tanaise | Entries tagged with bitterness

I hung up the phone today, after a perfectly normal conversation--if anything, even, a good conversation, an "if you miss me, you can call me" conversation. I hung up the phone and all i wanted to do was burst into tears.

Hormones really suck.

I *think*, after I thought about it for a bit this evening that it's jealousy--I'm jealous that he gets to see the boy whose visit I'm looking forward to a week before I get to see him. And yes, he was his friend before me, and yes, they're better friends than I am, but still, I get jealous. I like to avoid being jealous about normal things, and would instead like to get jealous about ridiculous things. It's a reminder that Im not as cool as I'd like to be, that I'm not the reason the boy is visiting, and if KB wasn't around, the boy wouldn't be visiting at all. Oh, he might call and we'd get coffee, I suppose, if he came up here, but I'm not the reason he comes up here, and reminders like that bother me a lot lately.

It's all back to that first choice thing from a couple of months ago. I want to be the reason someone does something, I want to be the first person they think of, I want anyone else to just be settling. And yes, this is mean and jealous and dog-in-the-manger-ish, but tough. I need to be tired of being second choice, because I keep picking boys to love who make me second choice, and I need to stop doing that. It's fine if I love them, but I need to keep looking for first choice boys.

My mother said to me once when I was talking to her, "You're going to end up all by yourself, but with hordes of boys who love you dearly," and lately she feels right. It's either that or I'll be someone's second wife. (as in after the first, not mormonism.) and I see nothing wrong with that, in theory, but it has to be a choice, not a last resort.

Man. The good things--when someone comes home excited and seeks *me* out to tell *me* something that made them happy--that's like the best thing ever lately. It's as close as I get to first choice lately (and the only thing good about being second choice is at least I'm not 3rd or 4th, I'm still at least someone they want to spend time with, even if it's not perfect), but it's just not right yet. I won't give them up if I don't have to, but I don't think I'm getting any better any time soon, though I do think I'm taking steps in the right directions. They're small steps, but more than I've done for years. I need to be braver, and it's just not happening.

How hard would it be to give the boy at the cafe a copy of the valentine picture as an 'apology' for not inviting him to watch the parade from our prime real estate? Well, utterly terrifying, really. Especially since I got scared last week and avoided him for the last couple of days, so I haven't even talked to him about the weather in like a week. I mean, I can script the whole thing out in my head, I just can't say a word. I can't do anything but smile at them, and considering that nothing's happened yet, I'm clearly going to have to try something fancier, and yet, I can't.

And that's enough of a summary of my relative levels of craziness lately, so I'm off to bed. Where I'll probably be neurotic and have anxiety dreams about the same boy who used to show up in my anxiety dreams to calm me down. Crap. I suck at relationships so much I can destroy them before they even exist.

Current Music: Pete Yorn - Lose You

I don't think I've told most of this story cycle on LJ before. but some of you may know bits and pieces of it from other times. I can't tell which to start with--the current events or the ancient history. I guess I'll do chronological.

In HS, there was a boy I had such a crush on. He was two years older than me, and he'd stop by my art class from time to time to see the teacher--I think it must have been his study period, or maybe his lunch, and he'd often horse around with us. We'd flirt and joke, nothing serious. He was older than me, graduating in the spring (I can't remember when this was, I'm guessing late fall, as I don't think I took art class after winter semester sophomore year, but maybe I'm wrong). He wasn't interested in dating me, he liked me because I was funny and made him laugh. I knew this, and I was okay with this. It wasn't anything I could do anything about. But one of my friends thought there was more to it than that. And she'd nag me to ask him out. So one day, she stops him in the hallway. And said, "Why don't you ask Celia out?" I was there--I don't remember what he said, just that the general translation would "Oh, hell no." I think it was probably more polite than that, but I'm not positive.

Now, he'd stop by my art class, but he'd also walk the same way home as I did. And this wasn't a pure coincidence. He lived along my way home, but walking with me wasn't at all the most efficient way for him to go. And yet he would. I'd walk home tuesday and thursdays, and for a while he'd be there most times. I don't remember how long this went on for, as this was 11 years ago or so, but enough that I still remember it. After Lauren asked him if he liked me, he never walked the same way again. He stopped coming to art class, or stopped talking to me when he was there. I'm not actually sure if he *ever* talked to me again. And what hurt wasn't that he said no. I knew he'd say no. (see below for why I knew this). What hurt was that I'd liked him, and I'd liked talking to me, and I'd thought he'd liked it too, and yet he stopped. He rejected *me*. Not the suggestion, *me*. And I'd thought he was a nice guy, and in fact I still do. And this behavior that was so anomolous, I didn't know how to handle it, I didn't know why he changed, and all I knew was that he wasn't going to change back, and I was going to have to get used to walking home by myself again. He's married and lives in CA now, if i remember correctly. I looked him up last year sometime, I think maybe when I saw his mother at the grocery store. I'm sure he didn't mean to scar me the way he did.

And this is why I'd rather not risk it if I don't know what the results will be. I know he was a HS boy. I'm pretty sure at this point that he was embarassed by the whole thing and didn't want to have to deal with me. I know that boys that I talk to at age 27 won't do this to me, and that if they do, it's a good sign that I wouldn't have wanted to do anyhthing with them anyways. But I worry. I like having friends. I don't want to trade a sure thing for a potential.

I did not date in HS. No one wanted to date me. No one ever asked me to do anything even vaguely date like, and I still don't know why. So you all can tell me I'm cute all you want (and you know who you are), but everyone else dated so I'm not going to believe you--even the valedictorians. Only the really really geeky boys didn't date, and me. I had one boyfriend, he was the best friend of my best friend's boy friend, he was from another school district, and we lasted all of two weeks, and yet i some how managed to seriously mess him up for a pretty long time. I didn't handle it right, but I didn't really know how to handle it, just that, in retrospect that was not the adult way to do it. I was 15. I was scared of being stuck in a relationship that I couldn't get out of, which was what I saw my best friend in. I'm sorry I hurt him, but I didn't know how else to get out.

So all my ancient history was not good, and severely traumatic. But I do actually have good boy things as well in my less ancient past--I made guy friends in college. I told someone I didn't want to date them (not in so many words, but without hurt feelings). I had many many people who I loved a whole lot. it was good. My senior year, I had such a crush on another senior. And I actually acted on it. He was on again/off again with a nice girl, and besides it was college and people at my college didn't date so much as go places together in large groups on a regular basis and then end up naked together. But I was brave, and asked him to a couple of things over the year--fireworks one time, i remember, and a party type thing another, and some third item but he couldn't ever do them but either was polite enough or truly interested, and thus always had real reasons he couldn't do them, and also always ended up returning the invites, but always to things I couldn't go to because I was busy with one thing or another. (a hockey game, most notably. And how I wanted to blow it off, and how I couldn't.) And it didn't get easier. It was freaking hard every time I asked him, but he just said no, sorry. He didn't stop talking to me, and he didn't change, and he'd still flirt with me a little (we weren't really in overlapping friends groups, so I only knew him from class, which limited the type of flirting.) One of my classes ended when he had a class start, and he would always be in the hallways when I came out of my room, and would always chat for a minute or two. And I remember having an outdoor class and thinking how annoying it would be not to get to chat with him for another day or two. And when he came up along the path to the class building, instead of going inside and being in the hall when I came out, he lingered on the steps and smoked ever so very very slowly so that when our class let out, oh, look at that, there he was.

I haven't dated since the boy in HS, and I tend to concentrate a whole lot on how messed up some of my interactions were. But I need to stop that. They made me, and they scarred me, and that's fine, but I need to remember how things were when they worked out. How wonderful spending time with Tom was. How fun even my limited interactions with Andy were. How much I like flirting with people. I don't know if it'll work, but I'm going to try. And you all need to remind me, okay?

Which brings us to current events.

No free tea today, which is good, cause I would have felt like a tramp, seeing as I um, sort of, asked the office boy out. It wasn't like, "Hey, want to go on a date." And he may not have known that was what I was asking, which was the way I wanted it to be. but he'd mentioned wanting to see a movie that we'd talked about before, and so I wrote to him and said that if he wanted to see it after work some time, that I thought it was a good idea. Which hopefully he even saw as an invitation, I don't really know. He said basically thanks but no thanks, and that was it. And an hour later, we discussed the fact that clearly no one will allow me to be dictator because they know how many people I'd have shot.

In mostly unrelated news, while people can't tell if I'm checking them out while I'm wearing sunglasses, they can tell if I tilt my head so I can see over the tops of the sunglasses, so perhaps I'd like to remember that for other mornings walking through the park. Dweeb.

I forget sometimes, how horrible I thought HS was. But I was thinking today about "Brave New World," and it reminded me. I read it for the second time my senior year for AP English. And I remember writing a paper on it, arguing that it wasn't a dystopia, it was a utopia, because everyone knew their place, and furthermore was happy in it. And those that weren't happy in it, got sent off to an idyllic little island to have fun.

I remember being really, truly confused as to why people thought this was dystopic. I got a bad grade on the paper, but most of what I remember is looking out at my class while I presented the paper and having them stare blankly back at me. I still can't bring myself to really believe that it's dystopic. I'll give it lip service, but I think parts of me, possibly very large parts of me, still really wish that I could just *know* where I belonged in life and be happy in it. It's not the knowing so much as the being happy in it.

And it's funny, because HS wasn't really that horrible. I had friends. I'd had enough practice over there years that I was able to ignore most people who didn't like me, and by and large my teachers liked me and while it was really boring, I did fairly well in school. I just remember this huge gap between me and the rest of the kids I had classes with--most of them were doctor's children, the rest were college brats, and almost all of them had more money than I did. In 9th grade my mother made 16K. With the money from my dad for child support, it was 21K. Poverty level for a family of 4 then was 22K. It wasn't like we were starving, or I had to get a job or anything--my dad bought most things we needed, like new clothes and such, and my mom put a lot on credit cards, which she's still paying off in one form or another. BUt I was always worried, and she got very depressed and didn't pay her bills for vast stretches of time, and it never felt fair. Everyone else I knew, when their parents got divorced, their moms married someone with *so* much money. My mom dated a prison guard (this one I really liked, but he was an alcoholic, and my mom couldn't handle that.) and a teamster (on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off) and a professor who was married at the time, and thus we never met him, or really were supposed to know he existed even, and another prison guard who I never met while she was dating him who was something like 400 pounds. When she used to argue with me about not dating people, I'd make her list positive relationship models in my life. Even the ones that lasted aren't really anything to write home about. And this wasn't where the post was supposed to go at all, so I'm ending it now.

Current Music: Travis - Follow The Light

When my mother was my age she was married. She met my dad when she was about mid-24, was married a quarter past 25. I remembered that this morning, randomly. And suddenly, all I wanted to do was crawl back in bed until I no longer felt so miserable.

Of course, I couldn't, so I got up and did a lot of nothingness all day. I'd stayed up way too late last night, and between that and feeling icky over all, I was just not much good all day. My mom yelled at me. She always yells at me, it's not such a big deal. She knows I'm not happy, she just thinks if I do stuff, I'll feel better. I want to help, it's just that the stuff that needs done is stuff I hate doing. That's why it's not done. I'm having no problem clipping dead branches out of the hedge, for example, but the kitchen table can stay piled with stuff. I did some things, then fell asleep on the chair for a couple of hours.

Woke up, read two books--Getting over Jack Wagner (a sign that it's a little old for me--I have no idea who he is, but I knew everyone else mentioned, though only from oldies shows. I think it's about 5 years old for me yet.) , and Single Wife, another of my melancholy almost-/post-romances. They make me sad, more so than happily-ever-after romances do. I guess I want the happily ever after, I don't want the reminder that after the after there's still sad stuff. It's not just the books that make me sad, it's the reminder that I'm growing up, and things are changing from pen-and-ink to charcoal, and I miss that clarity.

I don't much like being sad. I don't care that I'm not married. I think I've met two boys in my life who I seriously wish I'd dated, so it's not like I have an "I should have" in my past. But that's sort of what makes me sad. I'm not married, I'm not dating, and I'm living at my mom's in Central PA, so it's not like that's going to change any time soon. I haven't even talked to a guy since I moved here, other than Shelle's boyfriend and my brother's friends, neither of which count for my purposes. No one my age. No one I'm interested in, even just as a friend. This is what I miss from work. The money, of course, but the reason I stayed in that job for 3 years is that I loved working with smart people, with guys who didn't mind me knowing stuff they didn't. It's very lonely here. I'm blessed with lots of online friends--all of you, for example--but I miss real people.

What really gets me about it isn't just the artificiality of it, but the homogenous nature of this artificial holiday. You get someone *red roses* because that's the flower you give on V-day. You buy her heart shaped boxes of drug store chocolate, because that's the candy you give. I want violets and a Lake Champlain Raspberry Truffle bar. Do you know how hard it would be to find violets now? do you know how much effort that would mean Mr. X had spent on me? As opposed to the flower that says "I didn't care enough to actually find out what your favorite flower is" And let's face it. No one's favorite flowers are scentless red rosebuds that will never bloom but rather wilt pathetically within a day.

The way I figure, you have three options for Vday. Tacky, which involves a leather rose and a bag of M&Ms. Thoughtful, which involves the flowers they like, the chocolate they like, perhaps a thoughtful gift that they will like. Or just being sweet to them same as you would any other day, just because they deserve sweetness.

Me? I have no one special to be thoughtful or sweet to me. my mother however seems to have tacky covered but good. (my mother's motto: Tacky: it's not just for glue anymore.) She's found me another valentine's animal from Walmart. Last year was a pink elephant. The year before was a fuzzy rhino with a heart stuck to his hip.

And really, I don't need a holiday to tell me I'm alone, and I don't need a holiday to tell me this is wrong. I'm not delighted to be single, I'm quite often lonely, but that's my business, not the holiday's. And maybe I wouldn't be quite so lonely if I wasn't being told so often that I should be lonely. Though I think probably I would be. The cat just doesnt' cut it, I want someone I can tell about the day I had and all that.

I've got a lot of coping skills. I blame my father. Writing to Cara, I realised that I do what 'crow does, to an extent--everything is *my fault*. I'm better at it then she is (as in I don't do it as much as I used to), but it's still there. Heather was saying it was what amounts to an abuse artifact.
I see it as more evidence that my father was borderline abusive. Like, he didn't abuse us, we just picked up the same traits that others get trying to avoid annoying him. He's a very good example of how kids grow up like their parents. His dad was very distant, and his mom is a little weird. And so it's not like he was consciously abusive, I think, it was more like he didn't really know what to do. he was the youngest of a family of mostly boys, the only girl was his next oldest sibling. And it was noticable because my mom does know what to do, as she's the oldest in her family, and her parents were more affectionate with each other and with the kids, so the two poles were so obvious. I started thinking about it when everyone told 'song James was abusive, because everything he does is stuff my dad does. He was not very distant, but often sort of...detached from the rest of us. And I think we picked the skills up for sort of the opposite reason as abused kids do. We'd try unconsciously to please him by being good. (not all the time, by all means, but often in our interactions with him) And because he was never very demonstrative, we took it as failure. I took it as failure, I should say. I don't know that the boys picked up on the same habits as I did.

I think it was just bad enough that all of us recognized it as 'not how we want to be' so we all work hard at not being like that. I do find myself slipping into his behavior patterns more than I'd like to--when I'm with strangers, for example, I quite often block myself away, so I can pretend no one's talking to me because I don't want them to talk to me, instead of trying and failing--so I sometimes over balance it, and act uncharacteristically outgoing, which is very draining. I know it's a situation where eventually I'll find the middle ground that works both ways, but I've had a lot more practice with being closed down than being public, so it's a hard balance to find. Eli works at being a jock, instead of a brain, and nate is a master at avoiding any kind of conflict with Ben. Primo wheedling skills.