muckefuck | AMAM: Where to start?

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navelgazing

AMAM: Where to start?

bitterlawngnome OK, tell me all the things. Everything you wanted to talk about but didn't.

I know I brought this on myself, but that is one tall-ass order.

About a dozen years ago, there was an Incident involving this journal. In my entry, I mentioned in passing having sex with

monshu. One of the Friends reading this complained, others jumped in to defend me, and it all got kind of messy. This all brought it to the attention of the Old Man, who was so mortified he decided he wouldn't come along to an upcoming get-together featuring several of the people involved. As I result, I resolved to avoid directly mentioning our sexual relations here. It seemed like a small price to pay for marital harmony, but at the time I couldn't foresee the turn they would take--how his prostate cancer would turn our sex life upside down, leading us to open our relationship (which had never been completely closed), and all the complications that engendered.

For instance, that whole sorry affair with le Ragoton? It was an affair, a Seitensprung which got out of hand. I think many people were able to read between the lines and see that, but because of my self-imposed restriction, I couldn't discuss any of that openly. Which meant, among other things, that I couldn't ever tell anyone how absolutely amazing

monshu was about it. Naturally, he was hurt, but instead of reproaching me with his pain, he concentrated on soothing my much deeper distress. No one would knew about that would ever have wondered how I could've gone to the lengths I did to take care of him over the last couple years.

I ended up having to censor a whole important part of my life. I'd look with envy at

thatdarnotter and his incredibly candid, explicit posts, wishing I could follow that example. But, apart from the brief existence of Bruizr, I never had a good forum online, one with people I trusted but which

monshu didn't have access to. (In later days, I learned that he seldom logged in to read LJ, so I could be a bit more daring in friends-locked post. But I still followed the rule of never posting anything I wasn't prepared to have get back to him.) Now LJ is a ghost town and FB is the very last place I would think about discussing anything this personal and sensitive.

The other big thing I suppressed here was talk about issues with work. I mean, sure, I've complained a lot about issues with my workplace, but I've got more fundamental issues with the whole business of holding a job. Somewhere not too long ago I saw an article which asked the question, "Are you just roleplaying your job?" and I was like OMG YES! Because that is very much how I feel: I come in and pretend to work and I'm good enough at it that they really pay me. I'm ashamed by this, but not ashamed enough to stop doing it.

My lack of ambition has always been a disappointment to

monshu. At some point, he must have made a conscious decision to set it aside since there was enough else he liked about me and the relationship. He was a terrific mentor and I know it can't have pleased him to see me stagnating as a paraprofessional while he watched his employees go on to bigger and better things. I wonder how things might have turned out differently if I'd ever had the courage to confront this contradiction head on, but it was a box of snakes I simply didn't want to open.

These aren't by any means "all the things", but those are the two really big ones. After all, sex, career--those are major components to most people's existence. For some, they even become their complete raison d'être, but I've never been in that category and I hope to keep it that way.

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i had a relationship end in a similar way to the one you describe in your linked post--the last contact was an IM conversation where he said "i love you" and it ended normally--no argument, and he never spoke to me again. it's disorienting--you feel like a crazy person. i didn't want to hunt him down, so much, but i really felt like i must have missed something somewhere and it drove me nuts trying to figure out what it might have been

In the end, I had to tell myself that--despite all apparent evidence to the contrary--he was not a good person. When I finally did confront him[*], his entire explanation for ghosting me (since this phenom is so common these days we've had to invent a term for it) was "I grew disinterested in you." It's like he forgot--or choose to ignore--that he was dealing with another human being whose feelings and well-being were important in their own right.

One of the things I realised too late in life was what a good judge of character

monshu was. At the time, I thought it was jealousy or displacement that fueled his dislike of Ragoton, but I think he saw through him in a way I wasn't able to since he had similar misgivings about other people who ended up screwing me over one way or another and I'm really going to feel the lack of those instincts going forward.

[*] IME, confronting someone who has wronged you almost always turns out to be less satisfying than you think it will be.

i went that step further and decided i had been dating a sociopath who never saw me as a real human being. i guess i could have used

monshu as a screener, too.

Are you calling my ass tall?

That is a lot to keep contained.

I've sort of backed right away from talking plainly about sex online. I think 10 years ago it seemed like a good idea if a bit risky, today it just feels like an invitation for people to make irritating assumptions and jump to unwarranted conclusions. I've changed, to be sure, but the way people interact online has changed tremendously.

Do you have any thoughts on the career thing? What might be more satisfying?

A few years ago, seeing what a difficult time people I know were having changing careers after age 50, I asked myself, "What kind of work gives me the most satisfaction?" After thinking about it a while, I contacted one of my college peeps who works for a dictionary publisher and asked him, "What would you say to someone interested in pursuing a career in lexicography?" and he replied, "Find a field with a future."

I'm still working on that.

Well. You could say that about the vast majority of jobs we have today. Most of them are about to become redundant (in the next 20 years, maybe not tomorrow). Not a damned thing most of us can do about it.

THIS, is entirely true. Da - your experience as a librarian very very probably translates to qualitative information management.

I write about sex a lot, but I do it in entries that can only be read by me! :-)

And, I suppose, that's one thing one must decide about this LiveJournal format: Is it a diary that one keeps entirely for oneself? Or is it a platform for putting messages in bottles that will ultimately be read by -- well. You're never sure quite who.

I use it as both.

Narcissists get very upset when someone moves in close enough to stake a claim to their emotions. "Disinterest" can be a defense mechanism, you know. I'm not saying it was in the relationship you've described above; I'm merely pointing out that that possibility exists. It's as likely that this person felt something for you that scared the shit out of him as it is that you're the most boring, predictable person on the planet.

And oh, that career thing! Never solved that one myself. So, I spent my entire working years jumping from career to career at approximately seven year intervals.

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