Kelly in the middle
I hate being caught in the middle between Stephanie and Michael. The past two years she has done nothing but tell me that if I cared for her at all I would not continue my friendship with him. I have done nothing but tell her that no one tells me who I can and cannot be friends with. When I asked her why she disliked him so much, I always got this collection of weak reasons that she expected me to accept as good enough to cut someone out of my life. All this time he asked me why it was that she was so mad at him. And the answers I gave him made as little sense to him as they did to me.
Last night she got pissed at me over him for the hundredth time and she yelled at me in IM because I would not let her yell at me face-to-face. And then when she was done yelling I told her that while she considered my determination to continue a friendship with him a factor in her decision to break up with me, her reasons as to why I should do so did not match her anger and her fear. I had made the best decision I could based upon the information I had. So then she came clean. It poured from her in this heart-felt emotional cataract. And then, when she was finally finished, I asked her why she had waited so long to tell me baldly what both of them had hinted at...him refusing to say anything because he said it would be a betrayal of her confidence, and she not saying anything because of...why? She said because there were things that happened while she and I were still involved and she knew I would be hurt and angry. Like I was over V. Funny, she was the one who demanded monogamy and fidelity from me, knowing it is not my nature to be monogamous unless I am getting plenty of sex from just one partner, knowing I am primarily hetero--and yet, I was just that for her, because I understood when we got together that monogamy was very important to her--but as time passed she wanted more emotional intimacy than I could give her, so it was ok for her to go get what she was missing. She just didn't want to get caught at it. I would have thought since I'd caught her at it with V. that she would have come clean about the others, but, she wanted to salvage things, and I guess she thought one insult is easier to accept than a multitude.
So she came clean. And I understood. And I told her that if she had told me all of it in the beginning, I probably would not have allowed the friendship with him to continue to grow, understanding as I would have why she felt the way she did and not wanting to contribute to her to feeling that way. Which makes her feel better about it in retrospect, I guess. Maybe now she will be able to let go and move on.
It makes me incredulous, though, to realize that all this time she's been angry at me for being friends with him. Angry with me because I would not give up the friendship because she asked me to. Angry because once she and I broke up, he and I grew so much closer. Angry because she was afraid he would tell me things that she did not want me to know. Angry because she thought he was trying to get back at her through me. Of course, she projected how she would feel and react onto me. And my reactions would have been, and are, very different. I may be too dismissive of my emotions, but she is too possessive of hers. She does not let go... not for a long, long time... and so the agony is prolonged, drawn out, excruciating. She wanted to spare me that, but I'm not capable of sexual jealousy. I am capable of being hurt by her hypocrisy and her lack of communication, but not sex. Its just... sex. The enactment of a biological drive that some attach more meaning to than others.
Sometimes I just don't 'get' people. I wonder... I wonder if I ever will.
Last night she got pissed at me over him for the hundredth time and she yelled at me in IM because I would not let her yell at me face-to-face. And then when she was done yelling I told her that while she considered my determination to continue a friendship with him a factor in her decision to break up with me, her reasons as to why I should do so did not match her anger and her fear. I had made the best decision I could based upon the information I had. So then she came clean. It poured from her in this heart-felt emotional cataract. And then, when she was finally finished, I asked her why she had waited so long to tell me baldly what both of them had hinted at...him refusing to say anything because he said it would be a betrayal of her confidence, and she not saying anything because of...why? She said because there were things that happened while she and I were still involved and she knew I would be hurt and angry. Like I was over V. Funny, she was the one who demanded monogamy and fidelity from me, knowing it is not my nature to be monogamous unless I am getting plenty of sex from just one partner, knowing I am primarily hetero--and yet, I was just that for her, because I understood when we got together that monogamy was very important to her--but as time passed she wanted more emotional intimacy than I could give her, so it was ok for her to go get what she was missing. She just didn't want to get caught at it. I would have thought since I'd caught her at it with V. that she would have come clean about the others, but, she wanted to salvage things, and I guess she thought one insult is easier to accept than a multitude.
So she came clean. And I understood. And I told her that if she had told me all of it in the beginning, I probably would not have allowed the friendship with him to continue to grow, understanding as I would have why she felt the way she did and not wanting to contribute to her to feeling that way. Which makes her feel better about it in retrospect, I guess. Maybe now she will be able to let go and move on.
It makes me incredulous, though, to realize that all this time she's been angry at me for being friends with him. Angry with me because I would not give up the friendship because she asked me to. Angry because once she and I broke up, he and I grew so much closer. Angry because she was afraid he would tell me things that she did not want me to know. Angry because she thought he was trying to get back at her through me. Of course, she projected how she would feel and react onto me. And my reactions would have been, and are, very different. I may be too dismissive of my emotions, but she is too possessive of hers. She does not let go... not for a long, long time... and so the agony is prolonged, drawn out, excruciating. She wanted to spare me that, but I'm not capable of sexual jealousy. I am capable of being hurt by her hypocrisy and her lack of communication, but not sex. Its just... sex. The enactment of a biological drive that some attach more meaning to than others.
Sometimes I just don't 'get' people. I wonder... I wonder if I ever will.
posted by KR | 8/20/2005 02:57:00 PM
4 Comments:
even if sex is nothing more than a biological drive to which we as people assign misleading emotions, what about homosexuals? how can it be at all biological when their couplings can never hope to produce new life?
sure sometimes sex can be just meaningless sex. but, i think, addding emotion to it where appropriate is what makes it worthwhile.
you haven't posted anything about Chris lately. please keep your public informed :-)
even if sex is nothing more than a biological drive to which we as people assign misleading emotions, what about homosexuals? how can it be at all biological when their couplings can never hope to produce new life?
Speaking as someone who has dated homosexual women, I will say this. If the desire for sex is a biological drive to perpetuate the species, then there really isn't anything wrong with homosexuals. I know many of them, male and female, who want to be parents, regardless of the fact that their partners cannot give them children. But it is also more than a reproductive drive, it is a pleasure drive. Like eating, drinking, or anything else that presents the sensual immediacy of the moment, it is pleasurable. And lets face it... we aren't so different from the rats who died of starvation because they preferred the dispensers for pleasure-inducing drugs to the dispensers for food.
sure sometimes sex can be just meaningless sex. but, i think, addding emotion to it where appropriate is what makes it worthwhile.
Oh, indeed. I have tried that, and I hope to do so again, sooner rather than later. I'm just not posessive of my partners like a lot of people are. I understand that the chances are very slim that one person can be all things to another person. And rather than force my partner to be monogamous or leave me / me leave them, it makes sense for us to sample someone else on occasion. I love chocolate, but if I ate a steady diet of it, especially just one specific type of it, it would get old, fast.
you haven't posted anything about Chris lately. please keep your public informed :-)
I just saw him (and smelled him) today. Yum.
good point with the rats/drug thing.
i'd probably do the same.
i agree, people are too possessive of their partners.
good luck with Chris, er, um, but if that doesn't work out... i wouldn't mind having you as a partner. i love the way you think.
Deep: You say the sweetest things :)
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