I've always been scrupulous with boyfriend selection. There was a sense of security and safety behind my procedural approach. I virtually learned everything I could about a guy before I started going out with him. My life was unpredictable, and I felt like I had no control. I loathed the idea of being betrayed, so I resorted to indulging and embracing my personality profiling skills, as well as my refined researching abilities before I even considered a guy.
It certainly had its benefits, and it saved me a lot of trouble. I'd know who to stay away from. I was so good at it that I'm friends with most of my exes. Even when the relationships failed, they're such amazing people that we maintained our friendships. I'm really lucky in that way. But lately I realized that playing it safe is just that, safe.
There's no risk, fear, vulnerability, qualities that should exist in a powerful, emotional, intense, meaningful, real relationship. I never took a chance, so I never really gained anything. Eventually the heart will desire something greater. That time came for me.
The first time I became afraid in a relationship was the first time someone touched my heart. I knew he could hurt me because I cared about him, really cared about him. I sabotaged that relationship and to this day I regret it. In the back of my mind, I wonder what could've been about something that doesn't even exist anymore except what's in my heart and the memories I carry with me.
After that experience I promised myself that I wouldn't walk away from a relationship out of fear. I want to make a concerted effort into trusting myself and trusting others. It's easy to "trust" when you have proof, but it's not really trusting. It's confirmation that causes a consequential feeling similar to trust except trust involves believing in something even when the evidence isn't always there.
To trust is to be human. I'm tired of being described as not human. That comment never bothered me before because I never truly understood what it meant. I had no idea what I was missing out on, and now I do. I don't want to be hidden in the dark anymore. I'm already hurting now that I know what it is to feel. I want to have experiences that make the pain worth it. Pain is inevitable. A person can do everything in their power to avoid pain and fail endlessly. But a person can go through life and lead a one-dimensional existence, free of love. I don't want that anymore.
With anything new, I've made mistakes. I met another guy and deduced why we're incompatible and experienced the same reflex disinterest in him as I do with any guy I consider pursuing a relationship with. But this time these were legitimate concerns. I've never entertained going out with guys like him before that I was unpracticed at recognizing and defining exactly why I was put off by him.
I guess this is the learning process most people go through. They try out a relationship for size to see how it fits. It's very much a trial and error method. Only through experience do people realize how it is. It's like window shopping for clothes, which I loathe! You try on a million things only to be dissatisfied by them all. I could've saved myself the trouble by not trying anything on and spend my time more productively doing something else that assured relevant results to whatever my goals are. But then I could miss out on an outfit of a lifetime. I was willing to pass that opportunity up but not anymore.
So I went out with this guy who on first appearance seemed great. (Disclaimer: I've become that girl I used to label naive, stupid, or whatever). I met him through a friend whom I trust, and by the way sarcastically said "Oh and you're welcome for introducing you to him." -____- Sarcasm or not, I thought it was noteworthy. The guy I went out with helped me smooth over some living situation confrontations and legal matters. With his help my rent was regulated as it should've been, and he even helped me move my furniture during the same day that he rented a truck so he could move a refrigerator into his unit.
I have so many amazing friends. I'm often described as the most unlucky person someone knows, but I'm blessed with wonderful friends. That's the one thing, if anything, I've gotten right. I've actually made friends because they were there to help me move when I had no idea who they were! So it's actually not uncommon for good people to help me move, but his actions were well-timed. It kept me from having to move, regulated my rent, possibly go to court, be in further debt than I already was in, and continue paying for an outrageous amount of storage.
It was how it was executed that made an impact for me. He called me because he had thought about me and considered me. It's one thing for someone to volunteer as a way to lighten the load for their friend or agree to help a mutual friend move. But it's another thing when a person especially someone you just met makes the initiative and arranges a task that's so strenuous.
The platonic chemistry was instant, as it is with most people that come into my life. But he helped me more than he needed to. He's already hot and his actions just made him more attractive. He appeared confident and friendly. I connected with him easily, and we had mutual interests in areas that are unpopular. It was a refreshing change. Entering the romantic department with him was a natural transition.
Of course, I obviously didn't know him that well. But I had no idea that he hasn't developed his own identity and he masqueraded the voice of those he surrounded himself by. Is that why he was able to give the impression that he's more intelligent than he actually is because he impersonated me and the people who I associate with? I can't determine if that's the leading cause for our communication difficulty or.......
Dare I say it? Our intellectual distance between one another....that's basically my polite way of saying that he's an idiot. It sounds cruel, but sometimes the truth is harsh and very, very real. I believe our communication problems were a combination of his stunted intellect, my own stupidity that I haven't managed to escape despite my own intellect (intelligence is overrated and not an immunity to stupidity), the fact that he hasn't developed his own identity which led him to inevitably be inconsistent and dishonest at times, and my incessant curiosity that eventually led to the exposure of his facade.
Traditionally there's a unified voice in a single group. He's become refined and skilled at identifying that voice and impersonating it as his own. My individuality and uniqueness must have been a real inconvenience to him. I surround myself with so many different kinds of people and have been told that I'm calibrated differently. I don't understand a lot of things, so I often find myself asking for further insights into what someone says.
Some people would find that frustrating. But I tend to attract and surround myself with people who welcome my curiosity. They don't perceive it as a confrontation, but he interpreted it as a threat because I was compromising the identity he assumed. Since it isn't his own, when asked to elaborate he doesn't know how. It's like he thinks that identity is being threatened and in jeopardy. There's just so many inconsistencies in what he says, which may be a result of being intellectually confused or it could be a consequence of not being himself, knowing himself, or establishing his own identity.
I can't believe I was with someone like that. I'm such a dominant, opinionated, and independent person that I run the risk of attracting guys who want to be dominated and be told what to do because they're unable to do it for themselves. But I want a real man, someone who's my equal and isn't afraid to oppose or challenge me. A lot of women who are like me make these claims and they're disingenuous, but I have a pattern of being attracted to guys like that. Despite my personality profile, I'm not looking for someone to control. I want a relationship and not a professional one!
I want to be in a mentally stimulating relationship where my intellect expands and my emotions evolve because of it. Attraction is important, but I'm looking for a three-dimensional relationship in a real man. I have to be both physically and mentally attracted to him, feel the chemistry, and be emotionally moved by the power of the relationship. I realize now that he didn't offer me that. He doesn't know how. You have to establish your own identity before you can do any of those things.
The problems and challenges in our relationship is like an onion, persistent, unbearable, powerful, deeply layered and complex. He's made some unforgiving comments, but I've been guilty of those, too. So I chose to accept them and move forward in the relationship. He'd snap and say stuff like he never cared about me or couldn't stand me, creating an abrupt distraction during a long-drawn out conversation that was usually emotionally stimulating. He'd apologize soon enough and explain that he didn't mean it, but he's afraid of becoming emotionally-involved.
Now that I'm narrating the events, I feel like such a gullible idiot! Is that such a clique thing to say or what? I believed it because that's what I did in my previous relationship, and I was sincere in my apologies and my actions behind it were truly out of emotional fear. I feel like this guy exploited my empathy towards it. Or maybe he was sincere in it. Who knows? But I do know that he did it way too often that it's intolerable.
The last straw for me was when he said and I quote: "Do me a favor and don't keep me hostage in a relationship I don't want to be in." WTF? Seriously? Now, obviously my perception is clearly one-sided. No doubt I've had my faults, but that's such a reflection of how cowardly he is. He's asking me to release him of this relationship? Really? Because he doesn't want to be in it. So why can't he man up and do it himself? He has to go begging for it? It's so bad to him that he described it as a hostage situation, and yet he can't bring himself to "escape" it. And he considers it a favor. How selfish is that, as though he's the only one in the relationship.
And how he worded it and the perception I drew from it is an insight into how he sees me? I'm so awful that I'm keeping him hostage. And a person who would keep someone hostage won't let a victim go free without his or her consent, so he goes asking for his freedom? Wow, just wow. As if I want to be in a relationship like that! The audacity of this guy!
But the harsh truth I've been struggling to accept recently is that in circumstances like these where I leave myself vulnerable for being deceived is no one person's fault because I create an opening, an opportunity to make such deception a possibility. I'm the one who was unable to see the bread crumbs. It's his fault that he lied and said the bread crumbs aren't there, but it's my own fault for not seeing them myself.
We had problems sometimes because I don't understand things in the ordinary ways that most people grasp concepts or my unique mind would distort something into such an awkward shape that no one understands it enough to de-contort it. Other times it was his intellectual shortcomings spiraling out of control. He's what I label as a desperate liar. People like him aren't the smartest, so they leave a trail of evidence that hints to the final conclusion I came to. He'd say something that'd make no sense and be too stupid to realize where he went wrong, leading him to think that me and everyone else was insane because he didn't understand our viewpoint!
Ugh! That's so frustrating! And evolutionarily disadvantageous at that! Why is it that stupid people are so hard to reason with or instill knowledge into? And stupidity spreads like wildfire, too. You'd think with so many idiots running around that someone somewhere would've made it easier to de-stupidify a person so to speak. Ehhh, so I'm not immune to stupidity. Sue me.
Anyways...back on point. He's not who I thought he was. He's dishonest, deceiving,disingenuous, shady, conniving, and not very bright. He'd admit to lying to me and then say immediately after that sentence was over that he doesn't lie because he's a good Christian, yet that conversation began and existed because he lied. When I remind him of that, he lashes out and says that's cuz you piss me off! That's an explanation, not a justification for lying, but an explanation and certainly not an absence of a lie. When I make statements like that he'd say that's too confusing to understand or "I didn't understand anything you said" or "none of what you just said makes any sense." Wow. Special ed much?
This isn't someone I want to even be associated with, let alone be friends with. It's more than just repulsion or post-breakup anger. After we broke up, he said that he didn't like me and wasn't attracted to me the majority of the time we were together. He was fully aware of this and chose to lie to me. He denied me the truth.
After we broke up I let him borrow my laptop because he doesn't have Power Point. He asked me to review his work and I told him that there are some errors. Before I could elaborate, he told me to leave and take my laptop with me because it's inconsiderate of me to clutter his room. That's not a radical interpretation but an accurate narration of what happened. (In my defense, he wasn't like this when we were together. But I knew we weren't together when this happened. This is what I get for being nice to an ex. My other exes gave me an unrealistic idea of how exes can be).
He said that he didn't want me around and that he was only using me for my resources. Then why sit there and make friendship gestures with me? He hasn't tried to sleep with me or anything if that's what anyone's thinking. He responded by saying that those things (watching a movie, eating out, renting a movie, typical friendship stuff) were his way of thanking me for using his laptop, not a gesture of friendship.
As dishonest as he is, that's believable to an extent. He projects a lot and despite what he says he doesn't do things out of the kindness of his heart. He complains when his gestures aren't reciprocated. It's probably his selfish way of soothing his guilt for using something that isn't his or he wants to be portrayed as generous. Then again, I'm expected to believe that someone who demonstrates such disrespect is doing something kind for mwah? Excuse my skepticism. The next day he apologized and revealed that he only said that because he wanted to play video games and wanted an effective way to get rid of me. Curiously enough this is also when he said that he needed to use my laptop again.
I don't have much of a bond with him. It's safe to say that the impression he made and the identity he portrayed has probably been borrowed. I don't really know him and can't identify any reason why I'd want to be friends with him. He's so fake that he reminds of why I'd rather have no friends than fake ones.
The truth is that I would've officially ended our dying or fabricated friendship, but he's having some severe problems with his roommate. My ex could take this guy, and moving out is yet again another demonstration of his cowardliness, but I personally support his decision because this other guy is unstable and threatened to do something bad if my ex doesn't leave in seven days. He's verbally made threats when witnesses were around, and he has written record of it, too.
This disturbing guy is also stalking my roommate. She went down there to use their internet, and he texts her every hour trying to find out where she is. My roommate's bluntness rivals my own, so she was clear in her intent. One day she told him that she can't talk and he proceeds to ask her what her favorite music is. She explicitly told him that she's not interested in him romantically and doesn't even want to talk to him. Yet he habitually asks about her whereabouts through texts and has been known to enter our place without permission. Very recently he wrote "If you don't respond..."
An undefined threat is still a threat, and what's worrisome about this is that none of us really know him. We thought he was a gentle and nice soul, but he's always been rather one-dimensional. His hostility towards my ex correlates to when he's been rejected. So when my ex didn't feel comfortable sleeping at his own place until he gets to move into a new apartment, I let him stay with me.
I only have one bed, so we slept on opposite corners. I didn't want him there, and although I'm not responsible for anything if he got hurt, I don't want it to weigh on my conscious either. So I let him stay with me. I'm bothered by the circumstance and how it forces me to compromise my position. I feel like I was burdened with that a lot when I was with him. I felt conflicted and questioned the motives of others a lot because I would see how convincingly he'd lie or deceive people. I'm now free of that. I want to elaborate, but that's for another blog...
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