Owning Up?
Aug. 27th, 2004 11:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormOkay. So I chose to engage in something emotionally risky with someone who told me the maximum amount of time he could 'promise' to allocate to me in the next two weeks totals two hours.
Now I'm feeling uncertain, lonely, and just generally crappy. I called him to ask if we could talk for a bit, and he basically said: I'm already giving you two hours, I don't have time to discuss this now, no negotiations, hey you're still listening to me, I told you to hang up.
There's no real way around the fact that I got myself into this situation. I could have chosen not to engage in the behaviours, and then when I had this (natural) low I would not have gone down so far. My guess is that (I hate to say this) he would have had time to negotiate before we went ahead with it, cause, well, something he wanted was at stake. Maybe this is fair, maybe not.
My 'boundaries' in relationships are crappy. If there's a little chance of something being good, and a big chance of me being hurt, I go for it. I've got over the sex part of that, but emotionally I still feel it necessary to leave myself vulnerable to people -- to everyone, really, anyone on the street included, but people on the street compliment me, they don't hurt me.
Does it make sense to trust the random people on the street to be nice to me, but not people I feel romantic towards? Why do I have friends who'll go out of their way for me when I'm upset, but relationships who run the other way as soon as any sadness/unhappiness surfaces on my part -- even if it's not unhappiness about them? Am -I- doing something wrong here? I mean, it would seem so, right?
Now I'm feeling uncertain, lonely, and just generally crappy. I called him to ask if we could talk for a bit, and he basically said: I'm already giving you two hours, I don't have time to discuss this now, no negotiations, hey you're still listening to me, I told you to hang up.
There's no real way around the fact that I got myself into this situation. I could have chosen not to engage in the behaviours, and then when I had this (natural) low I would not have gone down so far. My guess is that (I hate to say this) he would have had time to negotiate before we went ahead with it, cause, well, something he wanted was at stake. Maybe this is fair, maybe not.
My 'boundaries' in relationships are crappy. If there's a little chance of something being good, and a big chance of me being hurt, I go for it. I've got over the sex part of that, but emotionally I still feel it necessary to leave myself vulnerable to people -- to everyone, really, anyone on the street included, but people on the street compliment me, they don't hurt me.
Does it make sense to trust the random people on the street to be nice to me, but not people I feel romantic towards? Why do I have friends who'll go out of their way for me when I'm upset, but relationships who run the other way as soon as any sadness/unhappiness surfaces on my part -- even if it's not unhappiness about them? Am -I- doing something wrong here? I mean, it would seem so, right?
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Date: 2004-08-28 04:28 pm (UTC)I don't believe it's you at all, Greenie. At least not insomuch as finding relationships with partners who cannot deal with the downs in addition to the ups. Some people simply see only themselves. Others are unable to face when times become a 'little real.' Not every day is going to be the greatest day ever, and finding someone that understands this would be ideal. A person that will accept the good and the bad, and hang in there with you through the ropes, not just derive self-pleasure from the relationship and then flee whenever life takes a dip.
I have family members that are like the latter, especially when I became ill. A couple couldn't deal with what was happening to me - they still can't. So they pretend it's not there. They'll come to my achievments, like my Honors ceremonies, my Plays, my graduations, but they'll not be there in my scarier 'real' times, like when I'm rushed to the ER, or the times I had intense averse reactions to meds/experimental treatments and nearly died. They just don't want to acknowledge it.
But, there are many personal motivations for being that way. You can only be you, Greenie. To not show all facets of you to the people that you trust the most is to not be... well, you. :)
*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2004-08-28 11:58 pm (UTC)So the choice is this: be 'me' at the time, and do the stuff with him and afterwards feel miserable, or set boundaries around what happens after if we're gonna do the stuff, and avoid being 'spontaneously me' sometimes in order to keep 'safe'. I've chosen the latter.
It feels kind of weird, though, blackmailish, to say things like: I'll have sex with you if you call me. ;P
Re: people being around during the bad times, I think part of the problem is that we all are having a bad time now, and have been for some time. So he has sucky stuff going on at work, sucky stuff going on at home, and he's pretty depleted by that. Um... which is to say, he's not a good person to depend on for emotional support (my roomate wants to make me a t-shirt that says: emotional unavailability makes me HOT. I think it's a good idea...) but I tend to do so anyhow, cause the rest of my habitual support structure's been knocked to pieces and it's not rebuilding well.
I find that personally, it's easier for me to interact with unhappy people in a nurturing sort of way than it is for me to interact with 'normal' people, which is something I need to squish in myself. I don't want to be with someone who's needy and unhappy all the time, or the opposite -- we all want 'a good balance', right?
So, this guy's a real challenge for me. I know that, though, and I enjoy what I do while trying to keep my head level. It's nice to be poly.