If Being The Problem Is Wrong
I don't want to be right.
I’m listening to the crows in Santa Monica from bed. This is where I come to stay when I am in between chapters, and only because my best friend’s parents treat me like one of their own and have space to offer. This is also where I come to stay when my heart is heavy.
It is deeply boring in this corner of the world, enchantingly so. The action belongs solely to the mailman and two cats, and whether or not they have something to share. I don’t have to move my car, but sometimes I do just to turn the wheels and give the neighbors a different view. I have grown bashfully attached to the periods of respite I take here, either during times of instability or months when I’ve surrendered my decisions to intuition (a soft, chosen chaos). This is not my beautiful house, but oddly enough the bed I sleep on here once lived with me in New York on the top floor of a Greenpoint studio that came with a wretched landlord and a beautiful balcony. Afterwards it became a shared bed with Calvin when we lived by San O and thought only of the surf, and later I bequeathed it to Hannah.
Does life imitate art? Does writing about my life create a self-fulfilling prophecy? Last week the rug was in fact pulled out from under me. Things with my date dissolved just as soon as I had imagined things between us, like a shared trip to France or chopping vegetables side by side. Dear reader, it feels pretty raw to tell you that I’m actually standing in the arena alone now and not just hypothesizing about it.
Writing about my heartsick for the first time is, not surprisingly, coinciding with the first time I’ve wondered if I’m cut out for showing up the way I said I would (I believe I said “I want to write with reckless abandon”). Universe says: prove it!
Right now it sounds great to keep a lid on it and let everyone imagine I am a finely tuned machine that bends and doesn’t break, one that doesn’t suffer fools either. Writing about my heartsick feels scary because it reveals my tendency to prematurely attach and because I’m afraid that if I keep trying at love and sharing about it, and it keeps “not working out,” everybody will quietly think that girl crazy. I wanted to try something with somebody, and I let everybody know.
I still care what people think about me. I want people to think I am lovable. I sometimes consider that my interest in a partner isn’t about partnership at all, but a backdoor method of proving to everybody that I’m capable of diplomacy, sharing, and most importantly that I’m worthy of being picked. It’s easy to feel like the reason for things not working out is me. I am the common denominator, therefore I must be the problem. In theory I know these are ludicrous thoughts to entertain. First, everybody knows men are the problem. Second, there is no real problem despite THE ENTIRE WORLD AND ALL OF MY CONDITIONING AND EVERY MOVIE WITH A HETERONORMATIVE ROMANTIC ARC brainwashing me to think otherwise.
If “working out” correlates to duration of time spent together or whether or not an escalator relationship developed wherein we did go to France to chop vegetables and photos of us outside together were taken, then no: this thing with this person did not work out. If “working out” means I met someone new, discovered a Paul Simon record I never would have listened to, explored a different part of the city, and learned 8 billion new things about myself, then this thing with this person worked out really well.
But I don’t live in theory, I live in practice.
The problem with things not working out in the escalator version lies in the fantasies I keep and my attachment to them. The problem lies in the expectations I have that go unmet and in my unwillingness to sit still long enough to meet those expectations myself. The problem also lies in the fact that there are things I cannot do for myself. Intimacy, affection, and touch are vital, and they require another person. I want all of this in my life, but I’m finding it hard to access without a romantic relationship. My friends often carry the torch, but have they signed up to spoon me, rub my forehead, or go to my estranged brother’s wedding with me? I guess I’ve never asked.
When things don’t progress, I’m the first to entertain the reasons why it might just be the result of me standing in my own way. Survival, protection, attachment. Often times it is me actively putting a stop to things, but only because I know what I want. I guess that’s a boundary or a standard, or just a downright devotion to romance and love. I want full ass, not half ass. I want presence, not escapism. I want pull, not push. I want gratitude, not scarcity. When it seems like these things aren’t available with somebody, I try not to French exit; communication and co-learning mean a lot to me. I try to talk things out. But I’m thinking about not having to ask for a kiss goodnight, and how if I’m put in a situation again where I have to in order not to betray my vision for mutual appreciation, I’ll get up and leave instead.
Whether it’s a sad, slow phone call or a quick French exit, both endings hurt so acutely at first. Putting my hands up and saying “no more” to someone I really wanted to say “yes more” to sucks. Having needs sucks. Having boundaries also sucks, especially because I don’t pick duds. I genuinely like all of the guys I let in. It just seems like they don’t like themselves enough to know what it means to really like somebody else.
Let this writing serve as follow-up evidence to my last post: unwanted and messy things happen all of the time, sometimes immediately after I write about them in an online newsletter that 4,000 people read. The sun still rises, even if I’m cloudy inside.
This resonates hard. Keep on going, miss. You're not wrong
SO GOOD. I sobbed. I cried. I laughed a little about the whole ass. And goddamit I loved this one.