Revolting Door

I had a fight with one of my best friends back home. It reminded me how much it sucks and hurts to have a fight with someone close to you. It’s nothing like having a fight with someone you don’t really care about that much. It’s having a fight with your past, with an older part of yourself.

I told her that sometimes she makes me not want to call her when I get back home, which makes going home an even more undesirable process. She totally went off on me and played all the dirty cards including “you’re not a real friend if you’re offending me like that” and so on and so forth.

I know I’ll call her when I go back and it’s all going to be fine again. But even though we did keep in touch over the past seven years, we couldn’t stop something major from changing. Being so close to someone is emotionally draining. I am not looking forward to long hours of conversation about mundane things. I am not looking forward to long hours of sitting on the couch with her wasting time watching sleazy pop-folk videos on TV. I am not looking forward to the back scratching she and her mom and her sister shower me with, leaving me feeling drained on the couch, with a mixture of embarrassment and undeserved sense of accomplishment.

We crave close relationships but when we get them we want to run away. Sometimes it’s just easier to live with people who are just not that into you. If it doesn’t get you depressed, it boosts your determination somehow. Another paraphrase of the old cliché “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”  

I remember I must’ve been three. Laying in bed one morning. My mom had just almost finished helping me change, and I was stubbornly refusing her help for this last button I wanted to button on my own. That’s the first time I remember dreaming about being a grown up, dreaming about being independent. I remember I asked my mom how old do I need to be to be independent, and she said 13. When you’re three and you dream about being 13, it seems like a grand, impossible time that is in a future so distant it seems more improbable to happen than a fairy tale does.

Later on, I remember having this thirst for independence all the way through middle and high school.

Nowadays, I’m not that independent. I’m pretending to be and it comes out as being hard and rough but that’s because I know I’m loved. If I was all alone I don’t know if I would be that “independent”.

Relationships… Committed. Monogamous… A. and I were talking about Persephone the Queen of the Underworld, and he suggested that that is probably my understanding of a relationship – living in the Underworld. That metaphor - strikingly correct… Caged. Trapped. Suffocated. I become this other person. Dependent. Emotionally dependent. Completely and totally un-independent. Demanding. Testing the man constantly through deeds, scenarios and situations. It’s not that I like doing that, don’t get me wrong, I just can’t help it. Clingy. Clingy is a BIG one. You’re suffocated but you’re also suffocating. It’s like you’re suffocating your own existence but blaming the other. Is it natural? Are relationships natural? If you’re walking around the zoo on a warm sunny Sunday with only one other person, and you’re walking with the understanding that this is the only person you’re allowed to be with, and there are no kids and no friends to take the attention off of each other, wouldn’t you be bored out of your mind? Fidgety to get the hell out of that zoo trap? What an irony. Trapped people go to see trapped animals. A voluntary act of admitting your defeat. Without realizing it. Thinking you’re happy. Being happy. Are you really happy?  

ESFP

Every night in the past three weeks I’ve been going to bed with the same thought in mind - the thought of *that* night three weeks ago. I miss someone that’s entirely inappropriate for me (even though has the personality type the stupid website says is best for me), irresponsible, flaky and just lost in the clouds. A social butterfly that everybody loves and people are naturally drawn to. He can stand in the middle of a crowded club, alone, moving softly to the beat, and looking completely cool with his aloneness, knowing that in just a few seconds someone will be talking to him or he’ll be talking to someone. I liked the direction our friendship was going in (warm cozy easy-going naturally-evolving friendship. I like how he’s calling me “kiddo” even though he’s only seven years older than me) until I realized the enormity of the crush I have on this man and started acting cold and angry out of nowhere, without wanting to act like that but finding it impossible to stop. He distanced himself since then. I don’t know what’s next on our plate. I don’t know if we’ll be sharing any plates at all.

*Small correction (Jan 4th 09) This guy turned out to be an ENFJ. Which is also a perfect match for me according to the stupid website. The funny thing is how I miscalculated his type. I guess my judgment of people is not always 100% correct which is a good thing in the cases when people disappoint me:)

INTJ

Now that we can’t hang out every day we email each other big emails on average every other day (and I know he’s not a big email writer). I know this man would be a horrible match for me (the stupid website says he’s the exact opposite personality type of what’s best for me). We have an extraordinary connection - it’s intense, sparky and shy at the same time, I notice I’m happier when he’s around and our friends noticed that he’s happier when I’m around too; it’s a same wavelength connection basically but we’ve never even hugged except for when he was leaving and friends and neighbors were all hugging each other. I know if I start anything with this guy I won’t be bored, but I’ll lack emotional warmness, and most of all, I’ll constantly feel like I’m missing on something, because he’s not very social and that’s a turn off for me.

I wish I could have both - get high on the energy and positiveness and cozy cuddly warmness of my ESFP friend, and drown in intellectual discussions with the INTJ. It’s amazing how I have fallen for two entirely different people, so different it’s almost like different species. Then again, I imagine how awful I’d feel if I was one out of two for some guy. But then again, if I had to choose, I’d probably go with the ESFP over the INTJ any day.

It outrages me when I have to communicate with a guy who was once my friend, through his now girlfriend. It happens with more and more guy friends I have and soon I’ll be only communicating with pussies who don’t really like me but keep being hypocritically nice to me for the sake of my friendship with their boyfriend, and who are plotting how to remove all of his female friends out of his life to make their position there safe and secure. Ugh!

It outrages me because I’ve always had more guy than girl friends and now it seems like I’m losing more good old friends than I have time or desire to make new ones. Also, there’s nothing as good and sweet as a good old friend, be it a guy or a girl, and to top it all off, this development of circumstances makes me wary to make more guy friends now and in the future being afraid I will eventually lose them to some bitchy girlfriend. Yuk!

Could it be true that best friends from early life are the equivalent of significant others from adult life.

We all had that one best friend when we were seven, and we’ve all had that moment when that best friend was overcome with a jealous outrage because we became close friends with this other kid, and they threw a tantrum, there were tears, and everything that goes with it. Sound familiar? (Hint: when your wife finds out you’ve been getting emotionally close to somebody else even if you haven’t had sex yet let alone if you had)

When I was seven I had two best friends but they didn’t know each other and knew little of each other. One was from school, we used to share a desk until grade four. The other was from the neighborhood where my grandma lives. I’d play with my other best friend every time I went to visit grandma which was pretty much every weekend. Sound familiar? (Hint: your wife during the weekend and an affair during the week) In my seven year old mind the notions of cheating, betrayal, trust and loyalty weren’t completely developed yet but somehow I felt in my little-person’s consciousness that it was wrong to talk to one about the other, or to have them meet.

Until the age of nine I successfully managed to avoid confrontation. Then uncle gave me this cassette recorder as a gift. I started making mixed tapes and occasionally recorded my voice between songs. Sometimes I’d record myself singing, other times I’d record myself saying a greeting dedicating the next song to someone. I screwed up once when one of my best friends was visiting and there was a mixed tape playing. By the time I realized the approaching disaster, we were both sitting in silence, staring tensely into each other, listening to my recorded voice cheerfully dedicating the next song to my other “best friend”. I jumped up throwing myself at the volume control when it was way too late and the damage had already been done, just proving myself guiltier.

When I was sixteen I had six best friends. At that time I had matured enough to realize the ridiculousness of best-friend-ity so I just referred to all of them as very good friends. However, every time I had a good talk with one of them, the kind of talk where you pour your heart and soul out and so does the other person and you feel a lot closer, every time I told myself, THIS is my best friend. Until I had another such talk with one of my other “very good friends”. Sound familiar? (Hint: when you have amazing sex and an amazing connection with someone and you swear they’re the one until you have amazing sex and an amazing connection with someone else) My very good friends at sixteen were more aware of each other, they even met sometimes, some of them were friends, but with some it was never an anticipated event or a very fun one for that matter. [Sixteen was also a transitional period when I started seriously dating. But about this some other time.]

So I’m wondering, are these early childhood incidents signs of inherent polygamy? After all, so many of my peers had one and only one best friend. Not many but some friends in my adult life have one friend that’s their one and only best friend in the world. I can wholeheartedly say that I don’t have a best friend, I’ve never had less than two best friends at a time and I honestly don’t think it’s healthy to have one and only one person to serve that purpose. Well, except your Mother but the Mother is in a whole other category where friends don’t belong. Does the fact that I’ve never had one best friend mean I’ll never be able to choose one man over all the rest? Does it mean I’ll never be able to find everything of what I need in only one person?

What’s the Golden Middle between a one night stand and a relationship? Does such thing exist?

There are two guys I am interested in sleeping with these days. But I don’t want to have a relationship with neither one of them. But I also don’t wanna do any one night stands. So what am I left with? Fantasizing? Snuggling? Keep looking for relationship material while keeping it in my pants? There’s a risk in this because the longer I wait the more desperate I’ll get and the risk of going to bed with someone completely inappropriate rises the longer I wait.

But relationships. My ex asked me today, why not. Because we’ll eventually get bored of each other. Because he’ll probably lose interest after sleeping with me. Because I don’t want to get all insecure, jealous and paranoid. There’s none of this when you’re not involved with anyone. When in a relationship, however, qualities that you didn’t even know you had, surface and eat up your soul.

Last night I had a dream. T was trying to give me a back rub but no matter how he was doing it and what techniques he was applying, it never felt right. It wasn’t giving me the relief I normally want a massage for, and I was getting a little irritated that he couldn’t get it right. On the other hand I felt cozy and warm in his presence, happy he’s there; the scene in my dream is blurrily surrounded by soft gray-beige warmness, probably due to the two big cuddly comforters I sunk under last night. I just want to sink in my sadness, write about it, think about it – just take however long it takes to get over this

This morning I went to the gym. On the way I noticed the ankle bracelet he gave me still on my ankle, dangling over my sock and into my shoe. I stopped at a bench to remove it, afraid I might lose it. I kept holding it in my hand the whole way to the gym, and the whole way back, thinking about our friendship, trying to remind myself why we’re not great together, and generally being sad that our relationship just somehow didn’t work out and wishing that it did. It still seems too easy, even inviting, to call him and say let’s undo this. I still can’t or don’t want to believe I have to let go.

I know how sentimental and melancholic these posts sound but that’s how I feel and I can’t just stop being pathetic and start being awesome like an all too well known character from a favorite show.

I just don’t know where else to put this. I had so much fun last night. Laughing and dancing and spending time with good friends, no worries on my mind because I felt accomplished after my day, free. I really don’t think my friends ever see me that happy as I was last night. And this morning I was trying to tell her about it, and she goes: “Oh, the place where [name of boyfriend] broke his tooth.” Yeah, on a beer bottle, which he could’ve broken his tooth *anywhere* at. Why do you have to associate it with the most negative aspect you can think of, while I’m trying to tell you that I had fun (for once)? And then you shut up, you shut *me* up, and there it is - spoiled a little bit. And all this tension around her all the time (ok, 95% of the time). I swear I *am* trying to keep an open mind, and I *am* trying to be tolerant and I keep telling myself that all people are different, but the vibes she emits - I can not, *can not* protect myself from that because I just feel the tension when she’s around. I know there must be a scientific explanation for what we call bad energy/good energy/good vibes/bad vibes/tension etc. and about how someone else’s personality or current psychological state can affect others. I know I’m not making this up because it happens all the time - one moment I’d feel relaxed and calm and happy or just neutral and then she comes around and this tension starts building up in the air like a mountain growing bigger and bigger. I just wish I was more immune to other people’s states or I knew a way to detach myself.

Oh, and since I’ve started writing on this topic let me get it all out - I think she’s a much more fun and relaxed person when she’s without him, and I think they are not good for each other, and I think he’ll be happier with someone else, and I think she’ll be more appreciated and better seen by someone else too. So there! Out it is.