In memoriam

9/11/2001

RIP

Love. JP

THE RESULTS ARE IN

Thanks for tuning in. if you’re reading this, I express my thanks. Thanks for taking the time to get a glimpse into the inner workings of me.

Confrontation. Today. Not more than an hour ago. All my fears confirmed. In order not to become physically violent (psychological violence already in progress), not to break things, and to stop myself from punching my face any more, I just skateboarded three miles, fast. Sweating, angry eyes blazing out of cheap, see-through aviators. The preppy, surf-themed t-shirt a friend gave me very recently, now drenched in sweat. The anger boils just below the surface. And why?

Because she told me at the beginning that she couldn’t be in a relationship right now. But that’s not true. Because we had been together, we just hadn’t called it by that name. Minutes after we spoke, it came to me:

It’s not that she can’t be in a relationship right now, IT’S THAT SHE CAN’T BE IN ONE WITH ME. And why? Cash fucking money baby. I can’t afford to swoop her in my car, and finance a trip downtown, to go shoot guns at the shooting range. And that’s about all she fucking wrote. Cash fucking money. Or maybe it’s the major design flaws that I see permeating my system right now. My niceness, often confused with pushover syndrome. My empathy. The fact that I chew my fingernails. My inability to fully appreciate the sexual encounter unless my partner can fully appreciate it herself. My apathy toward anything I decide not to care about.

Except for the cash flow situation, I got everything else pretty much covered. I love her, even if she never really believed me. I have loved them all, and will have an empty place in my heart for each and every one of them, till it stops beating. How many more holes can I take? How many more empty places will I be able to bear before LOVE stops coming, before everything is just a fucking illusion? Just a lie?

I wish you the best, beautiful Bostonian. I hope your man now, the one with whom you CAN be in a relationship, makes you happy. I hope he keeps your belly warm, and your bed rumpled, and gives you what you need. I hope that the respect I have for you as a person, for you as a friend (?), shows in today’s call. In today’s attempt to reach closure. I think I understand your decision, why you decided NOT to go with my offer, and upgraded instead:

The average relationship lasts, what, about 14 months? And not having money sucks anywhere, but in L.A. especially. Plus, if things are going well, and you see yourself being with this person for a while, you want the assurance that your life isn't going to be a miserable, poor mess for the forseeable future. Plus, you start thinking about kids, and they need cash, you can't be poor for that shit.

Yes, things did peter off. Things kind of just stopped, after you carved me out of your life a few weeks ago. The one thing though, the thing that really pisses me off, is that you said you were my girlfriend, just not by name. then, you met him, and he was great and wonderful and well connected and had fucking cash, and then the feelings stopped along with the close contact. THAT pisses me off.

That you just let me fall by the fucking wayside, and confirmed my fears that I was just a placeholder all along; just a stopping point, someone to get you back into the rhythm of dating, of having someone close. I was a stepping stone, to get you from isolation back up to speed, back up to where you could net a hot, nice, rich guy, and have him provide for you, and make you happy.

So. Enough. If you’re reading this, please know that I’m not mad: I saw this coming from the beginning. Don’t believe me? Read back a few posts. I’m just sad that it actually happened, that I dared to hope, dared to love. But, fuck it. There’s no money in a pity party. So, godspeed, faire thee well, welcome to the fucking dollhouse.

Out. X

post-RelationshipSlowDeath

“You must be a traffic ticket, because you’ve got ‘FINE’ written all over you”.

Ha. Good times. For the most part, a good weekend. Three whole days of nothing more, really, than self-stimulation and not too well deserved rest. But the underlying question of the weekend remained.

How will things progress from here? What will happen with the groundling, infantile relationship that had blossomed briefly before the advent of her friend? Not too long into the extended visit of her childhood companion, she had, for the most part, broken things off.

It had happened slowly at first. Of course, she wouldn’t want to hang out too much. Of course, things would be awkward with a third wheel around. Of course, he wouldn’t be able to share her bed any longer. At least until the friend was gone.

Then, however, the death knell had come. The step that would surely lead to ruin. It had been an otherwise normal phone conversation, but when she stated that he would not be welcome any longer in her friend’s presence, it had killed. She had claimed it was because the friend, so long from her last physical encounter, possessing so fully of the hidden and dark secrets that made Her her, subtly put her down, made her feel bad, when he was around.

Well, you can’t very well get rid of the friend, so, out with the temp bedbuddy, the soft and the niceness, he who would give so much, but who knew, deep down, that much of himself was a lie.

Not a really terrible lie; not one crafted malicious. But one brewed slowly from the fundamental misunderstanding between sexes, from the years of agony that had lead up to his first encounter. So often had he bungled things just before the moment of triumph. So often had he slipped, saying the wrong thing at just the wrong time, and turned the reaching, green tendrils that bore an end to pure auto-eroticism into the curling, snagging vines of embarrassment, rejection, shame and defeat.

So the lie had, for him, been born. Necessity had led him down the path of deceit and coercion, into the realm of auto-induced affection. It had spoken with his mouth the words that would bring a girl close, that would win over her confidence, and warm her to the thought of lying with him. And now…

What now? What had the years taught him? For one thing, he had never seen the lie through his current eyes, with his trove of experience. At least not until now. And was it really a lie? Or was it simply another one of the masks he wore? Was everyone capable of shutting off love, of twisting shut the pipeline of happiness and wonder, leaving behind cool indifference and hostile neutrality?

In that case, at the root of it all, his whole life was a lie. Always putting on the different masks, always adjusting to others, sensing their needs, calling up the files of past conversations with them, putting them at ease. Being ever the confident, capable, sometimes almost prescient, friend.

He had wanted to be close, loving, sharing of everything his. EVERYTHING HIS. He would have given her his life, had she but asked.

But everything for him, now, was nothing.

No cash. A broken tooth causing underlying annoyance edging on aggression, which would not be fixed until cash was available. A smoking habit. A penchant for self-pity, which was, thankfully, after years of nearly unconscious evaluation and probing, soon to be under more control. A taste for the random, risky encounter.

A propensity to give*. Money, love, feelings, advice.

Love…

But when you give, and don’t truly receive back, you slowly become annoyed with the recipient, and the giving morphs almost imperceptibly into resentment and indifference. Story of my fucking life.

But just last week, maybe the week before that, we had shared something soft again, on one of the now infrequent work breaks. We had stood outside, in the warm afternoon sunlight, and held each other as we had at the start of things. And that had given me hope. And hope, like love, spring eternal, and curse and praise them for it. For if the pain of heartbreak did not burn so darkly, we would forget the blinding inferno of love at its peak.

And so, it has come to pass that she now makes frequent references to a certain “friend”, with whom she has obviously spent many happy hours over the past fortnight. And guess what: his tooth ain’t broke, he’s got cash, and a fucking car, and is probably a really nice guy.

But he isn’t me, and it’s not fair, and I just want to be with her, and be nice to her, and give. And give. But life is pain, and the lords of credit are waiting with blood on their hands. So, let not in to self-pity. Stay the course, even if it seems crooked, and not like the grooves of others.

For I am the lie. I am the dark face of the skilled womanizer. But I am also the soft, bright face of unrequited, undying love. And to my final rest will I bear this tryx, this prong of opposites. And I will learn to bend it better to suit my will. And the slings and arrows of this comfortable life I live will not drag me down.

Indeed, they will drive me to see my future as I wish to see it, and grant me the tools to place myself in fate’s way; to make it so.

* This propensity to give is not simply that. It would be impossible to explain it fully as it extends so far back into my psyche that I cannot find its root, and it permeates so many daily, automatic functions that it seems an indelible part of me. Anyway, regardless of who asks, I will give to them. I will do my best not to let them know I have given to them, and refuse steadfast any attempt to pay back. Oh, I will accept compensation, should the other press hard enough, but such as they, for better or worse, are few and far between.