asherdashery (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
asherdashery) wrote2013-02-13 11:03 am
asherdashery) wrote2013-02-13 11:03 am
Entry tags:
And you don't say you love me to your friends when they ask you,
Two short anecdotes to warm up with, I guess.
About a year or two ago in college, I was becoming closer friends with a really fun and interpersonally sharp and mostly mature (except when it came to her own romantic entanglements) girl named Tricia, who went to Johnston and Wales University but was plugged hardcore into Brown's lesbian/greater LGBTQ scene. We had a lot in common and we always had great conversations, but at some point I just kind of snapped and was like, "No, I can't hang out, I need a break!"
And she was like, "Okay! No problem." And it worked out, and it was great, and we kept it at a pace I could handle.
So the moral of that story is I couldn't hang out with someone I really liked three days in a row even when I never had to go out of my way to do it and she never put any pressure on me. I just couldn't do it. That kind of social interaction drains me to a physically painful point and as much as I get out of it, I hate it on some level, too.
SECOND ANECDOTE: I think a few months or a year into the downward slide of my relationship with my first girlfriend--so, probably around the beginning of senior year, or late junior year of high school--she actually said to me, "You're my drug." In all affection. Like she meant for that to be incredibly romantic, a declaration of all the trust and care she had for me and what I brought to her life.
It remains one of the worst things anyone's ever told me. Like, I'm trying to convey what kind of complete shit that made me feel like. Not like I was a shit person, though a little of that was in there, but more--the responsibility for her well-being she was foisting on me and only me, the unhealthiness of it, the desire for something that was continually tearing me down.
This is a journal entry about wanting me.
After literal days of deliberation I'm making this journal entry public to read, even though I worry that it's a passive-aggressive plea to "STOP DOING ____!" because I want to make an effort to be more communicative in my relationships and it never seems like a good time to drop this on people one-on-one. That said, though, it's really haphazardly organized because I'm writing it in fits and starts and a lot of what I feel is going to get lost in my poor ability to articulate myself.
As a rule, I tend not to want much. I like to keep to myself and entertain myself with solitary activities like reading and writing and playing Pokemon and I fill that social need with Plurk and Tumblr and AIM. But I've been avoiding AIM pretty often lately because I can't handle the number of conversations I end up with, and how many people want my extended attention. I'm trying to get back on it more frequently because people have said they miss me, but that just makes me feel a little sour and guilty about it, and that's not great encouragement to be on.
I don't like being told that I'm missed.
I've been wondering for the past few weeks why people don't usually like people without wanting them. It's weird for me. Most people that I like I'm like, gosh, you're really cool, I admire you and you're fun to hang out with, but most of the time I don't NEED to spend time with them in order to be happy and fulfilled about liking them. There are some people I'd like to talk to a little more, but it's not a huge deal, and I'll see them when I see them. The second I start to feel like maybe I'm being overbearing, I try to back off.
But I don't think that's what it's like for most people. They want to spend time with their friends; otherwise, what's even the point of calling yourselves friends?
Right? Is that how it works?
It's worse in a romantic relationship context because all my life I've been taught that there has to be one person I will have special feelings for, that I want to spend all my time with and know everything about and build a life together, so I feel like entering into a relationship like that is agreeing to that kind of frame even when I do not at all really want that aimed towards me.
Being wanted is an obligation and a need and it causes me a good deal of anxiety to feel like I'm expected to fill it, especially when I've never had to budget myself towards this many people.
And I keep having to talk myself out of this resentful mood. Ash, you're being completely unbelievable, it is absolutely unreasonable to wish people who like you wouldn't want you around. I'm trying to be rational about it. But I can't make myself like it. Most times it just feels like I'm being guilted into it and that just makes me resentful all over and it's a crappy cycle that most of the time I can only get out of by aggressively stopping thinking about it. Sometimes I manage to get out of it feeling okay about it. But most of the time I just feel like I'm expected to feel something I have no control over, and that's really hurtful and frustrating and I end up spending 70% of my day feeling like an awful person.
I'm making myself out to be the victim here but really what I feel like I'm doing is hurting other people by being like this. I can't NOT feel this way, though, as much as I'm trying to talk myself out of it. Those brief moments when I feel okay with it and my affection for my people are all that keeps me making the effort, but it's so hard, and I think I'm trapping myself again in the mindset that kept me in a relationship that made me feel terrible for two years after it stopped making me happy.
Going back to that*, it wasn't just the "You're my drug" comment that made me feel--I still can't find the right words exactly to describe how I felt then and feel even more strongly now. Trapped, maybe. Misused. I feel this way about almost every pet name ever. For a while she called me "my prince" and every time I just felt so uneasy. I can't even feel warm and fuzzy about things that should be harmless like "cutie" from people I perceive want me in some form that I don't think I'm already fulfilling. I don't want people to build up this idea of me in their heads that I have to struggle to live up to. I think that is maybe the crux of the problem for me, right there. That's why I'm trying to be honest about this and not keep it all in my head even though it's all prickly and horrible and awful.
*(I don't like bringing every facet of my personality as I now understand myself back to this relationship, for the record, but I feel like ending it is what made me learn about being an actual person and not fulfilling a story role.)
So I'm thinking a lot about what I want out of a relationship, be it friendly or romantic or familial or even just casually talking to strangers. Largely the answer is not a whole lot. It probably says a lot about me that my ideal ten-years-in-the-future marriage is to have a best friend to sit with on opposite ends of the couch while my kid plays between us or something. Someone to have my back and shoot the breeze with and understand me through long exposure and not have to be intense about ~the relationship~ itself. So then that ends up leaving me wondering, do I even want certain kinds of relationships? At what point does my non-involvement make the whole idea of the relationship meaningless?
I still haven't really answered myself on any of these points, but I do think--tentatively--that I want to keep trying.
So many people in my life now are willing to cut me the slack I feel I need--and so many more people than I've ever been used to are good enough at reading me to recognize that I need it. It amazes me. I still feel crappy but I also feel like it's actually okay for once to try to talk it out, try to figure out what I'm being a jerk about and whether or not I'm actually being unreasonable.
READ MY MIND, he cried to the universe as he pulled a tin hat down over his brain.
I'm aware that even as I try to be honest I'm still mostly trying to paint myself in a flattering light. I'm selfish and I don't want to hurt people. I've been kind of a jerk out of my frustration with myself. But at some point I just have to let it go and just say things because I could double-think myself into a coma.
I'm not sure I made all the points I've been thinking about but I can't think of more that quite fit in, or that I shouldn't bring up to individual people. I'm too hungry.
About a year or two ago in college, I was becoming closer friends with a really fun and interpersonally sharp and mostly mature (except when it came to her own romantic entanglements) girl named Tricia, who went to Johnston and Wales University but was plugged hardcore into Brown's lesbian/greater LGBTQ scene. We had a lot in common and we always had great conversations, but at some point I just kind of snapped and was like, "No, I can't hang out, I need a break!"
And she was like, "Okay! No problem." And it worked out, and it was great, and we kept it at a pace I could handle.
So the moral of that story is I couldn't hang out with someone I really liked three days in a row even when I never had to go out of my way to do it and she never put any pressure on me. I just couldn't do it. That kind of social interaction drains me to a physically painful point and as much as I get out of it, I hate it on some level, too.
SECOND ANECDOTE: I think a few months or a year into the downward slide of my relationship with my first girlfriend--so, probably around the beginning of senior year, or late junior year of high school--she actually said to me, "You're my drug." In all affection. Like she meant for that to be incredibly romantic, a declaration of all the trust and care she had for me and what I brought to her life.
It remains one of the worst things anyone's ever told me. Like, I'm trying to convey what kind of complete shit that made me feel like. Not like I was a shit person, though a little of that was in there, but more--the responsibility for her well-being she was foisting on me and only me, the unhealthiness of it, the desire for something that was continually tearing me down.
This is a journal entry about wanting me.
After literal days of deliberation I'm making this journal entry public to read, even though I worry that it's a passive-aggressive plea to "STOP DOING ____!" because I want to make an effort to be more communicative in my relationships and it never seems like a good time to drop this on people one-on-one. That said, though, it's really haphazardly organized because I'm writing it in fits and starts and a lot of what I feel is going to get lost in my poor ability to articulate myself.
As a rule, I tend not to want much. I like to keep to myself and entertain myself with solitary activities like reading and writing and playing Pokemon and I fill that social need with Plurk and Tumblr and AIM. But I've been avoiding AIM pretty often lately because I can't handle the number of conversations I end up with, and how many people want my extended attention. I'm trying to get back on it more frequently because people have said they miss me, but that just makes me feel a little sour and guilty about it, and that's not great encouragement to be on.
I don't like being told that I'm missed.
I've been wondering for the past few weeks why people don't usually like people without wanting them. It's weird for me. Most people that I like I'm like, gosh, you're really cool, I admire you and you're fun to hang out with, but most of the time I don't NEED to spend time with them in order to be happy and fulfilled about liking them. There are some people I'd like to talk to a little more, but it's not a huge deal, and I'll see them when I see them. The second I start to feel like maybe I'm being overbearing, I try to back off.
But I don't think that's what it's like for most people. They want to spend time with their friends; otherwise, what's even the point of calling yourselves friends?
Right? Is that how it works?
It's worse in a romantic relationship context because all my life I've been taught that there has to be one person I will have special feelings for, that I want to spend all my time with and know everything about and build a life together, so I feel like entering into a relationship like that is agreeing to that kind of frame even when I do not at all really want that aimed towards me.
Being wanted is an obligation and a need and it causes me a good deal of anxiety to feel like I'm expected to fill it, especially when I've never had to budget myself towards this many people.
And I keep having to talk myself out of this resentful mood. Ash, you're being completely unbelievable, it is absolutely unreasonable to wish people who like you wouldn't want you around. I'm trying to be rational about it. But I can't make myself like it. Most times it just feels like I'm being guilted into it and that just makes me resentful all over and it's a crappy cycle that most of the time I can only get out of by aggressively stopping thinking about it. Sometimes I manage to get out of it feeling okay about it. But most of the time I just feel like I'm expected to feel something I have no control over, and that's really hurtful and frustrating and I end up spending 70% of my day feeling like an awful person.
I'm making myself out to be the victim here but really what I feel like I'm doing is hurting other people by being like this. I can't NOT feel this way, though, as much as I'm trying to talk myself out of it. Those brief moments when I feel okay with it and my affection for my people are all that keeps me making the effort, but it's so hard, and I think I'm trapping myself again in the mindset that kept me in a relationship that made me feel terrible for two years after it stopped making me happy.
Going back to that*, it wasn't just the "You're my drug" comment that made me feel--I still can't find the right words exactly to describe how I felt then and feel even more strongly now. Trapped, maybe. Misused. I feel this way about almost every pet name ever. For a while she called me "my prince" and every time I just felt so uneasy. I can't even feel warm and fuzzy about things that should be harmless like "cutie" from people I perceive want me in some form that I don't think I'm already fulfilling. I don't want people to build up this idea of me in their heads that I have to struggle to live up to. I think that is maybe the crux of the problem for me, right there. That's why I'm trying to be honest about this and not keep it all in my head even though it's all prickly and horrible and awful.
*(I don't like bringing every facet of my personality as I now understand myself back to this relationship, for the record, but I feel like ending it is what made me learn about being an actual person and not fulfilling a story role.)
So I'm thinking a lot about what I want out of a relationship, be it friendly or romantic or familial or even just casually talking to strangers. Largely the answer is not a whole lot. It probably says a lot about me that my ideal ten-years-in-the-future marriage is to have a best friend to sit with on opposite ends of the couch while my kid plays between us or something. Someone to have my back and shoot the breeze with and understand me through long exposure and not have to be intense about ~the relationship~ itself. So then that ends up leaving me wondering, do I even want certain kinds of relationships? At what point does my non-involvement make the whole idea of the relationship meaningless?
I still haven't really answered myself on any of these points, but I do think--tentatively--that I want to keep trying.
So many people in my life now are willing to cut me the slack I feel I need--and so many more people than I've ever been used to are good enough at reading me to recognize that I need it. It amazes me. I still feel crappy but I also feel like it's actually okay for once to try to talk it out, try to figure out what I'm being a jerk about and whether or not I'm actually being unreasonable.
READ MY MIND, he cried to the universe as he pulled a tin hat down over his brain.
I'm aware that even as I try to be honest I'm still mostly trying to paint myself in a flattering light. I'm selfish and I don't want to hurt people. I've been kind of a jerk out of my frustration with myself. But at some point I just have to let it go and just say things because I could double-think myself into a coma.
I'm not sure I made all the points I've been thinking about but I can't think of more that quite fit in, or that I shouldn't bring up to individual people. I'm too hungry.
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I haven't examined my other expectations of people so I don't know if I can comment to those with any kind of perspective yet.
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I don't think you're being unreasonable. A lot of this is hard for me to speak to because I'm unfamiliar with the details of your relationship from two years ago and I don't like to speculate on what I don't know.
I CAN SAY SOME DISJOINTED SHIT THOUGH. SUCH AS REGARDING FRIENDSHIP: You might be surprised. Friendship means something different for everyone. We all have our rules, exceptions, and expectations. I don't tend to miss my friends. People move in and out of my life uneventfully. Sometimes it bothers me, but rarely enough for me to try to change it. Most times it doesn't bother me at all even if I really like them. So it goes. (I talk to one of my friends maybe once every three months. Our relationship is great despite that, but I couldn't do that with everyone.)
Also, from what I've read in this entry, I think you understand what you've been taught about romantic relationships is ridiculous and those are ideas you'd do best to throw away. Healthy relationships don't exist within the confines of those ideas you conveyed except "building a life together" -- and each couple gets to decide what that means to them. If they don't and they get married, they get a divorce or years of misery in a relationship they don't want.
Overall, I do believe you do assign too much responsibility to yourself in the area of being wanted + missed and then get resentful toward people for something you did to yourself. Being missed or people wanting you around isn't an obligation for you. I can't say "no one is trying to guilt you" when they say they miss you because I know people who have done that, but in general people like to be wanted and missed. They also like to hear they're wanted and missed and as a consequence put that on other people, not thinking for one second someone might take it the way you've taken it. (Reason # 324234234 why "treat others the way you'd like to be treated" is complete bullshit.)
You also seem to assign a lot of weight to the words people say -- to a point where you read exactly what they've said down to the semantics while possibly missing what they actually meant because they didn't tell you what they meant. Most people aren't going to be as careful with their words as you are. People say what they don't mean and mean what they don't say all the time. (We had a brief conversation about you wanting to read other peoples' minds once though, so I know you get that.)
I don't think you're making yourself out to be the victim even if you are trying to paint your side positively. Most people are biased to their own side and want people to sympathize with them. It's the nature of talking about personal problems.
I do want to emphasize fact from what you've written I get the impression you think people expect and want you to drop everything you're doing and pay more attention to them the second they say "I miss you."
That is not the case for a great majority of the people who will say that to you. For some people, "I miss you" means "I thought about you the other day!" or "It was nice when we used to hang out a lot but now we're busy and/or 35345345 miles away from each other so it's not like I expect you to uproot your life or anything to come spend time with me, just expressing the fact you're liked by me and I enjoyed the time we spent together."
People are tricky. 8)
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Goddddddd sometimes I'm like "I should write a post about my first girlfriend" and then I'm like "I barely remember anything about that except what I've learned NOT TO DO" so then I don't do it. That and doing this is really time-consuming and I'm already bad at time management.
I'm used to falling in and out of friendships, too. My life kind of breaks up easily into chunks defined by where I was and who I was friends with there--different schools, then moving all the way to college, then here to SF, like that. The way some people I know can be friends with their friends for years and years and years kind of boggles me. Half the time they don't even really seem to like their friends that much but either if they broke it off it would make things awful for their other friends or they're just so entrenched in one another's it's unthinkable to end it. The only people I'm really like that with is my immediate family, and I'm pretty happy to be stuck with them.
I never thought about the words thing like that. Some of this stuff I know, or at least think I know sometimes, but that's definitely going to be one I have to think about more. The vast majority of how I interact with people is through text so close reading's always been how I try to pick out what people mean. This is what I was TRAINED TO DO. I probably can't stop. But at least I can have another layer to my thoughts to be like "Asher wait not everybody is a lit major."
Hgh I'm not sure I'm ready to address how I assign too much responsibility to myself in relationships because I'd have to take apart twenty-three years of my life instead of just like seven but I'm willing to concede that it probably all boils down to being a stealth snob and thinking way too highly of myself.
I don't think anyone's trying to make me feel guilty (this time) which is why I've wanted to smack myself two-handed in the face for feeling resentful, but I know at least four people who want more of my time at the moment and who I'm relatively sure I've made feel bad for not wanting to hang out. So I've been like "OKAY MY FAULT NEED TO FIX" at least half of the time and it's really hard for me to say "no" when they want something. Generally I can talk myself around to rationality but then sometimes when I'm talking to them it just springs on me and I have a little tantrum in the corner of my mind.
I don't know. It's totally natural for me to drift or have a little distance but then I don't even know how to deal with people for whom that's THE END OF THE WORLD, WHAT DID THEY DO WRONG, DON'T I LIKE THEM ANYMORE?
Another friend's explained it a little bit to one of them but if they're going to be hurt by a friend circle drifting apart, they're going to be hurt. I understand that. It just stinks, still.
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8) I typed a neutrally worded "consider you may be assigning extremely high levels of importance to yourself because you think very highly of yourself" but then decided I wouldn't pursue that right away. YOU PURSUED IT FOR ME. THANK.
But seriously, it's great you admit that. People don't usually volunteer information to that effect; it has to be dragged out of them.
The thing with people wanting more of your time is it is entirely in your control. IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT IF PEOPLE GET HURT FEELINGS OVER YOU NEEDING PERSONAL TIME; YOU DON'T NEED TO FIX ANYTHING -- but your difficulty with saying no isn't their fault. If you need time to be alone and specifically state that to the ppl who want you to hang out and they ignore your direct requests, I'd say they're jerks who I wouldn't hang out with anymore bc I am a huge bitch when people ignore me expressing my wishes.
Things you already know x 2.
Now on to things you might not already know: you probably can channel your analytical brain in a different way with some tweaking. I analyze the fuck out of what people write to me in casual conversations. What makes it different is I'm not just working with their writing -- I assess what they write while keeping their personality in mind, how they write in certain moods, common word usage that occurs in those moods and between aforementioned moods if it differs, things they've previously written or said directly to me, etc. I compare and contrast with my memory of similar conversations and match behavioural patterns that I spot and assess individual behaviour within the context of the situation.
I do this with basically no thought. At this moment I can't recall specific examples because I'm not trying to gauge you. I have to be trying to gauge people or pick their words apart before that part of my brain kicks in. Once I have a general idea of how people behave, I can usually tell when they try to throw me even if I don't point it out at that time. (Instead, I like to come back months later when we're having another relevant discussion where my evidence is more strongly supported and be like "Sooooooo about that thing you thought I missed.")
Think of it like character analysis done with real people.
I don't usually detail this because I don't like telling people how I work -- but I figure it's fair since I'm like "LET'S EXPOSE PERSONAL DETAILS IN AN OPEN ENTRY AND TALK ABOUT THEM OBJECTIVELY" when you're probably not used to people like me needling you gently.
Also writing that out makes me sound creepy. I'm not creepy. I'm just extremely observant, have a good memory for this stuff, and notice behavioural patterns as often as I notice I'm seeing with my own eyes.
I don't tend to drift, but I get people who do. Drifting definitely isn't the end of the world. In general I'm just pretty content sticking with a small cluster of people though and am picky about who I tend to accept as genuine friends because I'm not a trusting person. I am very suspicious of people until I collect a basket of their flaws.
I am so fucking tired I think I'm just rambling at this point.
I want to die.