Well, any hopes I had that yesterday's post would prove cathartic enough to help me move past where I'm currently stuck were sent packing at about 1:30 a.m. this morning when I woke from a brief fitful sleep and returned to obsessively churning the contents of my mind. It doesn't seem to matter how many times I tell myself "You can't brain yourself out of a fundamentally emotional crisis". Braining is what I know how to do best so it's the hammer I keep reaching for.
The frustrating thing is that it did seemed to work at first. I was kind of mopey through lunchtime, but after that I began to perk up at the prospect of the holiday party at work. If![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
clintswan and I hadn't already made plans to go get our tabletop Christmas tree, I probably would've stayed till the end boozing and shmoozing.
My evening might still have ended up the same way regardless, because I'm seeing an emerging pattern and it ain't pretty: I find myself in a good mood and missing BB, so I text. He texts back and I try to extend the chat. I give him opportunities to affirm me (by flirting, by being vulnerable in the hopes of eliciting a sympathetic response, by suggesting getting together) and he doesn't take them. I finally abandon the chat feeling like I've only annoyed him. Lather, rinse, repeat. As I told a good friend later that night, that does not bode well.
But it's not really any fault of his. That's not part of how he views our relationship or part of how he interacts via text (he's much better in person). In terms of what's going on beneath the surface, I'm leaning toward the second explanation in yesterday's second post: I'm having an emotional crisis of confidence and my inability to get BB to respond emotionally how I'd like him to is a big fat finger that keeps poking it.
I got some confirmation of that this morning when I had another crying jag. I started repeating things to myself that I feared were true and the ones which got the strongest response were: I miss Monshu. No one is ever going to love me again like he loved me. I'm going to be alone forever. These fears have been there for a long time (even before he died) but I've done a good job of pushing them away, asking myself things like: Do I even want someone to love me again like loved me? Is it worth doing all that hard work again? Am I really ready to date in any case?
I guess the answer to that last one is "No" if a fairly simple flirtation can unravel me this much. Looking back over the last five years, I note with a bit of bitterness that my two most successful sexual relationships (measured by intensity and longevity) are with two married men. My attempts to date anyone nominally available have mostly come to nothing. (Trust me, I had plenty of time to review the track record while lying there last night not sleeping.) Frustratingly, there's no clear pattern to the failures (beyond the fact that, in each case, communication was a real issue, but that's like saying that the ultimate cause of death was lack of blood to the brain; the story of all good communication is the same).
But I'm tired of this. I'm tired of showing up stag to every gathering. I'm tired of feeling like I constantly have to be the best version of myself or risk alienating someone I want to be with. I'm tired of feeling like I'm begging for sex when all I really want is to be held. I'm so very tired. And I see men my age or older who are also tired, so tired they've given up completely, and that terrifies me. I don't want to be one of those men. I don't want to think the chapter of my memoirs concerning my love life (as opposed to just my sex life) has been closed forever.
And I don't see any alternative to doing what I've already been doing: Putting myself out there, being open to the possibility of a relationship without trying to force it, and not getting too invested in any one prospect. But it goes against my grain. By nature, I'm an obsessive romantic and I doubt I can change that about myself. All I can do is try to practice mindfulness and set myself on the path of no-desire and hope that helps.
And be gentle with myself. I have to say, that's somewhere whereclintswan has been a great help. Yesterday evening, as we were driving to the tree lot, I outlined some of what I've just described at length here and he said, "If it helps at all, it's not really 'five years'. Two year of that is pandemic, so it's really three years." We also reaffirmed that, whatever lies ahead in our lives, we'll continue to be there to support each other. ("PLiPs, Platonic Life Partners," as he puts it.) And that is nothing at all to sneeze at.
The frustrating thing is that it did seemed to work at first. I was kind of mopey through lunchtime, but after that I began to perk up at the prospect of the holiday party at work. If
clintswan and I hadn't already made plans to go get our tabletop Christmas tree, I probably would've stayed till the end boozing and shmoozing.My evening might still have ended up the same way regardless, because I'm seeing an emerging pattern and it ain't pretty: I find myself in a good mood and missing BB, so I text. He texts back and I try to extend the chat. I give him opportunities to affirm me (by flirting, by being vulnerable in the hopes of eliciting a sympathetic response, by suggesting getting together) and he doesn't take them. I finally abandon the chat feeling like I've only annoyed him. Lather, rinse, repeat. As I told a good friend later that night, that does not bode well.
But it's not really any fault of his. That's not part of how he views our relationship or part of how he interacts via text (he's much better in person). In terms of what's going on beneath the surface, I'm leaning toward the second explanation in yesterday's second post: I'm having an emotional crisis of confidence and my inability to get BB to respond emotionally how I'd like him to is a big fat finger that keeps poking it.
I got some confirmation of that this morning when I had another crying jag. I started repeating things to myself that I feared were true and the ones which got the strongest response were: I miss Monshu. No one is ever going to love me again like he loved me. I'm going to be alone forever. These fears have been there for a long time (even before he died) but I've done a good job of pushing them away, asking myself things like: Do I even want someone to love me again like loved me? Is it worth doing all that hard work again? Am I really ready to date in any case?
I guess the answer to that last one is "No" if a fairly simple flirtation can unravel me this much. Looking back over the last five years, I note with a bit of bitterness that my two most successful sexual relationships (measured by intensity and longevity) are with two married men. My attempts to date anyone nominally available have mostly come to nothing. (Trust me, I had plenty of time to review the track record while lying there last night not sleeping.) Frustratingly, there's no clear pattern to the failures (beyond the fact that, in each case, communication was a real issue, but that's like saying that the ultimate cause of death was lack of blood to the brain; the story of all good communication is the same).
But I'm tired of this. I'm tired of showing up stag to every gathering. I'm tired of feeling like I constantly have to be the best version of myself or risk alienating someone I want to be with. I'm tired of feeling like I'm begging for sex when all I really want is to be held. I'm so very tired. And I see men my age or older who are also tired, so tired they've given up completely, and that terrifies me. I don't want to be one of those men. I don't want to think the chapter of my memoirs concerning my love life (as opposed to just my sex life) has been closed forever.
And I don't see any alternative to doing what I've already been doing: Putting myself out there, being open to the possibility of a relationship without trying to force it, and not getting too invested in any one prospect. But it goes against my grain. By nature, I'm an obsessive romantic and I doubt I can change that about myself. All I can do is try to practice mindfulness and set myself on the path of no-desire and hope that helps.
And be gentle with myself. I have to say, that's somewhere where
clintswan has been a great help. Yesterday evening, as we were driving to the tree lot, I outlined some of what I've just described at length here and he said, "If it helps at all, it's not really 'five years'. Two year of that is pandemic, so it's really three years." We also reaffirmed that, whatever lies ahead in our lives, we'll continue to be there to support each other. ("PLiPs, Platonic Life Partners," as he puts it.) And that is nothing at all to sneeze at.Tags: