I’m taking a risk by posting this but what use is one’s own online navel-gazing place if not for precisely these sorts of ruminations?
Late last year, I cut someone out of my life because he wouldn’t quit trying to pressure me into being someone he wanted me to be. So I ignored the emails, of which there were a couple earlier this year, I think, I don’t recall exactly because I simply deleted them without reading them, much less noting details such as dates; I unfriended him wherever we were friends (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). If that makes me seem harsh and cold, then I am those things, but the fact is I was annoyed when I called him out on his behaviour, and he simply denied it. I guess I wanted him to own his behaviour; perhaps I would’ve been prepared to tolerate his feelings about how much we had in common, and how it was somehow uncanny – we were obviously Meant To Be in each other’s lives. I simply didn’t feel the same. And the comments and hints were becoming tedious in their regularity. I couldn’t conjure up any such feelings to reciprocate, and what’s more I didn’t want to do that for a variety of reasons, one of those being I’m married, rather contentedly at this time, I might add.
This week I found myself texting a male friend about a catch-up, but for whatever reason it just didn’t work out. But on Friday and yesterday the texts took a turn towards the ‘wanting something/you’, and I honestly couldn’t figure out where from or how this had come about because we haven’t seen each other for a year or so… thus, I’m being serious when I say how…? However, this time, I decided I would do something different, and so instead of my usual blanking/ignoring/erasing, I decided I would tell him exactly how things weren’t even though I detest doing stuff like that. Because it’s embarrassing – I still haven’t worked out whether it’s more so for the person delivering the message or the recipient of said message – and I am wholly unskilled in this area of human relations. Perhaps that is the most cringeworthy thing about it all, the fact that I’m useless at this, given that I’m no spring chicken – surely I should’ve worked this all out by now?
It really wasn’t so bad. He texted back (sometime during the early hours of the morning), apologising for ‘over-reading’ -his word- and I guess in a way, that’s accurate. He was kind of transposing what he wanted over our communications – although it’s still a puzzle to me as I have been saying all along exactly how things are for me, i.e. good. That said, I don’t dislike him now, even though I was feeling anxious and irritable about the whole matter by around 9pm last night. He owned it, which makes me admire the honesty in him.
This place is ‘deep as a puddle’ and by that I mean that generally, I don’t think I’m much of a conscious learner in this classroom called Life; I don’t like to delve too deeply even though I know I could challenge myself more by doing so; often it simply feels too hard. However, the few sessions I had with the psychologist last year have left some lasting impressions in my scratched-up, dented brain, and I have found myself going back to various topics we discussed, and some suggestions she made. Me facing (via SMS, I know, but it’s a legitimate form of communication these days, isn’t it?) instead of blanking yesterday’s friend is a reflection of this, I think. Small steps, progress of sorts?
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Listening: Blood Red Youth by California Wives
