Left & Leaving

While I'm never going to use anyone's name here, I'm pretty sure some of these posts will be pretty clear as to who they're mentioning. That said, everyone hates being left. Whether its for a very viable reason, like banging someone best friend, or a less viable reason, like someone else banging someone else, being left making you feel un-empowered. Like you've been left to your own devices after which other devices were all that could satisfy the void. Like you should've left first.

In my case, I've only been dumped by three girls: one in middle school, one in high school, and one in my adult life. The first one is not surprisingly the hardest to explain my feelings for. I fucking hate that bitch. Never liked her for a second after she told me she wasn't interested anymore. Sure, the first girl you have feelings for beyond "I'd hit that" is, I guess special. And it was leading up to Valentine's Day, it had been a week of hardcore note passing and hand holding, and I just didn't measure up. I can see now that I made a mistake in dating a girl an ENTIRE YEAR younger than me. She just wasn't ready for the commitment that a 7th grader was. She was still living in the fantasy world of Lisa Frank binders and braces, and I was trying to get my first fingerbang on. It just wasn't going to happen.

I'd become rather intimate with the knowledge of, well, carnal knowledge, at a pretty early age. My friend's brother thought it was pretty hilarious to give porn to just budding young men, and thought I thank him for it, I'm probably way more fucked for it too. No reason I should've understood penetration before I hit puberty. No reason I should've had to consider the fact that someday a girl would want to stuff my junk down her throat. No reason that we all should've been granted access to a library of alcohol and decadence so sweet by a family that staunchly defended their conservative Christian, Republican morality by day and clearly not night. But yeah, I knew how to fingerbang that early back then, even though knowing it that late now is a crime. If you're not getting a girl preggo by 7th grade now, you might as well fucking kill yourself. It was a different age.

This all said, I hate that bitch, because she never even gave me a chance to show her a good time. Nobody wants to feel like they've tried to give their all and no one wants to feel like there's nothing in return from the get go. Nobody wants to buy that Valentine's Day gift only to get a rejection note, folded up like a paper football, stuffed into their desk by some fucking 6th grader who doesn't even understand what losing her virginity means yet. Nobody deserves to feel like total shit about themselves over a girl that they only dated for a week. Wait, I guess the last one is actually my fault.  Oh well, she's still dead to me.

When I was left in high school, that was a slightly different (yet eerily similar) story. I always ended up dating girls who wouldn't put out without a gun to their heads (and don't try to misinterpret that as me PUTTING a gun to anyone's head; my parents are the most gun-control weenie pacifists ever, my mom cut the guns off of my plastic army men and cowboys and indians, I had seriously no chance), so when I finally found a girl who was all about getting down in her parents' living room while they were just upstairs in the kitchen, I was overjoyed. Especially because her parents loved the shit out of me. Now, I am a charming person when it comes to parents, most moms especially, but this was a golden opportunity. I was finally at the age where I could drive, was constantly whacked out on psychedelic drugs, and had seen enough locker room genitalia to realize that I was quite average in all respects and should be proud of my junk. And though I had my weird blowjob hangup (a story for a different time, as it is entirely more embarrassing and I'm not ready to feel that public pain just yet), I was just beginning to discover the beauty of going down on women (clean women, don't pretend like its always a treat). In short, I was finally able to please a girl like she had pleased me without losing my virginity. I was down.

And for the time, she was pretty hot, I thought. She was tall (which I love), hilarious (also), and had quite proportionate breasts. Everything I'm generally looking for without most of the parts I'm not looking for (again, my hangups could fill a million other posts, I'm kind of a neurotic maniac when it comes to women I want to bang). She was the kind of girl you could hang off your arm and feel alright about it, and believe me, I'd been in many different positions with many different women. I hid my first high school girlfriend from my friends basically because I wasn't too proud of the way she looked. But hell, she liked me, and I was all about the take what you can get idea then. Terrible idea, terrible girl, never again. That said, this girl, this bitch that found it fit to give me my second dumping, this...well, I actually can't be so mad at this girl. I can try to call names and get worked up, but here's the plain facts: I was tripping my balls off the night she dumped me.

I barely remember it, too. And she went on to date one of my good friends, and I went on to date one of her best friends, so it seems like neither of us cared that much. Sure, we had some freaky great moments together, and sure, it was a great summer of leaving my friends alone in the park fucking rolling all over the hills on gel tabs and go pick this girl up, mess around for a few hours in some highly confusing circumstances (because my brains were scattered like scrambled fucking eggs all over my thoughts, and rarely did they connect), and then go back out to meet my friends as we all could sit on a hillside and watch the stars rain down upon us, come down together, and drive home to our families. But in the end, she said "dunzo" to us, and I guess I have to resent her for that. I was absolutely fucking terrible to the next girl I dated (again, another several cans of worms) because of it.I was terrible to a string of girls because of it, leading all the way into college. I was devastated that my character alone was not enough to secure this girl until I could break up with HER. Because that's the way it was supposed to work.

Allow me to explain: since that first girl, I knew that getting broken up with was bullshit, and that I wanted to always be the one ending anything. It was more convenient, as I always seemed to be the one who wanted to move on first, and in most cases, had already cheated on them in some capacity with the next girl. It was more identifiable, because I could drive around for hours listening to emo and screaming along and feeling bad for myself when really, I was just like the assholes in the songs I loved, and feeling sorry for myself for being a jerk to people. And most important, it was more empowering, because, well, I took the power away from her, every time. I'm not going to pretend like I'm some strong male, alpha type something or other. For a long time, I had real feelings and emotions, and let them get the best of me at every turn, a lifestyle choice I'm worked hard to bury and disconnect myself from at every turn now. I used to actually feel like those relationships were intensely meaningful and important, and not just kids fucking around because they wanted to. Now I understand, but at the time, I needed that empowerment so badly, because I was just a fucking dork looking to get some play. I looked like an idiot with my spiked blonde frosted tips and my outrageously stupid, uncoordinated outfits full of rave and punk and other cultural garbage. I was like a dumpster behind a row of very different clubs, full of very different types of dead babies. I was fucking all over the place, an embarrassment of what I really thought I was.

So being empowered like that, by breaking a girl's heart (or so I thought), was the most essential self-esteem building tool I had. Academic accomplishment had long faded, and though I tried my hand at a variety of types of artistic accomplishment, I pretty much sucked at all of that. So emotional accomplishment was all I had, and thus I became a serial dater, a serial lover, and a serial ender of relationships. Nothing felt better than getting some dumb girl to say "I love you," regardless of how much I knew she didn't mean it, and then to be the one to say "nah, there's no way I'm going to say that back the way you want me to, how about I go bang your friend instead." Yeah, it sounds awful, but lets remember that these were childish, idiotic, high school relationships that in the end are the most meaningless and stupid among all of them. You really just want to sexually explore as many bodies as possible in high school, and you need to pretend that there's some larger, overarching source of emotional attachment to do it. Pretty sure that even the one night stand mega jocks that got away with being how I truly wanted to be had to emote a little bit to get into some bitch's pants. Even if it was just the "yeah, I REALLY like you," you had to give something. It was beyond feeling needed, it was a point at which you knew you had to lie to each other to get what you really wanted: each other.

This is a pretty long-winded explanation, but here comes the meat and potatoes of the argument: the third dump, and by far, the stupidest shit I've ever had taken on me. I could've seen it coming in every way: she regularly cheated on me (and I on her), the only time we spent together before the breakup was painful for a variety of reasons, and she and I were not on the same page with any point of life. It was a fucking disaster idea to move in with her, it was a fucking disaster actually living with her, and it just ended exactly like it should have: with a whimper, mostly from my pathetic throat.

I loved her, like real love, and I feel like at a point, she actually loved me in some real capacity. We got through a bunch of tough adult shit together. We wrote songs to each other, we felt bad for each others' losses and reveled in each others' accomplishments. Everything felt right about it, and real, and justified. I often say shit like "I can't believe I was so blind," but really, yes, I can. It was love that was in the process of bridging the gap between childlike love and infatuation into true adult love and the satisfaction with normalcy. It was love that burnt no matter how many other guys or how many other girls or whatever either of us decided to be intimate with. It felt like it was strong enough to withstand any test, as it withstood a major test of which I'm pretty sure I'll never feel confident in talking about in such a public forum, so don't even ask for it in your mind. It was true fucking love.

And the leaving part wasn't what hurt. The she found someone else (who I actually quite admire and like) to bang wasn't the problem. That I was NOT the problem (though clearly, I was) was not the problem. That my heart was sure it had made a right decision and all of a sudden shit came crashing down to show me exactly how wrong of a decision I had made, even that wasn't the problem. The problem was totally internal, totally personal, and totally my fault. I had let someone else know that I couldn't stand being un-empowered, and she went ahead and did just that. I remember telling her how much I hated to be broken up with, I remember her laughing at it with me, and I felt like that was some sign of forever-ness that I had been previously lacking. I remember everything about that moment that she said enough was enough, that she called me out for pretending too, that we ate sushi and she insisted it wasn't over someone else until I finally guessed who it was (because you know, it wasn't so blatantly obvious and all).

And in my misery that summer, I probably wrote a million songs, which will happily remain unpublished, about how bad I felt. How my heart was broken, how my dreams were shattered, how (and this part is true) I had no money and no future and was fucking afraid. I realize now that all of those songs are just self-loathing, some sort of punishment for letting someone, SOME GIRL, get the best of me. For putting down my guard in the name of the only thing that's ever holy (love, idiot), and letting someone deep enough inside to know the only thing that actually could destroy my facade of self-confidence and happiness. For granting myself the grace period in which I was like, "maybe I can woo her back with my neediness and my self-loathing and my sadness," which, of course, is the stupidest way to make anybody realize you're awesome again. The last thing anybody wants to do is run back to their lover after they've helped to make it crystal clear just how fragile and sad they really are. And the songs, Jesus, the songs. They don't help. At all.

So I hit the point where I knew that I had two choices: be that emotional, idiotic person who gave in and let someone in to break me apart; or be a staunch, just-lookin-to-fuck, brodawg of an idiotic person who kept people out, got himself into bad situations, and didn't give a fuck about anyone but his own dick. Yeah, clearly the diametric opposites, the poles of man-ness, were all I could comprehend. And it got me through about 6 months until I met someone I could actually love and care for in both ways, and all of a sudden, it dawned upon me: the love I'd felt before, with pretty much everyone, was so limited in its scope and meaning. I'd focused on love being a tool of empowerment or destruction, forcing it into some role it was not, and pretending it was unlike the role this blog is playing currently for me: a cathartic release and a chance to embarrass myself all at once. Its sad, because love deserves so much more attention and understanding than that. Its both at the same time. Its that anger and embarrassment, but its also the softness and the fun side too. Its the fucking point, in the end, of any relationship. Fucking and fighting comes second, and both are wonderful things, but they're not all there is.

What drives me the craziest about this last situation is that she won't talk to me now. I'm the kind of guy that no matter how heinous I was to a girl, or no matter how poorly it ended, I see no reason to quit being friends. I've hated some of my non-relationship friends' decisions in life, but I clearly wanted to be their friend in the first place for a higher reason, so I stick around if it seems right. And as badly as it may have ended then, I'm actually totally satisfied with the love I have now, and want nothing in return fro this final breaker-upper than to fucking return my calls. I don't want her ass, I don't want to make her feel bad, I don't want to sing her a song or write her a letter or take her out to dinner or fucking murder her. I don't want anything but conversation. Clearly we had enough in common to keep up a relationship over 3 years, despite huge amounts of distance at many points, and huge real life obstacles that we had to tackle at others. Clearly, we got along, found each other hilarious, she was tall and right-sized, and I was myself with her. Genuinely myself, who in the end, is a totally fucking awesome person.

And now I'm not worth the call? Are you fucking serious? The only reason I ever wanted her in the first place was to become the best friends humanly possible, while also fucking, and now I'm told that my entire motivating bunch of factors was untrue, incorrect, and false? And I'm told through FUCKING SILENCE?! Seriously?!

Yeah, I know, it sounds stupid. Like I need some sort of vindication still. I recently had the chance to meet up with one of her family members who was in town, but also has a prior obligation that night, and it just didn't work out. And I love her family members, because they were funny and sweet and accepted me for who I was, amidst all of my quite apparent faults at the time. I realized, though, that part of me just wanted to see her to force her to talk to me again, and in finding out she wouldn't even be present at the dinner, I was pretty much put in my place. She still held the only amount of power over me that she could, the smallest iota of power, the freedom of her own speech, or rather, right to not speak. There's pretty much nothing I care about more than being ignored. I don't care if you think I'm as wrong as it gets, just make sure you know what the fuck I have to say, because its my goddamned right to say it, and you HAVE TO listen.

Except, in the end, you don't have to listen. My right to my soapbox is your right to keep on passing by. My right to jealousy and rage and dissatisfaction and anger and everything else that comes along with being told "you're not good enough, I'm going to go fuck this dude now" is only worth her right to ignorance. In the end, we all come out a lot more equal than I'd like us to. And though its frustrating, I guess I can see her side in the matter. maybe she mistakenly thinks I'd want her back, which is insane. Not even sure I'm physically attracted to her anymore. Maybe she feels like that point in life is over and done with, and that rehashing it through any form of current conversation would be dragging it back to that un-grown-up point in our lives, a point I wouldn't want to go back to either. Maybe she thinks that I'm just a shitty dude, and that she doesn't want to be friends anymore basically because we're not made to be friends. Maybe she's even right on that one, and maybe I feel that way too sometimes. Maybe its just the fact that she's too busy and has no time in her life for me. I've met a few people since moving here that I just will not call back, basically because I like my small group  of friends I have so much that I don't want to spend the time I want to spend with others with anyone but them.

Or maybe, just maybe, its because that tiny bit of power is still there, and out of my hands, and in hers. And she likes it, and I don't, and that's just the way the story ends in this sort of world. Stories have had worse endings, sure. I'd bet that at this, far more mature point in my life, I can think of a few more things that would hurt me more (being fired, being rejected artistically, being told that I wasn't worth listening to. All of this angst I just poured out here, in this seeming endless open letter to girls' hearts that I've broken or allowed to break mine, is just a power struggle, and I'm still losing this last one, and it makes me wonder why I'd care, and why I'm still caring. It feels like I'm on a ship that docked, and everyone else has gotten off to see the things they love and missed, and I'm still standing on the deck, pretending that the open ocean was the exciting part, and not the return. I wasn't born at sea. There's no reason to think it holds more meaning, right?

Christ, this got to be a lot longer than I'd anticipated, and its taken up pretty much this entire Caps/Hawks game of my attention. Feel like every time I turn around someone's just scored a goal, and the game's almost over. And fuck Washington for being on top. But at least there's still four and a half minutes left, and I know there's a chance for Chicago (who I almost equally am full of disdain for, but not quite so much). And there are other games, and other seasons, and a limitless amount of seconds left to score the goal that leaves us all breathless, and that though I don't really care about the outcome of this particular game, it would be nice to win here. I can lose the rest. Just somebody give me a fucking win on this one.

Disclaimer

Feel like this deserves its own post too, as I'm still wired from all the coffee I drank tonight to make it through the show I went to see. This is possibly the most important rule of this endeavor, and I promise you this is the only time I will be 100% honest and true with you all:

Only a percentage of what I'll write will be true. Why, you ask? Well, first of all, no story goes along on its merry way through its life as a story without a tiny to huge bit of embellishment. Sometimes I make shit up completely. Part of discovering who you are as a human is admitting that you like to outright lie sometimes, and the rest of the time just feel like stretching every truth to fit your own needs. This is one of those times.

Obviously I can't use the names of folks I've fucked over or thoughts horrible things about, because, well, you're probably my readers. Furthermore, I can't really accurately describe some situations, as it would leave me more open to attack than any semblance of understanding, so realistically, I'm not trying to kill my friendship with you. I'm not trying to kill anything. I'm trying to build a narrative of my life, sometimes fictitious to a certain or complete extent. So no, you don't know if what I'm writing is the truth, and you shouldn't care. Its more about how I view myself.

You can certainly look at is as a whole bundle of truth wrapped up into stories that omit the correct names, sure. Or you can think of it as a pack of lies that have been running together for entirely too long, and just can't seem to separate themselves from the truth no matter how hard they try, sure. Or you can feel like you're stuck some where in between, wondering if I truly said that to that girl, or if I truly hated you for that period of time, or if the story is truly even about you, which in all honesty, it probably is. But the point is that its a story, and a method of relaxing my mind to the point of pleasant contention and acceptance simultaneously. Its all about making the most of a story, regardless of factual information or situational circumstances.

So in conclusion to this preface, I'd like to let you know that, yes, you are the sucker for reading this. And, yes, I am somewhat of an evil person, but probably not as evil as I portray myself both in my daily life and in this printed medium. Seriously, its called playing a character. I've been wonderful at playing my own, and now its time to let others know that my character is just that: a strange, somewhat awful, but truly justified insane person who finds nothing but satisfaction in the simultaneous triumph and suffering of the human spirit. I don't want to tell stories you can relate to, I want to make you question whether or not you also deserve to relate. I'm not entirely sure if I do yet.

Its raining again.

Jerkdom

This'll be my blog that I use to write about myself. Simple as that. I'm kind of sick of pretending that my personal, private shortcomings and misgivings are the huge problem that they are. Really, I'm kind of happy to be human. That said, I think this will serve as a rather cathartic way of me dealing with the shitty stuff I've done / probably will do. This isn't an apology, nor is it an excuse. Its me writing because I don't know how to be myself anymore without telling people about it. I don't want to hide behind my personality anymore, and I do want to get a lot off of my chest, post by post. Sick of thinking I'm awesome without giving myself reasons to know it. Sick of hating things about myself without some sort of verification that others both hate that same thing about themselves and hate that thing about me. And frankly, I can't keep doing guest posts on my friends blogs to feel vindicated. So here it is, my attempt at self-loathing coupled with my inability to truly loath myself. It may get ugly. Good. Great. Fuck it.