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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One hundred times worse when people want me to feel things because there's probably nothing I can do about that. Trying to make myself feel things is. Well. Not something I want to spend two and a half years trying to do again.
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This is incoherent. What I'm trying to say is I'M NOT CODDLING YOU OR TRYING TO GET YOUR ATTENTION (usually, but to be fair when i am i usually am upfront about it) I JUST AM BARFING MY FEELINGS BECAUSE I AM A SHARER
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