are to do nothing and hope that Keto either steps up and says something or I have to to take action. Given how shy Keto seems to be (remember he noticed me back in July and didn't contact me until September), I think I have to suck up my fears and make the first big move.
Yes, I know that many men a appreciate a woman who is assertive and makes things easy for them. I also know that I am scared to death that I will come across as too clingy, needy, or just unattractive. And yes, the fact that I am still recovering from my relationship with DA is definitely a factor.
My justification is this:
Having a play partner seems to be a healthy thing. Getting regular spankings has done wonders for my attitude. (*ahem* I heard that!)
The time constraints I am dealing with are significant enough that I feel I should be the one to communicate them to him. If I don't, it will probably look like I am not interested. Keto doesn't know the fair community, I'm not sure he'll understand if I suddenly drop off the face of the planet. Especially given that the amount of free time I have between now and workshops is limited.
So here is the thought that I am waffling about instead of putting into action. I figure I write him an e-mail. Yes, an e-mail, he lives on the top of a mountain and so his telephone service is intermittent at best. An e-mail has the best chance of catching him in a timely manner. Shush you!
In this e-mail that I am planning to write, I figure I will let him know that my free weekends are the one upcoming and what I have in October. There is a *ahem* party this Saturday, so I was going to suggest we could meet there. I am thinking of adding that we could go back to his place (which is 30 minutes away); sleeping arrangements to be negotiated or meet before the party. (The idea is to get some alone time together.)
The next opportunity for an overnight would be in mid October and there is a possibility of a weekend day visit in October. That's all I have. After mid October, it's catch as catch can. I am a busy gal.
See, this all makes sense in my little logical brain and its perfectly logical to tell him my scheduling limitations. However, I think I am probably overthinking this. Strike that, I know I am overthinking this. I am worried that I have the wrong impression and this guy isn't really into me. I am deathly afraid of being rejected.
But I figure I will write the e-mail tonight. The worst that will happen is that I will have misconstrued his interest and he'll tell me that wasn't his intention.
There is no better artist for painful break-ups or tentative relationship exploration than Abba. So, I'll allow them to provide the soundtrack for this entry.
My family commented on how much better I looked when they saw me yesterday. They told me that it was the first time they hadn't seen me exhausted and wan. It wasn't just weight loss, my uncle noted that it was though a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
They were right. I made some significant changes in the past couple of months and the results are starting to show. The biggest change? I stopped texting and e-mailing with DA.
My therapist told me that any time I spoke to DA, it would be painful and fruitless. She urged me to simply cut off all contact. I wouldn't say I was happy, but as each day passed, the pain lessened. She was right and people have been noticing. I should have left well enough alone.
The concerns about the Christmas fair were brought to my attention. (let me state that there is a lot I don't want to discuss because any theatrical production will have it's share of drama and I don't need to add to it more than I already do). I thought it would make sense for DA and I to meet at some point and work out a set of reasonable boundaries.
Like everything with that man, it turned into a complicated clusterfuck. Because he misinterpreted an e-mail from me, he decided that I was shaming him and his religious practices. He took an e-mail of about 20 words and responded with over three paragraphs about how I maligned him.
I asked to discuss this e-mail in person or on the phone and DA absolutely refused. He said that our interactions are too negative. WTF, dude? I have seen DA two times since we broke up. The first time was our post-break up discussion. It went all right until he told me how good I smelled while he was hugging me. But the fact that broke me down is my fault and made the entire interaction negative. Right, because he crossed my boundary.
The second time I saw him, he was in a wretched space. His emotional state had absolutely nothing to do with me. It was due to the actions of another person the night prior. When I pointed this out to him, he told me that I was making excuses and that the negativity was my fault.
What the actual fuck?
The next day he apologized for drawing the wrong conclusions. He told me that he had read the entry that I mentioned in regards to his email. I found this to be really funny because DA proclaimed that he no longer reads my blog. (but I guess the one entry was for research purposes?)
There was another e-mail exchange. DA ignored everything I wrote. He completely missed the part when I stated: "...this is precisely why we need to stop communicating via text and spend time talking interactively. I think that your feelings that everything is very negative has been deeply colored by our online interactions and not by our in-person ones."
He responded this morning. It was the most frustrating and clueless e-mail I have seen from him and he's can be pretty thick headed. I think my "favorite" part of the e-mail was when he informed me that he probably couldn't see me this week, but could I do the emotional labor to propose what our friendship might look like. (I am paraphrasing.)
1) I never asked to see him this week. I'm busy.
2) He was the one who told me that we could not discuss a friendship.
The part that is the most frustrating is that I have asked, repeatedly, that we stop communicating via text or e-mail. When I saw him in person, even though things didn't go particularly well, I was all right. I didn't cry much. I wasn't upset for very long. In fact, the rest of my weekend was a lot of fun.
Between the texting and the e-mails the past few days, I have been fussy, agitated and stressed. It's awful. The worst was when I couldn't eat dinner tonight.
I took the break up rather hard and it destroyed my appetite. I would sit down to dinner, take one bite and be unable to eat anything more. It started when DA and I went to Disneyland and it was weeks before I could eat normally again. Tonight, it was the same old feeling and my dinner went untouched.
I wrote to DA and said it's either phone call or in person. No text, no e-mail. If that's too hard for him, then I will pretend like I don't know him and fuck it all. I am so done with this. I put my money where my mouth was and left a voicemail with a similar message.
Of course, I haven't received so much as an acknowledgement from him. But that's better than more texts or e-mails, so I will take it.
I don't want the online DA for a friend. He comes across as self-absorbed and clueless. He's high handed and demanding. It's always, "me me me". He never asks, "What would work for you?" I don't know if I want the in-person DA for a friend, because I can't remember the last time I saw him. I know I don't want the guy behind the e-mails and texts. He's an asshole.
I just hope that I can go to the christmas fair stuff and just not care. DA seems to have mastered the art of not giving a fuck about other people and their feelings. I wish I knew his secret.
I have been really getting into guitar players again and Stevie Ray and I go way, way back. So, he gets to be the soundtrack for this entry.
I saw Keto last night. We met up at a local munch and it was, all in all, very positive.
He was in a very good mood because he just signed a contract with a very large company on the peninsula, meaning he no longer has to search for a position. (There's the clue for where.) For the next three months, at least, he will be in the area. (He lives in the Santa Cruz mountains, which is a 70-90 minutes commute for me, about an hour for him.)
There was chatting with folks as the munch filled up. It is a rewarding feeling to know a number of people and receiving casual hugs and affectionate embraces. The feeling of acceptance and warmth is one of the many reasons I keep going back. Keto and I stayed together during most of the chatting session. I am starting to realize (now) that those are the first steps to being seen as a "couple". (I haven't done this in a long time. I usually bring someone to a social event, so they are automatically paired with me. Keto is established in the community, more so than I am, so it made for a very different dynamic than I am used to.)
With a glint in his eye, Keto told me that he had found another toy and had decided to bring it with him. He pulled out a small slapping thing. I don't know the name. It's a stack of three rectangles of leather, bound with a handle. One rectangle hits the recipient while the other two add force behind it. He gave me the opportunity to hold it and play with it a bit. Then he invited me over to the play space and had me lie down.
This munch is the only one I have been to where limited play is allowed. Clothing is required, but people do any sort of scene that can be done with the "pink bits" covered. I faced down on the table and Keto proceeded to spank me with his slap paddle from ass to ankle. I usually hate counting strokes, but due to the noise and clamor, I started numbering them in my head to keep focus. I got to 400 before I lost concentration.
Keto has been doing BDSM for over 30 years. He knows what he is doing. Most of the hits were not very hard. He just kept up a steady rhythm, moving the target. No part that he hit really felt it, just a slow and steady increase in sensation. After a while, he hit me with a few hard swats, but nothing that felt too hard. I usually dislike stingy sensations, but with someone who knows what they are doing, the sting is real and wonderful.
I was feeling that wonderful heavy lethargy by the time he was finished. I didn't hit subspace, the venue was too noisy. The fact I got as far as I did was significant for me. As much as I enjoyed KzF's ministrations, I already trust Keto more and allowed myself to sink deeper than I have in a very long time.
I really like Keto's version of aftercare. He pets me like I am a cat and so I was purring by the time he was done. Even writing about it, I can feel myself starting to blush. Afterwards, I perched on a stool and Keto decided that he should try tying my hands up, purely for empirical purposes, of course.
I got him talking and discovered the following. I was right, it has been a long while since he has been involved with anyone. He was hit by his diabetes diagnosis about as hard as I was, but unlike me, he was significantly heavier and his health was more compromised. Bad health led to a significantly lowered libido. That changed only recently.
He told me that he had noticed me at the July party. (He noted that I looked really tasty.) Keto assumed I was there with the person I had ridden in with. He was the only person other than the friend who invited me that I knew. I used my ride as my home base until I got more comfortable and some other people I knew had shown up. Keto was tickled pink when I started chatting with him about diet and diabetes. Apparently he also started asking about me and that was why I saw him at the next party.
If I had any doubts that he was interested, the glow on his face was all the evidence anyone needed. I could be wrong, but it wasn't just Keto who was happy. His friends, many of whom were there, were glad to see him pursuing someone after so long. They seem to feel that a "part-time" girlfriend would be a good match for him.
I don't know how I feel. I like Keto and the attention is very gratifying. KzF is not someone I see building a deeply emotional relationship with. He has become a friend and playmate, but I don't see things going beyond that.
I remember a poly person I was really interested in said of me, (to paraphrase) I rather like you and that's the problem. You aren't someone I could have a fling with, it would be a relationship and I can't do that right now. I wish I could, but I have to be honest. Obviously I regretted that I didn't get to explore a relationship with that person, but I have understood the sentiment and I think it applies now.
Thankfully, Keto seems to be all right with the long game. In a few weeks, I won't have bandwidth for anyone. Who knows, after the end of the year, I might be emotionally able to connect with him. I just have to do something that is really hard for me. I can't jump into a physical relationship with both feet. I made that mistake before and it has bitten me on the ass, hard. I just have to figure out where the boundaries need to be.
In the meantime, Keto gave me a link to his blog and indicated, in his way, that I should peruse it. So I am reading through his blog (my husband is going to love this guy) and sitting on my ass, which still has a delightful glow. I will say this, having received three good sessions in as many weeks, I am a happy girl.
The nice thing, the spanking gave me a way to process through a lot of my anger, so while I am still frustrated with the other stuff, it isn't weighing on me as heavily.
So, today's song just seemed appropriate, somehow.
I regret that people were concerned. I posted without considering the implications of not being available to explain and answer questions. Thank you for checking in on me. I appreciate it. There is a much more positive entry to follow this one, I promise.
I didn't suddenly decide that I wanted to quit the Christmas fair. I won't deny that there was stress involved, but my rage has been a long time in coming.
Let me go back a bit. The two weeks prior to my birthday, DA put me through hell. I saw him once and we had an awful fight. I really should have canceled our Disney trip and gone with my friend. I didn't, instead I foolishly kept our plans. The trip was pretty good. However, the day after we got back DA fell back into his old habits and said something incredibly hurtful and then doubled down and made it worse.
That pushed me past my endurance. I broke up with him.
We met, in person, a few days later. We didn't agree to get back together, but we did agree that after some time, we would meet and discuss what happened and decide what relationship would work best for us. We agreed to some limited communication.
A few days later, over text, DA explained that the only future relationship option was a friendship, that a romantic relationship was likely off the table. This was non-negotiable. (So much for a discussion.) I snapped and texted a number of nasty things. DA cut me off and told me to go away. I did.
We met a few weeks later, after a period of no communication. The idea was to discuss things going forward. To make sure we stayed on topic, I shared the following agenda with him:
1. [Christmas] fair - I would like us both to be able to participate and enjoy the fair. 2.
Misunderstandings and misconceptions - I want to tread very carefully
here. I don’t have any interest in bringing up old fights or wrongs. I
just want to understand a little of why we ended our relationship when
we did. 3. #2 probably spins into what you meant about regret. 4. No matter how #2 or #3 go, I would like fair to be a safe space for us both.
That’s
what I hope to get out of our discussion. You are welcome to share this
with your partners. I wrote this out at [my husband’s] behest with his
advice.
It wasn't a discussion. DA declared that he had already informed his director that he would returning to the fair.
I didn't get angry, he had agreed to meet with me after all. I smiled and I said the right things. I said it was a big fair. I said that I had dealt with exes there before, and that I would be fine. Then DA told me that Primary would be also participating in the fair and that she would be dancing with the English Country dance group. This also meant that the ex of DA's, the one that stalked me and was an ass last year, would also be returning. I would like to note that this puts Primary and the asshole in fairly close proximity to my usual stomping grounds. It also makes seeing a couple of my favorite fair buddies difficult.
So, it was not exactly a productive discussion. It felt like DA telling me hurtful things and upping the ante with each sentence while I tried not break down. I ended up crying. I tried to move topics to a more productive discussion, DA explained that he was emotionally bereft. So, anything I wanted to discuss wasn't relevant, because he was too upset. He didn't tell me this before we met or before he piled a bunch of social anxiety crap on me.
Let me be clear I didn't force the meeting time or date. All I did was ask to meet. If DA had been honest and said, "Rachel, I really can't talk, it's just been an awful few days. Can we meet next week?" I hope that I would have thanked him and scheduled a time for the next week. I don't know because he agreed to meet me when he was in a wretched emotional state.
All he told me before he met was that he said that he wasn't up to discussing us building a friendship. I didn't want to discuss friendship. I wanted to discuss what was on the agenda, which he received before we met. If I had insisted that we discuss resuming our relationship, I would have only had myself to blame. However, I did my best to stick to my agenda.
I left the meeting with things even more unresolved, but I hoped that with time, we could try again.
I let things be, figuring that we could talk when DA indicated he was ready. I tried to be patient. After a while, I finally poked him saying, "Hey, your roommate is a dear friend, your other roommate is someone I miss. Is it all right if stop by your house (not for a visit but for pick ups and drop offs and such) because this is getting awkward? Also, is it possible that we could get together and talk?"
DA responded yesterday that of course it was all right if I was briefly at the house. He then said that while he did want some sort of relationship with me, he was still struggling and felt that any discussion would be better if he could have some more time to stabilize his mental state.
That is when all of my good will, consideration and understanding crumbled. DA and I were together for over three years. He destroyed our relationship and our friendship in less than two months. He was thoughtless and inconsiderate. Because he could not be honest with me or himself, he caused me pain while promising me that things would get better if I would only give him more time. I gave us a possibility to at least build a friendship and he ruined that by lying to me about his relationship with new girl. Three years of being understanding of his inexperience and fecklessness and he dumped me and then lied to me.
Fine, there is fault on both sides. Relationships break up and people move forward. I have been doing my best. If you know me, the amount of latitude and space I have given to DA has been considerable. I have not been near his house, even though he lives with one of my best friends. I have not gone near any of his social venues. I haven't asked him if he is doing this or that thing. I just don't go to this or that thing. I don't call. I don't e-mail. I don't text. I have left him alone.
I encouraged DA to participate in the Christmas fair in the past. He has known me through three of these Christmas fairs, he knows how important it is to me. He has seen the work I have put into my character, my workshops and into participating in general. I don't mean to be territorial, but I have put 14 years into the fair, he has only participated for one.
I didn't expect DA and I to suddenly become close friends, sharing secrets and confidences. However, dealing with my ex from seven years ago is a whole different animal than dealing with my ex that dumped me only a couple of months ago. Yes, it is a big fair. Yes, we can avoid each other. However, why do I have to do that at all? Why do I have to give him entrance to my happy place? How does this benefit me?
I didn't fuck up our relationship. I didn't use him to enter into a new hobby and then dump him. He chose to go with a new person. Why can't he spend time with her and her friends? It is not my problem that his current girlfriend is in another country. It is not my problem that he has no local friends. He fucked up his social group, there are consequences. One of those consequences is that the Christmas fair is not a given activity because the person who got him into the hobby is the person he stomped on.
DA benefited from our relationship and now I want something in return. I have no idea what his problems are. I don't fucking care, because it isn't my problem. I have been waiting since June to resolve the issues between us. I am done waiting. If I have to deal with that weasel being at fair, I want some resolution. He didn't ask me before he decided to take up with new girl. He didn't ask me before he decided to trash our friendship. He didn't ask me before he decided that he would participate in the fair again. I am tired of getting railroaded.
Workshops begin in 43 days. I wasn't asking that we get together this
weekend and spend 10 hours talking. I didn't ask for anything specific. I
simply asked if we could start working on rebuilding a working
relationship before we were forced into close proximity for 9 straight
weekends. DA has had months to either come up with a different hobby or
find the bandwidth to address our relationship and resolve it. I don't think it is asking too much to request that in the next few weeks we work toward something more constructive than periods of long silence broken up by e-mail fights. (Fights that wouldn't happen if he would quit reading my blog and actually communicate with me.)
I won't deny that I have said some truly horrible things to him. Three years trashed in ten weeks will do that. I suppose asking him to see me, after I agreed that I was all right with him at fair, could be seen as blackmail. Really, I didn't intend to say, "Talk to me or I will quit."
What I wanted to say, what I have been trying to fucking say since this all started is that DA was a valued part of my life. I shared a great deal of myself with him. Losing him has hurt a great deal. I have been struggling to leave him alone and get on with my life without him. I thought I would be all right doing the fair if he were there. I realize, over a month before workshops begin, that I need something more from him. I made a request that I thought was reasonable.
I didn't ask for X number of hours, and Y number of mea culpas. I understand that my request could easily turn into an exercise in emotional extortion. I should know, DA is a fucking master at extorting emotional support from people and I have been one of them. So, trust me, I have no problem with him setting boundaries. I have demonstrated by my actions and my words that I will abide by them. That's more than I can say for him.
Instead of asking questions or setting boundaries, his response was his usual non-answer and delay tactic. I am tired of being gaslighted. I am tired of being treated like my feelings don't matter. DA ended our relationship, that's fine. I don't have to like it. But if he wants me to be considerate, then I feel it has to be reciprocated. If he is going to insist on doing the fair, then he can accommodate me so we can have a productive and useful conversation and make a plan that works for both of us.
When I expressed those opinions, his answer was to tell me that he would leave the fair. (I got that
message after I posted.) Well, gee thanks, he would rather quit doing
the fair instead of meeting me for a face to face. What the hell did I
do to DA that was so fucking horrible? And the problem is that if he
quits the fair now, then it is my fault that his director will have to
replace him after she was already assured that it wouldn't be a problem.
Way to make me look like the asshole.
That's what I meant when I said that I would quit. I didn't balk when he said that he was going to do the fair. I confirmed that I would be all right when I was asked by the directors. If I am unable to follow through, then I should be the one to leave, no matter how much time I have put into fair. That is what responsible adults do. However, before taking that step, I did another thing that responsible adults do, I asked to discuss my concerns with the other party and see if we could negotiate a compromise.
I suppose that is what I get for being reasonable.
The song isn't perfect. I don't want to be together until the end, but I did feel that way and I am paying for that now.
I asked DA about making a functioning relationship so that we can do the Christmas fair. Due to some unexpected circumstances, my earlier assertion that I would be able to participate in the fair without anything more from DA has been proven wrong.
DA told me that he needs more time, since he is still struggling. He can’t talk to me right now.
I already told the directors I would be fine, so if I can’t resolve things on my own, I won’t be doing thr fair after all.
I am tired of being honest, polite, thoughtful and considerate. I really want to tell some people what I think of them, how wrong they are and how incredibly stupid they are. I swear, if I thought it could do any good, there would be no hesitation on my part.
Yesterday I was approached on Fetlife. Because I disclose my STI status on my profile, my asshole quotient remains fairly low. However, there are always people who don't read or otherwise miss the message.
I had such a fellow contact me yesterday. He told me that he thought we would have a good connection. When I asked him what he meant, he didn't answer, he just restated how great our connection could be. When I straight out asked him about my status, I got crickets.
As a teacher, I want to educate people, to help them learn, improve or just not be a dick. I have learned that in cases like this, it's a waste of my time. With this guy, I didn't bother. I told him off for wasting my time and then blocked him.
I believe that people need to do their own problem sets. I can give a student the answer, but the majority of people need to experience something in order to learn from it. Giving a person the answer doesn't just interfere with learning; many people will actively refuse to consider the advice of someone who cares for them and has experience.
In the case of the guy yesterday, I want to yell at him, "You dumbass, all you are doing is guaranteeing that the women you "connect" with will abuse and use you. If you don't treat them with respect, how can you expect respect to be reciprocated?"
I know that a person like that is unlikely to listen, so I stopped bothering. I just clear people like that out of my life as quickly as possible.
I know that I can be a know-it-all. It's part and parcel with being a teacher. However, there is nothing that frustrates me more when someone I care about refuses to consider that I might actually know what I am talking about. There is letting someone do their own problem sets and allowing them to learn. However, I don't want to make someone go through hell in the process.
It is especially frustrating when someone has taken my advice, found it valuable and then decides to stop listening to me because I don't always agree with them. If they felt that my advice was worthwhile when I suggested how they improve a relationship, why is it no longer useful when I tell them that they need to take a step back?
I know that people don't always want reality from their friends. I certainly have been guilty of that. But if my friends are kind enough to give me advice, I try to listen. People see things that I can't and while I don't always agree with what I am told, at least I try to test my beliefs against what they tell me.
I don't expect some stranger who pings me on Fetlife to trust me. I am deeply hurt when someone whom I have given consistent and useful advice decides to cuts me out of their life. A good student or friend should expect to be disagreed with, sometimes. Instead of arguing about how I am wrong, I think a confident person can take my observations and make their own conclusions. In return, when someone tells me that my observations are based on incomplete data, then I should ask to be given more information or be willing to leave the subject alone.
I feel it is the height of cowardice when someone ignores a a person who has shown that they care for them without doing either, without communicating. When a student does it to me, I worry about them and I have to decide whether or not to contact their family or a counselor. When a friend does it, I have to decide if I should push or walk away.
I have made all sorts of stupid choices in my life, decisions that my friends have told me, in no uncertain terms, are wrong. I didn't always listen and yet these people are still my friends. They didn't abandon me, even though I pushed them away and ignored them.
However, the guy who contacted me yesterday was not worth my time. That was an easy call. However, when it comes to other friends, I have to wonder if I shouldn't make a similar choice and just not bother. My advice isn't good enough for them, so I should just stop offering it.
Is this about DA? Not really, although I suppose it applies to him. This is about someone I thought considered me a friend. Instead of talking to me directly, they are poking sticks into lion cages and seeing if it gets a rise. I feel like it's because they know the advice I would give and they don't want to hear it. I did my best to be understanding in the past. At the moment, I just don't have the patience.
People just feel so far away, so that's the song for the post.
