Danger, Will Robinson!

Brain is shorting out, I feel like I'm drowning and it's stupid.

I'm allowing the talk of my friends to get to me, make me wonder if I'm missing something and just being purposefully blind to make things easier on me. I admit that I initiated some of the conversations, but those were with my closest girlfriends who know what I'm like. To have male friends initiate conversations on my relationship with M, very suddenly at the club and tell me "You can disclaim all you want, but it sounds like you two are dating to me." THAT's what messed me up. Guy friends just don't do that.

And why, oh why are all of our friends suddenly so excited about it? When we keep saying that we're not dating, not fooling around - they get even more excited and excitable about us. Emotions range from jealousy to ecstatic glee and I am getting more input than ever on how to proceed. What if I don't want to "proceed", what if I'm fucking scared shitless about messing up an amazing friendship in the name of social expectations?

See, this is why my happiness pops like a soap bubble. I can't leave well enough alone, I listen to others and get all worked up, I suppress it in order to not mess things up like usual and then "Wham!" it all hits me at once and I fuck everything up anyway.

For once, I don't want to do this. For once, I'm willing to go whatever pace is needed with no expectations of anything further, other than a closer friendship.

Then there's the unasked for advice from another guy friend, that we're both just so scared of messing it up that we're blocking something amazing.

Aargh! Stop it! I want to be happy and if it means staying in the current configuration then why does it have to be more?

*banging head against desk*

I'm just so excited to have a guy in my life whom I get along with so well and enjoy so much, I'm beyond freaked that I'm going to scare him away - even as just a friend. I'm such a weirdo, I'm so uptight and in my head, I blather about meaningless shit because I'm still frightened of the reactions to my real voice. I still have a hard time believing anyone in this world would actually want to be with the real me, not just hang out from time to time - but be able to be around me on a regular basis.
Nobody has so far, not friends, not family, not lovers. I'm good in small doses it seems, which means no real companionship.

That's what I'm so happy about, that for once someone seems to be ok with being around me for long periods and doesn't get upset or freaked out nor runs away in terror. So many times I've been told that I'm too much, that I'm just not good enough and pushed away completely. Too many times I've been stabbed in the back and exiled. Too many judgements rained upon my head and I believed them for so long.

I'm new at this whole not feeling guilty about being me, a few slips are bound to happen. It just sucks when it does, big donkey style with a gag reflex.

Love isn't the true hell, it's the uncertainty of whether the other person is on the same page as you and the torture gets worse when you find out they aren't. So the usual survival mode is to just brush it all off as not needing to be on any page at all and putting up a few walls. Maybe decorate them with huge, heavy tapestries showing previous battles as reminders of why they are needed.

I've been trying to let go of that idea - of finding love with just one person. That love is meant to be shared openly with all and received in the same way - not just pegged to one person's chest cavity. Why is it so hard to let go of? It's ingrained in most of our heads from an early age, you aren't really a full member of society until someone claims you as their own and sticks a ring on your finger (or let's you stick one on theirs.) It's considered a right of passage into adulthood. Those who don't marry or at least settle down with one person are considered immature or there's something Very wrong with them.

Why?!? I'm trying not to be a mess, I don't think there's something terribly wrong with me. Just a little neurosis from time to time, mixed liberally with paranoia. But when you've had as many people do nasty shit to you with a smile on their faces as I have, paranoia comes with the territory.

I don't want to be paranoid anymore!! I want to trust people to be who they say they are (as much as they have figured out at least) and to not feel like I have to watch people like a hawk to make sure they aren't just fucking with me or plotting against me or planning to use me as a scapegoat. I'm not a conspiracy nut, the FBI are not after me - but I've had so called friends butter me up to find the best way to hurt me and then stab me where it counts as hard as possible. They even admitted as much themselves to me afterward in spiteful words.

How do I get past these wounds and try to trust again? I used to trust 110%, my Dad would say. Now it's barely 50%, even with close friends and family. Maybe it's time to let go of the wall and be honest with myself, to stop fighting the excitement of my friends and their words.

Even if it means that all of my current joyful experiences disappear, I know that I am able to be happy and relaxed in the company of someone I like a lot. Gods this is like pulling teeth!

Look, I don't know if I can go on with this in such a round about way, especially since he reads this from time to time. I'm writing you, M, a letter right now.

...
an while later.

I can't believe I wrote that! Holy cow! I reserve the right to remain silent on the contents of it until further notice.

It's nervewracking and exhilarating at the same time. This is who I am, this is what I do - I am hopeless romantic of the literary sort. I write. A lot. I want to write letters to those I fancy and get sappy poetic. (I don't think I did that with this one though... more like Eeek! *blush,blush,blush* I can't believe I'm writing this!!) Instead of visions of the perfect American wedding, it's more visions of Victorian Era Russians courting each other on the cusp between old and new morals.

I like Russian fiction, what can I say? It turns me into the blushing hopeful girl, sighing with a book in her hand and the lovely romantic ideas spinning round her head. Man, there are times I wish that was the way of it now. The courting seems so thrilling, blood pumping, woozy with glee. LOL

This just showed me why I'm reacting the way I am. I'm such a nerd for the Russian romance, I play it out in this life and people aren't used to wooing slowly causing such a passion. But it stirs the blood to a higher pitch than sex. It's the bait and release, hunting and be hunted, stirring the waters to see the reactions and then wonder about it aloud with sighs later. It is intoxicating, innervating, it spirs one into fits and sighs and letters of pronouncement. I want it to continue this slowly, I just want to know if it can go any further or if my sighs are in vain. See I just get all sappy and girly and dreamy, the wait for each tiny step goes into eternity but each one taken is amazing and so worth the wait.

I'm a Tolstoyian romantic, who woulda thunk. (No, he's not the only one I've read. He's just the first one whom I have read his entire works. At least those translated into English. And he's mentioned in almost every other Russian novel written after him, usually as a hero, you tell me he sucks and I'll wonder what your idea of good is. I could go into my love of their literature for quite a while, even the detail heavy, slightly confusing, battlescenes and war histories.

I've wandered off topic, I'm going to be perfectly honest, even though I allowed myself to be me without feeling like a criminal about it - I'm wondering how he's going to respond to the fullness of me. It's crazy this risk has caused me to feel better about myself and to figure out why I do it. I'm no longer ashamed or embarrassed I wrote him that letter. I meant it and I am happy in saying it. It's a relief to say it and I hope my intentions of honestly sharing who I am without shame gets across to him. I don't want to be embarrassed by my real self, I'm kinda cool and quirky. I do thinks oddly, so what? That's who I am and if I'm embarrassed or ashamed of it, then others will feel it too and how is that attractive even on just a friendly level?

I need to remember Maude's example and be me. Cause there's a million ways to be, you know that there are.

(I love that movie.)

...if you want to sing out, sing out
and if you want to be free, be free...

Read more >> Options >>