Here’s an e-mail to Sweet Thing I never sent:
Writing this is hard, because the last thing I wanted to do was say something I think would hurt you, and I don’t want you to feel bad about yourself.
Right now though, I need to be true to myself. It’s a few hours after our conversation this afternoon, and I am still just a little amazed at the depths of your self absorption; your appalling disregard for me, and your clear message to me: I am not interested in you.
My last real conversation with you, on Monday night I believe, you said some things that rocked me to the core…shook me. Your telling me that my expressing my feelings of confusion, of trying to make you see my perspective and my growing sense of urgency about the situation was reminding you what happened with your son’s mother, and how the course of the relationship went–that shook me. Then telling me that my expression of how I felt wasn’t helping you to decide what the fuck you were doing–that shook me too. What I think shook me worse, were the last words of the conversation, after I gently suggested to you that you could be a little more reassuring in this situation, was your response, “I don’t do reassurance.”
You know what? WHAT THE FUCK!??!
I can’t help that this situation and I remind you of what went down between you and son’s mother. We’re two different people. You can’t help that you remind me of KSS another man terrified of just exploring a relationship with me, and who had assholish tendencies. A man who had no problem in spreading me wide open and taking everything my body could give, but who had troubling accepting how relaxed I made him.
When he left, he did disappear, no phone calls, no email. In fact he asked me to stop emailing him. When I called him, he was nasty, he was dismissive, he gave me the bullshit about me reminding him of his ex, of his mother, the whole fucking shebang. You know the story…. but at least I knew where I stood.
And you know what, I kept seeing him anyway. He kept coming back and I kept letting him into the house. He visited three more times, in which we had sex and talked and he seemed to understand my logic, my reasoning and he wanted to fuck me again, because he enjoyed sex with me. So he gave me enough ‘reassurance’ to get inside, but he’d fade away again.I kept thinking, that as long as I was open and kind, loving and gentle then he would see he had nothing to fear from me, and that he could love me because I’d give him everything, all of me. He still faded me and nothing I said or did could convince him to act otherwise.
You remind me of him. In so many ways. Too many ways.
I guess in the end, the only thing that saved me was the fact that I hadn’t fallen in love with him yet. Never did. I always maintained a certain emotional distance after the first time he dissed me.
The differences between that situation and the one I find myself in now with you are many. The similarities are frightening, because there are a lot of promises I made myself during that experience that I have either broken already, or I am perilously close to breaking with you.
You, you are so wrapped up in yourself, that you can’t even muster enough concern (fuck that TALK that you give me) to assure me that you are at least concerned for my fucking welfare. All you have shown me really in the last six weeks is, that no matter how good the sex is, the conversation is, the interaction is between us, you can’t even find away to fit me or even calling me into your busy schedule. There’s complicated and there’s a not so subtle hint that you really are not interested in me or my life. If I don’t call you, we do not talk. And the phone calls at 4 am, barely count. Three in six weeks isn’t really enough to count, all things considering.
Old adage: Actions speak louder than words. True ‘dat.
Then there’s the matter of my birthday. When I spoke to you today, you wished me a happy belated birthday, even though I told you that it was the Sunday coming in our last conversation. Wishing me a happy belated birthday, does not bode well. Even if it was belated, you didn’t even bother to fucking call and find out. The thing is for me anyway, is that I am pretty sure that at no time in the last few days has it even occurred to you that you ought to call to check in on me and any birthday plans–in your head, you have already exempted yourself from my life so no matter what I was doing, you’d have no problem disappointing me by bowing out of whatever it was.
What the fuck do you think I am made of? Stone? I’ve spent the last few days making a concerted, focused effort not to call you. I actually wanted to test and find out if you would even bother to call me to wish me happy birthday at all. I’m praying, meditating, trying hard to control my impulses. You know, I had no faith that you would call. I mean, you haven’t given a fuck about calling me before. But I wanted to see, see for myself.
I’ve been trying to convince myself that being a good friend in this situation is to just give you space and let you sort yourself out. I have been holding up my end of the ‘good friend’ deal, but the truth is good friends don’t do the things you’ve been doing to me. So I have to wonder about a lot of things.
I am also reminded of Dr Phillip C McGraw writing in one of his books, “People make time for what’s important to them.” and “People do what works for them.” and I think I that’s actually very true. You’ve made it clear to me, that I am not important, hence the gross under-prioritising of seeing me or returning my phone calls. You have also made it clear that you are quite happy taking your time to decide what you’re doing, you don’t even care if it ripping me to shreds.
How do you expect me to feel? How can you be such a punk? Forgive me, my only real expectation from you has been that you would treat me with a certain amount of respect. Is it respectful to fuck me, tell me shit, express shit to me and then retreat when I take you seriously? AT least tell me what is going on. Don’t keep saying you’re not sure, and tell me you care, but that you don’t know how you feel. That’s a cop out. I think you know exactly how you feel, you’re just keeping things from me.
What the fuck do you expect from me? Some kind of saintly acceptance, or are you purposely trying to force me into leaving you alone? I can’t figure you out. You’re pulling me to you with one hand and pushing me away with the next.
You know, I’m trying to be the bigger person, but your confusion has infected me and you don’t seem to want to really let me go, you seem to be forcing yourself to do it and I really do not understand why.
So I want to really bring this to some kind of resolution. I don’t think I can really handle the way you are treating me. I feel like if I stay in this situation, I am going to end up making choices that will harm us both and I refuse to go that road. So I have to make the right choice, right now. So whether you like it or not, I am going to have to let this and you go. I have to choose for both of us, because this is making me too uncomfortable.
I also sense you are being dishonest with me about some things. Your secretiveness stings, it hurts, because clearly you don’t trust me either. Seems, you’ve sown some seeds of distrust in me as well.
So as much as it is crushing me, I feel like you have forced me into making this choice. I can’t pretend it’s not me doing it, but it’s you doing it as well.
I told you last week I was angry with the situation, I am angry with you too. You are doing all the things you said you weren’t about. Everything you have represented yourself to be, are the exact opposite to the behaviour you are exhibiting now. That freaks me out, because I am questioning my judgement and second-guessing myself and I hate that. How could I have been so wrong about you? How could I have been so wrong about what happened between us?
What have you done to me?
Maybe one day you will find the balls to explain it all to me. How you can look love in the eye and skin up your nose? But right now, since you don’t do reassurance, I don’t fucking do waiting.
——
I would never have the courage to say this all to his face. I care about him too much. Some of it is so much anger and frustration, some of it is just pure unadulterated anguish.
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